Reflections

Startup Citizenship—Enterprise & Common Good: New business creation happens within society and the startup interacts with all stakeholders, whether intentionally or unintentionally. [...]

Startup Ecosystem—the Big Picture: “Leave me alone. I just need to perfect this product and get it to market, or I’ll run out of money. I don’t need systems and big [...]

Inclusive Entrepreneurship: There is a massive potential for startups created by women, young people, seniors, immigrants and racial minorities as well as people with disabilities, those with [...]

Ethical Entrepreneurship: The relationship between people inside and outside the venture and involves the founder being in relationship to many people both directly and indirectly—at the outset [...]

Entrepreneurial Altruism—Save One Starfish: One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he [...]

Startup Purpose—benefit all stakeholders. Selfish startups don’t survive. Join the growing numbers of entrepreneurs who embrace stakeholder capitalism, rather than shareholder capitalism. [...]

Strategy and Interdependence We are coexistent; we can achieve nothing on our own; we are all inter-dependent. We are encouraged to be independent from an early age, even while being coexistent [...]

Startup Consciously: Startup consciously and brainstorm beyond business. Founders face knotty decisions personally, as well on the project itself.  There are many misconceptions about [...]

Purpose Driven Startups Challenge Accepted Wisdom, just as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, led her to exclaim, “Curiouser and curiouser!”. She explored the world conjured up [...]

Startup to Flourish—between divisive excess wealth and unjust extreme poverty. Flourishing involves commonwealth, built on tacit agreement of the people for the common good. New ventures are [...]

Benefit Entrepreneur: Greed, hatred and delusion are characteristics inimical to successful startup. And no, this reflection is neither a polemic on business, nor about foolish entrepreneurs. It [...]

Startup Spirit: The heart of a start lies within the entrepreneur. Reading novels is not normally considered the best way to learn about new venture creation. BUT I recommend two novels for [...]

Co-opetition: Co-opetition is an increasing popular behavior among both multinationals and entrepreneurial businesses alike. It is a function of competing companies that also cooperate for [...]

Sailing to Startup Success: keep your new venture on an even keel. I used to be a dinghy sailor and I can tell you that sailing requires many of the skills that an entrepreneur needs. First of [...]

Being an entrepreneur is a life that has some special needs. It is not for everybody, . There are all kinds of advice available, including on Venture Founders. Even though there are many courses [...]

Buddhist Economics: is giving people a chance to use and develop their skills; enabling them to overcome their self-centeredness, joining with others in a common task; creating the goods and [...]

Startups Change the World: Social impact is now core to how entrepreneurs set their business purpose and assess business performance. Entrepreneurial success has been primarily determined by [...]

Entrepreneurial Mindfulness: These two words are not often seen together. However, business schools that teach a startup course would do mankind a service to have them as a key component of their [...]

Purpose Driven Startup Coherence: purpose driven startups are sometimes exposed to criticism from skeptics, doubting their integrity. If you have a strong commitment of purpose to your [...]

Surprising Countries for Entrepreneurs Costa Rica and Botswana In Central America & Sub-Saharan Africa full of inspiration and opportunity   Surprising Countries for Entrepreneurs: Costa [...]

Systemic Social Enterprise: Social enterprise is a term in common use for many types of venture that “address a basic unmet need or solve a social problem through a market-driven approach”. That [...]

Entrepreneurs Are Builders: The word ‘entrepreneur’ is derived from the French verb, entreprendre—to undertake in English. So, an entrepreneur is someone who undertakes things, but in English, we [...]

Small Entrepreneurs Have Global Impact: If you are Don Miguel, of Fincas Familia Castro, a small family coffee plantation and roasters, in San Pedro de Poàs, about an hour north of San José, the [...]

Stakeholder Business Thrives: Communities depend on willing parties enabling them to thrive or causing them to decay. This is true for both democratic or despotic systems. The parties can use [...]

Perception, Purpose and Persistence: a model for purpose-driven startups Safwan Shah and PayActiv, the company he founded in 2012, are a model for purpose-driven startups today, demonstrating [...]

Purpose of the Venture:  David Hieatt, co-founder six years ago of Hiut Denim Company, the UK fashion jeans manufacturer with his wife, Clare, suggests that the question a new entrepreneur must [...]

New Business Normal: For health reasons, most non-essential businesses closed in order to diminish the spread of Covid-19, often at the request of government. As forecasts of the healthcare [...]

Remaking Capitalism: The interdependence of business has not traditionally been part of business vernacular. However now, especially in post pandemic society, it is an imperative word for the [...]

Balanced entrepreneurs succeed in the new economy. While there’s no evidence that unbalanced entrepreneurs fail, my observation is that entrepreneurs who succeed, naturally strive, work [...]

Connection, Trust, and Love in the New Economy1: The generally accepted aim of a business venture is to maximize financial gain for its owners. On the other hand, the aim of a nonprofit [...]

Founders—Pause for Breath! Founders often forget they’re breathing, because they are so busy making things happen. This is true for other high pressure occupations, too. That is one of the [...]

Mindful Work: A growing number of leading businesspeople openly meditate. They may have been meditators for a long time, but now they are not shy about saying that they meditate. The late Steve [...]

Airline Share Buybacks:  The US airline industry is seeking $50 billion from the Government—half in grants and half in loans—to compensate for the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and its [...]

Company and Community: The business and community surrounding it are in a symbiotic relationship, whether desired or ignored. At the negative end of the spectrum, the inter-relation is easily [...]

Inequality Immorality: Greed is seldom a motivation for starting a new enterprise. Of course, founders can be selfish, but in the sense that they are seeking self-actualization, [...]

Re-Startup: Startups are new ventures that seek to meet a need through a viable business model for a product, service, process or channel. Chances of success or scalability are increased through [...]

Opportunity Gap: The Opportunity Gap concerns the arbitrary circumstances in which people are born—such as their race, gender, ethnicity, ZIP code, and socioeconomic status—that determine their [...]

Founder Team Balance: I am a male entrepreneur, who values female founders. I had a female co-founder of my main business back in 1982 and my learning from her was probably greater than anything [...]

Behaviors of Successful Founders: You’ll find endless ideas about what it takes to be a successful founder—and none is perfect. Internet searches will reveal all kinds of answers. The one [...]

Movement for Business Purpose: entrepreneurs who create new ventures with both a declared sense of purpose and who live it through their strategy and policies have a significant impact on [...]

First-Class Noticers: What are first-class noticers and where does the word ‘noticer’ even come from? The Nobel prizewinning novelist, Saul Bellow, coined the term in a novella [...]

Founders and Abundance: The definition of “to found” is to ‘set up or establish on a firm basis or for enduring existence’. Abundance means ‘an amount that is more [...]