Nearsourcing: Nearsourcing is a way of outsourcing that brings subcontracted services nearer to the client company. Nearer can be in terms of distance, time, language, or culture. Nearsourcing [...]
Exit Strategy by ESOP or Co-op: An Employee Stock Ownership Plan or Co-operative Ownership are both increasingly popular options as exit strategies for entrepreneurs and small business owners. My [...]
Staffing a Startup: What staff does a startup need? The data does not show that solo founders do any worse than those with two or more. However, my advice is that the second member of the team [...]
Startup Workshops: The best startup workshop that I ever attended was one designed to enable a venture capital company to decide on potential startup investments. Lead entrepreneurs from about a [...]
Loans from Family and Friends: The first port of call for borrowing money for startups is family and friends. Historically, promissory notes have acted as a form of privately issued currency. [...]
Startup Mentor Checklist: Mentors can be invaluable to a founder to act as a sounding board for ideas and planned action. They can also play the role of devil’s advocate, challenging your [...]
Dangers of Startup Mentors: I am a startup mentor. So, why would I warn entrepreneurs about the dangers of using mentors? My warnings are based on my understanding of how such relationships can [...]
Grassroots Startup: My recent researches into community supported business and running rural development workshops have reinforced my observation of what may be getting in the way of grassroots [...]