Tag: entrepreneur

Connecting the Dots

Like most children, I loved drawing Connect the Dots pictures. I can envision myself staring at a new and particularly complex page of dots and numbers and trying to imagine what could possibly emerge from all that chaos. Today, as an adult I look forward in my life and try...

Marathon Man for Startups

Have you seen the old movie called Marathon Man? Dustin Hoffmann plays the part of an amateur marathon runner who gets mixed up with a group of nasty ex-Nazis who torture him with a dental drill. His training as a marathon runner helps him to endure the pain until he...
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Am I crazy to be an entrepreneur?

I woke up this morning and my first thought was that “I am crazy”! Stark, raving, mad, lunatic crazy. It was all triggered by an argument that I had with my business partner yesterday, which was by no means his fault. Crazy can be defined as doing the same thing...

It is hard to change just a little. Easier to change a lot.

To succeed as an entrepreneur you have to pay attention. You must pay close attention to what is going on around you – to your company, your market and to your own mindset.  And quite often you will discover that you need to make changes. The problem with change is...

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...

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...