Entrepreneurship
Is your great idea a great business?
I love this question, and it’s one that I ask almost every entrepreneur I meet with. The conversation that follows is almost always very revealing – not only about the business prospects of the entrepreneur’s product or service, but the entrepreneur themselves. The entrepreneur is sitting thinking they’ve got a 6-figure idea, but then I [...]
3 from the conference
The trade association for my industry is the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA). Each year they hold two major events; a Fall training conference, and a Spring conference more focused on the business of incubation. Of all the conferences I’ve attended in my career, these NBIA conferences are the best run and most valuable of [...]
Shameless self-promotion
As in, I’m about to shamelessly self-promote myself. Well, not actually myself so much as my blog. A few posts back, I wrote about a new feature I had added to the blog, the “Great Posts from Around the Web” widget. Using free ranking services available from Postrank, I built an automatically updating list of [...]
The Genius vs. The Executive
I just got done reading the Inc. Magazine article about Threadless. (Here’s a printer-friendly version. Read that: no ads and all on one page.) It’s an interesting business model. Artists post designs online and they are voted on by the community. Winning designs get printed on t-shirts, that are then sold to the community. What’s [...]
Great posts from around the web
So, a while back I wrote about some upcoming changes / surprises on the blog. The first was a facelift to the blog, which I rolled out a week or so ago. Yesterday, I flipped the switch on the second addition: a list of great posts from around the web on our topics of Leadership [...]
Would this interest you?
I’m thinking of doing an extended series on the basics of what goes in a business plan. Starting with a general overview of the structure of a plan, moving through each section and why it’s important, and finishing with the dreaded Executive Summary. Based on the number of entrepreneurs I work with week in and [...]
Making sure your business plan is understood
Here’s a great tip I hadn’t seen before, straight from review of a business plan submitted for funding. Embed a link to a video from within the business plan. This particular business plan had a link to a Vimeo video on their cover page. The video used icons to represent constituencies and functions of their [...]
What is a customer?
I get to listen to lots of business presentations. Whether it’s one on one coaching, practice presentations or review board presentations for funding awards, they are a big part of my schedule. Over time, you start to pick up consistent themes, whether it’s content, presentation or style. You also get to know your fellow coaches [...]
All shapes and sizes…
I just got home from dinner with some friends of mine. I’ve known this couple for quite a few years. They are both wonderful people, some of the best I know, and a great match for each other. And, as it just dawned on me tonight, very successful entrepreneurs. The husband currently manages a portfolio [...]
Keep spreading the word
We made good progress on the 2009 Entrepreneurial Qualities Survey this week, surpassing 20% of goal. As you remember, I’m shooting for 100 responses this time. I heard from a couple of you that you passed the post on to colleagues, and I appreciate that. We’ve even had a submission from Hong Kong, so the [...]
