Archives

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

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 [...]

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 [...]

Venture Founders Coworking Directory—USA: New startups find that shared work spaces are a huge improvement over working from home, an internet café, or committing too early to their own office [...]

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

Entrepreneur anxiety: Almost every founder has some anxieties, if not all, of these 20 challenges, each of which has to be confronted and dealt with positively. They can be transformed to [...]

Customer Respect: “Due to a Higher Than Usual Call Volume…” How many times have you heard this recorded voice message when trying to contact a customer support line? I am almost [...]

Dangers of Startup Mentors: I was a startup mentor for many years. So, why would I warn entrepreneurs about the dangers of using mentors? My warnings are based on my understanding of how such [...]

Founders Affinity Diagram: All entrepreneurs that I know are messy thinkers—for good reason. Things happen and you want to act quickly, not least because your data is scrappy and incomplete. You [...]

Maker and Hacker Spaces Directory USA: There are more than 150 entries in the Maker and Hacker Spaces Directory USA, which has been updated and improved in summer 2022. Please write to [...]

Startup Passion and Delight: Ricky D has a passion and takes delight in its consequences. He’s a solopreneur, who has been shining shoes most of his life, but his ideas hardened into a [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Business Incubator and Accelerator Directory—USA: According to Carl Schramm, there were 1,600 business incubators and accelerators in the US in 2016. The Business Incubator and Accelerator [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Botswana Women’s Coworking Space: The first coworking space for women has been opened in Gaborone, Botswana’s capital, by The Institute of Entrepreneurial Development (IED). Bonang [...]

Purpose and Profit Framework: Today, it is finally safe to say that collective business wisdom accords purpose and profit virtually the same weight of importance in planning and leading a [...]

Say the Customer’s Name: “Hello My Keyser, said Pricilla. Nothing very extraordinary about that, but Matt greets me that way, too. Both are Pharmacy Technicians at my local Walgreens, [...]

Opportunities for Purposeful Startups: there are many areas of opportunity for new ventures to address critical social issues, either directly or indirectly. Startups cannot ignore injustice [...]

Founders Can Learn From Corporate Deceit*: Founders can learn more from corporate mistakes than the things they appear to be doing successfully. The big boys often say one thing and do another. [...]

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, [...]

Founder Compassion: You will have heard that having a focused passion for delivering benefit is a paramount quality for successful entrepreneurs, but you probably have not thought about doing so [...]

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 [...]

Entrepreneur Types: This list of entrepreneur types is partly for real and partly for fun. There is a huge raft of research about what makes a successful entrepreneur, and types of entrepreneur. [...]

Non-entrepreneurial Mind: So much is written about the entrepreneurial mind, including by me. Much less is written on the non-entrepreneurial mind, which can be catastrophic for a new venture. My [...]

Spin Out Startup: the experience of three women who created their startup from the ashes of their former employer’s business seemed courageous back in 2014, when it was launched. [...]

Self-Aware Startup Teams: The creation and development of a winning team depends on the founder’s leadership. The Johari Window is a marvelous tool to help founders to develop greater [...]

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 [...]

Entrepreneurial Empathy: The word ‘reveal’ sounds either like showing off, or showing private stuff. Good entrepreneurs who habitually reveal themselves by the way they behave—to show [...]

Entrepreneur Personality: Everyone who starts a new venture wants the keys to startup success. Many people think there’s a special ‘entrepreneur character’ you should have for [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

Strategy Map: This is one of the more complex tools I offer, but nonetheless effective. If well done, it can be a good means of communication with your colleagues inside the company, as well as [...]

Startup Staffing Grid: How to work out what skills and experience are needed to run your business may seem pretty obvious. However, it’s worth taking time to figure out what they are and [...]

Startup Milestones and Accountabilities: Don’t be fooled by the simplistic appearance of the Milestones and Accountabilities Chart below. Setting plans is not enough. It may seem to be [...]

Mind Mapping: A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, [...]

Team Behavior Building:  Of course you know that your attitude affects your behavior. But what may surprise you is to know just how much your behavior affect the behavior of others. The image on [...]

Conscious Competence Matrix: It is really interesting—and useful—to think about competence. Founders of new ventures do well to think about themselves in terms of competence, in order to be clear [...]