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If you really want to start a business your way without a boss or professional investor hovering over you, then just fund it yourself or through friends and family, and grow it organically. It’s more possible to bootstrap today than a few years ago, as the cost of entry continues to go down. Accord Read More

As an angel investor, I see plenty of startups focusing on building an innovative product, but I’m looking for the few who are also leading with an exponential growth strategy, to put them in the category of the next Amazon or Google. Traditional marketing may be adequate for linear growth, but it Read More

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a start Read More

As a business advisor and advocate for entrepreneurs, I find myself almost always talking and writing about change. Yet there are many things about business and work that haven’t changed for a long time, and don’t need to change anytime soon. I’m always surprised when someone doesn’t seem to grasp Read More

There is no skill more vital to an entrepreneur than effective networking. You can’t build your business alone, and networking is the best way to open doors, professionally and personally. For introverts like me, it’s not easy to step out of your comfort zone and meet new people, but if you approac Read More

Every business professional and entrepreneur believes they are good communicators, but how do they know? It’s really the perception of the recipients that counts, and poor communicators are almost always poor listeners, so they don’t hear the shortcomings. Warren Buffet once told a class of busines Read More

It’s painful when you start a new business for the wrong reasons. As a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, one of my challenges is to make sure their idea is a match for them. For example, I have a friend who is a self-proclaimed “foody” who wants to start a restaurant, but really has no interest or Read More

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. Being very visible in the startup community, I still get an amazing number of badly written emails, rambling executive summ Read More

As a former IBM executive, I used to think that big-company executives would be ideally skilled and experienced in business to run a small company or a startup. Yet that rarely happens, and when it does, like John Sculley moving from Pepsi to Apple, the results don’t turn out so positive. I see thi Read More

In my experience as a business and entrepreneur advisor over many years, I’m convinced that the days of the “command and control” business leader are gone. Your employees have higher expectations of you than just defining their job – they want inspiration, motivation, and purpose. They respond with Read More