Are you Marketing to Hunters or Farmers?

I was reviewing a marketing plan for a startup company the other day when I suddenly got a flash of insight and understanding. This company is struggling to succeed with their sales and marketing because they might be targeting the wrong group. The decision makers in their target market are...

Laid-off?… then Become An Entrepreneur

These days, the workers in the Northeast of England have the feeling that things have not been worse since the famine and plagues of the middle ages. Unemployment is at an all-time high, problems are escalating and you have a whole new generation growing up without any means of work...

USA passes Educating Entrepreneurs bill

"Every $1 dollar invested in this program will put $2.87 into the national treasury" - N.Velazquez (US State Representative) “The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in our region. What is lacking is the opportunity and ability to tap into ‘the experts’.” - Donna Kilhoffer (Community Education Council) On July...

Coaching Athletes vs. Coaching Entrepreneurs

COACHING ATHLETES: All professional athletes have coaches. No serious competitor would attempt to compete at peak level without one. A coach is not just another player or colleague; a coach is a specially trained person with a very specific role. A coach does not have to be a star athlete....

The Most Common Mistakes that Startup Companies Make

There is an old saying that goes: Success is the result of Good Judgment Good Judgment is the result of Experience Experience is the result of Bad Judgment Have I learned anything after almost 20 years of doing startup companies? I try not to make the same mistakes more than...

Daring to take the first step

We live in an amazing world with so many talented and creative people. Every once in a while I see something that is so different and novel that it makes me stop and marvel. I just watched a YouTube video that had this effect on me. I found it mesmerizing. It takes...

The Entrepreneur Mad Hatter

Today I feel like Johnny Depp in the movie Alice in Wonderland, who plays the role of the Mad Hatter. An entrepreneur in an early-stage startup company has a lot of different hats to wear, and this can be enough to drive you stark-raving mad. In order to keep my...

What every entrepreneur should learn from Abraham Lincoln

Starting a business is tough. No one will dispute that fact. Statistics tell us that approx. 90% of all startups will fail within the first 5 years. So what is the key entrepreneurial trait that differentiates the other 10 percent? No, it is not that these entrepreneurs are smarter, have...

Earning vs. Learning

On this first day of a new decade I was going through some old papers and I saw the original shareholder documents from a company I co-founded 20 years ago. I gave 6 years of my life to that startup and yet the value of my shares today would barely...

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

Last week I was so fortunate as to preside as the President of the Selection Jury for the 2009 Eurecan European Venture Awards. I sat-in on many of the presentations as 25 of the finalists pitched their business plans to investors and industry experts. I was struck by how good...