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Dave Hermansen did not own a bird or a cage when he bought bird-cage.com, an online store, for $1,800 three years ago. He simply saw a Web site that was “very, very poorly done,” and begged the owners to sell it to him. He then redesigned the site, added advertising and drove up traffic. Last December, he sold it for $173,000. Mr. Hermansen is Read More

This pioneering Babson study examines whether writing a business plan before launching a new venture affects the company's subsequent performance. Interestingly, the analysis revealed that there was no difference between the performance of new businesses launched with or without written business plans. Unless a would-be entrepreneur needs to rais Read More

Cajole your boss into giving you a raise, win someone round to your point of view, or persuade your partner it's their turn to put out the trash - getting people to do what you want can be very handy. Persuasion is a key element of all human interaction, from politics to marketing to everyday dealings with friends, family and colleagues. Read More

New research by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that nearly six in ten businesses shut down within the first four years of operation. To avoid becoming a statistic yourself, here are the top reasons so many new ventures fail. Read More

Fifty-nine percent of recently surveyed companies executed a major market-segmentation initiative in the previous two years. Yet only 14% derived real value from the exercise. What's wrong with market segmentation? Read More

You just paid big bucks to get your product or website reviewed on a PR5 or higher rated blog. Does that high PageRank really translate to a high quality link to your website. That's the top of discussion in Jill Whalen's post, "Are Websites Ranked as a Whole?" Jill also mentions that Google may strip off any link juice if it can figure out Read More

Your company could offer the best prices and services around, but if your company fails to make customers feel wanted, you can consider the chances of repeat business out the door. When it comes to retaining customers, simple gestures go a long way. And yet, if studies are anything to go by, we have yet to learn the fine art of keeping customers f Read More

How to justify steep prices and set your company apart from the competition. From the article: “Selling Value” consists of adding intangibles that convince the customer to pay a higher price than if those intangibles were absent. It does not consist of adding tangibles (i.e. things that cost your company something) to make a deal more attractiv Read More

Contrary to what many aspiring entrepreneurs believe, the key to a successful startup does not rest upon having a unique, one-of-a-kind idea. A good idea is a necessary starting point for any new business, but that's all it is. As VC and entrepreneurship teacher Rob Adams points out, ideas are not scarce: they're commodities. Virtually any idea Read More

A classic essay by Greg Gianforte about the virtues of bootstrapping and how it often yields better results than the "fund and burn" model of VC-backed startups. Read More