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Around the Web
Table of Contents:
August 16, 2006
College Student Entrepreneurs - Free Promotion For Your Biz
The Kauffman Foundation, the major funder of entrepreneurship education at a collegiate level, started an entrepreneurship student blog this year. Below is a recent post: We are going to start highlighting student businesses on the main page of the Collegiate Entrepreneurship site, as well as in the Student Center. Beyond free marketing, the idea of this spotlight is to connect like-minded students to share resources and war stories. Visit their student entrepreneurship blog to learn more about the opportunity.
Posted at 11:12 AM
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August 13, 2006
Copy This! by Paul Orfalea, Kinko's Founder
I'm reading Paul Orfalea's (founder of Kinko's) autobiography, Copy This! Lessons from a hyperactive dyslexic who turned a bright idea into one of America's best companies. It is absolutely amazing. Below is an excerpt that I thought was very interesting: We'd grown so fast that we hadn't even bothered to secure trademark protections for ourselves nationwide. We hardly had any written agreements with anybody; most of our business was conducted on a handshake. Aside from our status as independent Subchapter S corporations, we lacked any structure to speak of. Amazingly, Paul is referring to 1983, 13 years after Kinko's was founded and when it was doing $70 million in sales with more than 120 stores!
The question I get asked most often about entrepreneurship is, "How do I get started?" I think the answer for 99% of young entrepreneurs is NOT: - Write a business plan
- Trademark or patent your idea
- Raise funding
- Find an accountant and lawyer
- Incorporate
- Write up agreements
In my opinion, I think the steps above should be pushed off as long as possible until you're sure your idea works. They are all potentially very important if you have a viable business. However, they're meaningless if you don't. Sure, it's a risk, but I think the risk of spending thousands of dollars and months of time on a bad idea is a larger risk for most.
Posted at 12:24 PM
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July 11, 2006
Free Podcasts and Video Clips of Entrepreneurs
I just came across the Educators Corner at Stanford. Definitely worth checking out.
Posted at 06:27 PM
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June 14, 2006
One-Day Entrepreneurship Conference on June 26 in New York City
In previous posts, I've linked to Venture Voice, the top podcast for entrepreneur interviews. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've listened to every single one of his 34 1-hour shows. All the shows have great entrepreneurs and are high-quality.
Well, the creator of the podcast, Greg Galant, is putting together a one-day conference on entrepreneurship. Below is a blurb on it:
At the Venture Voice Startup Workshop on June 26, 2006 in New York City, you'll interact with top entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to find out how to start and grow innovative businesses. Venture Voice, a podcast known for asking the hard questions about entrepreneurship, brings together highly successful speakers who've gotten their hands dirty growing businesses. This full-day event will be intense. Participants will leave with tactical knowledge about growing a business and with the inspiration to do so. You can find more details and register at http://www.venturevoice.com/workshop/.
Greg has allowed me to give a $100 discount to my readers. Just type in the following referral code: "success".
Posted at 03:30 PM
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May 24, 2006
How Does Google Innovate?
A great video from a Stanford class where a Google employee talks about how Google innovates.
Hat Tip: Adam - a NYU Stern Alumnus
Posted at 12:10 PM
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Online Audio Interview of Moi
I recently did a great interview with David Askaripour, a 22-year-old who is in the process of creating a student entrepreneurship blog network. You can listen to the interview on his web site. This is my first online audio interview. Let me know what you think.
I talk about how I got started, the mistakes I've made, the lessons I've learned, partnerships, working with Sheena, a new community that we're launching, and more.
Posted at 07:28 AM
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May 17, 2006
How to Listen to the Smartest Entrepreneurs in the World for Free
CEO Clubs, a nonprofit that supports CEOs with revenue of $2+ million, provides an incredible free resource on their web site. The organization holds monthly talks with massively successful entrepreneurs and posts them online as MP3s. Below are direct links to some of my favorite ones. Let me know what you think. - Jay Abraham. One of the world's most popular marketing gurus.
- Bill Bartmann. From millionaire, to bankruptcy, to billionaire.
- Jack Canfield. Co-Author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul Series.
- Frank Abagnale. The movie, Catch Me If You Can, is based on this man.
Wally "Famous" Amos. The founder of Famous Amos Cookies.
Verne Harnish. One of the country's leading experts on business growth.
Harvey MacKay. One of the world's most popular business authors and speakers.
David Neeleman. Founder of JetBlue.
W. Clement Stone. An insurance giant and the founder of Success Magazine. He passed away recently at 100 years old.
Ted Turner. He needs no introduction. Get part 2 of his talk here.
Posted at 06:57 PM
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April 19, 2006
NYU Entrepreneurship Conference
NYU is having its annual entrepreneurship conference this upcoming Saturday and its only $10 for students to attend. If you're in the New York City area, I would highly recommend going. The keynote speakers are the founders of Kinko's and Marquis Jets.
The web site is http://www.nyuconference.org/.
Posted at 04:10 PM
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February 27, 2006
Do You Need School to Succeed?
Fortune Small Business has a great article on entrepreneurship education and success. You can read more about it on their web site. Below are some interesting excerpts: - Researchers found that five years after graduation, the average annual income for entrepreneurship majors and MBAs who concentrated in entrepreneurship at the school was almost $72,000, or 27 percent higher than for other business majors and students with standard MBAs.
- Moreover, entrepreneurship graduates were three times more likely to form new companies. And we're not talking mom-and-pop shops. On average the businesses had annual sales of $50 million and employed 200.
- Even those entrepreneurship graduates who took jobs within large companies earned bigger paychecks: $23,500 more a year on average than for other business graduates.
Hat Tip: Jason Dorsey
Posted at 05:20 PM
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January 29, 2006
Authentic Happiness
http://www.authentichappiness.org is a great site about happiness run by UPENN professor and founder of positive psychology, Dr. Seligman.
Posted at 08:00 AM
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January 18, 2006
Student Entrepreneurs! Looking to Start Something This Summer
Check out the 2006 Summer Founders Program started by Paul Graham, a tech entrepreneur who sold a company to Yahoo in the late 90s. Applications are due on February 13th, and accepted applicants will receive $6,000 for each team member and work out of Cambridge, Massachussetts.
Posted at 05:05 PM
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January 12, 2006
Top Awards & Grants for Young Entrepreneurs
Bank of America Youth Entrepreneur Awards: The Bank of America Youth Entrepreneur Awards rewards and nurtures local, NYC youth-run businesses and nonprofits by providing grants, technical assistance, and publicity.
Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year Awards: The Global Student Entrepreneur Awards recognize those outstanding undergraduate student entrepreneurs who are simultaneously juggling course work and cash flows - and succeeding at both!
Youth Venture: Youth Venture provides $1,000 grants and technical assistance to youth-led ventures, which provide a lasting benefit to their school and community.
The Brick Awards: Each year, the Do Something BRICK Award honors and provides $5,000-$10,000 grants to 6 outstanding leaders age 18 and under and 3 outstanding leaders age 19-25 who use their talents to take action that measurably strengthens their local communities in the areas of community building, health, or the environment.
Collegiate Business Plan Competition Circuit: This site gives the inside scoop on 21 of the most popular competitions nationwide.
Posted at 08:28 AM
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December 30, 2005
What It's Like To Outsource Your Professional & Personal Lives
Check out this informative and hilarious Esquire article about outsourcing. I think it gets to the heart of what the future may look like.
Posted at 03:49 PM
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December 21, 2005
They Made America
I'd very highly recommend the 4-part PBS series, They Made America. This is definitely the best documentary I've ever seen of the history of entrepreneurship in America. It does an especially good job of illustrating the challenges of being an entrepreneur. For example, many of the innovators lost millions of dollars and faced heavy criticism before hitting it big.
You can also get it via Netflix.
Posted at 02:43 PM
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November 15, 2005
18-Year-Old, Michael Sessions, Elected Mayor of Hillsdale, Michigan
See a video and an article at MSNBC.com
Posted at 06:22 PM
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Business Week Article on Collegiate Entrepreneurship
Tech's Young Turks Are Back - As Internet companies and the economy in general rebound, so has the college-age entrepreneur -- but it's a tougher road today.
Posted at 12:10 AM
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November 07, 2005
Online Videos with Successful People
Some great sites with streaming video interviews of successful people (mostly entrepreneurs): Streaming Futures - Interviews done by young entrepreneur, Joel Holland, of people such as Steve Forbes and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
TrueNYC - Videos of successful entrepreneurs in NYC.
Harvard Entrepreneurs - Successful Harvard alumni talk about their experiences starting businesses and at the Harvard Business School.
Roadtrip Nation - Videos of people who've followed their passion in life and become successful.
Cornell E-Clips - This collection contains over 5,000 video clips pertaining to business, entrepreneurship and leadership and offers 220 video cases for classroom use.
Posted at 01:49 PM
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October 21, 2005
Bob Reiss & Harvard's Alumni Entrepreneurs Speak
In China, I had the opportunity to have long conversations with Bob Reiss, a serial entrepreneur and HBS alumnus, where I learned quite a bit about business and entrepreneurship. One of the resources he referred me to is Harvard's entrepreneur web site, which features great video interviews with successful entrepreneurs. Definitely worth listening to.
Posted at 12:34 PM
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August 22, 2005
Free, Incredible Business Advice from Norm Brodsky
I've been reading all of the monthly Inc. columns by Norm Brodsky. They date back over 8 years and offer some of the best business advice I've ever seen. Beyond being very open and honest, Norm is an extremely successful, serial, veteran entrepreneur. This is really a treasure. Below is a short bio: Norm Brodsky is a veteran entrepreneur whose six businesses include a three-time Inc 500 company. In December 1995 he began sharing his street-smart advice in a regular Inc column co-authored with Inc. editor-at-large Bo Burlingham.
Posted at 02:25 PM
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August 16, 2005
Embrace Constraints, Don't Resist Them
The folks over at 37 Signals have a great philosophy of embracing constraints. They earn over $5 million per year from their software despite the fact that they didn't raise money and that they only have five people working and those people are in five different time zones. The logic is that when you are constrained you're forced to become more creative.
How are you leveraging your constraints? - Young age
- Lack of money
- Lack of time
- etc.
Posted at 05:41 PM
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August 09, 2005
Masterminding with Peers
Excerpt from Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography: I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, [1727] I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. Recently, I've seen this concept applied extremely well with young entrepreneurs in the two following initiatives: - Junto Partners - Provides funding and assistance to cohorts of recent college graduates. Members of these cohorts invest in each other's businesses and support each other.
- Invenio Group - A group of 6 Babson students that run 8 different companies together.
Posted at 12:04 AM
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February 28, 2005
Towards a Definition of Spiritual Entrepreneurship
Inspirational Sources: Saint Businessman, Religion and Entrepreneurism -- Connected Trends, Faith and Business
I'm on a journey. Why? To where? For what? I have no idea.
Ever since I can remember, there's been something inside of me that says there's more to life, something big!
Passionately pursuing money, being happy, finding a soul mate, and making a difference have been my past guesses on ways to satisfy this feeling. All of them are extremely important to me, but I have a pretty good idea of where those roads go. This journey feels bigger, but harder to explain.
I feel loyalty to this feeling. I feel that I must honestly, full-heartedly pursue it with each moment until its results are realized.
I've chosen entrepreneurship as a career path for many reasons, but some of the main reasons are: - Ability to live and die by my own decisions.
- Freedom from politics of appeasing a boss.
- Ability to manage my lifestyle (when I work. how I work. where I work. what I work on.)
It is for these same reasons that I feel I must pursue my own spiritual path and learn from the different religions, rather than simply following one.
I've found that words are very powerful. Once a word is created, people who felt isolated before can associate with each other. As a result, support systems can be developed. For example, without the word 'alcoholic', Alcoholics Anonymous would not be possible. Without the word 'cancer', cancer treatment and research would not really exist. As such, what about creating the following term: Spiritual Entrepreneur (spir?i?tu?al en?tre?pre?neur), n.: An individual who pursues self-realization outside of any one religion and who uses the freedom/challenge of self-employment as one of their primary methods of reaching their potential.
Posted at 04:32 PM
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Industry Market Research for Your Career
Source: More About the Growth of Service Industries
This is an interesting macro look at the services industry, which accounts for 80% of US jobs.
Just like a business thoroughly researches a market before entering, so to should individuals! If you simply follow what school has been training you for, you may be giving yourself knowledge that will be outsourced, become obselete with technology, or become irrelevant with industry changes.
From my experience, students make career decisions based on micro-experiences (anecdotal stories, summer internships, etc.) with very little macro knowledge. Having the following info on industries seems very important: - History
- Rate of Growth
- Different Segments
- Key Players
- Rate of Change
- Size
- Culture
- etc.
Posted at 03:50 PM
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December 30, 2004
Employee Satisfaction Study
Source: 71% of Workers Commit This Indiscretion
A fascinating survey of 1,000 to 1,200 employees over a 2-1/2 year period done by Gallup found that 71% of them are slackers. Some questions come to mind: - How did our system get to a point where the majority of workers are disconnected from their work, something they spend over 75,000 hours with during their lifetime?
- Has it always been this way?
- Is this a result of human nature? Our economic system? Both?
- What do we know about the characteristics of the 29%?
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