The 2-Minute Opportunity Checklist for Entrepreneurs
Filed Under: Articles of Interest
Tags: Articles of Interest, Entrepreneurs
The Harvard Business Review Blog has a fantastic article that everyone thinking about starting their own business should read. It offers a great checklist to gauge if your business idea meets the criteria to be a hit. Below is an excerpt with a few of the questions to ask yourself:
- Does your business idea sooth someone’s pain, discomfort, frustration, or dissatisfaction?
- Are there lots of those people out there?
- Do these people (or companies, or governments) have money to pay for it?
- Will they be able to decide quickly to buy your product or service?
- Does your idea exploit something about you that is outstanding or unique?
- Are there important assets you have that no one else has? (money, access to customers, technology, leadership skills, execution, location, salesmanship, etc.)
- Can you think of at least two people who might join you?
- Do their skills complement yours?
- Do they have the same values as you do?
- Do the majority of people whose opinion you highly respect think your idea is a good one?
Read the full article HERE.
How to Grow a Small Business
Filed Under: Articles of Interest
Tags: Articles of Interest, Entrepreneurs
Poder360.com has a fantastic article written by Elsie Morales on How to Grow a Small Business. Below is an excerpt:
The evidence indicates that, while the corporate world continues to struggle, Americans are having more and more success finding their own solutions. According to the Kauffman Foundation’s most recent edition of their “Index of Entrepreneurial Activity,” new business formation was already on the increase in 2008, with the trend expected to continue in 2009. In fact, according to recently released data from the Job Market Index published by Chicago-based outplacement consultancy, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of job seekers starting up their own businesses hit a four-year high in 2009. Enrollment in entrepreneurship courses has also risen in business schools across the country.
The percentage of unemployed people becoming entrepreneurs soared 69 percent to 8.6 percent last year, from a record low of 5.1 percent in 2008, according to Challenger. That’s close to the 2002 record level of jobless becoming self-employed. “Rather than endure several more months of unemployment as employers slowly move toward renewed hiring, many job seekers are opting to exit the labor pool and start their own firms,” the consultancy’s chief executive, John A. Challenger, said in a statement. “The start-up rate might have been even higher if banks had loosened their lending standards.”
The biggest gains in the ranks of the self-employed jobless came in the more experienced 55-and-older age bracket, according to Challenger. Some 93,000 people ages 55-64 joined the ranks of entrepreneurs in 2009, while a stunning 213,000 people ages 65 also struck out on their own. The younger generations were less enthused. The number of job hunters ages 35-44 who started their own businesses dropped by 70,000, while the 16-19 age bracket dropped 38.8 percent.
“Entrepreneurship used to be thought of as a young person’s endeavor, as it requires a significant amount of energy and drive,” Challenger found. “In fact, seasoned professionals have a decided advantage over their younger counterparts.”
In order to satiate the entrepreneurial spirit of our readers, this month PODER brings you an interview with Raffi Amit, a professor of management at the Wharton School of Business, and his insights on what every entrepreneur should know before taking the leap. Also, once you jump into the market, you’ll find some help from our accompanying 10 suggestions to improve business on the cheap.
A key question that all would-be entrepreneurs face is finding the business opportunity that is right for them. Should the new startup focus on introducing a new product or service based on an unmet need? Should the venture select an existing product or service from one market and offer it in another where it may not be available? Or should the firm bank on a tried and tested formula that has worked elsewhere, such as a franchise operation?
Raffi Amit, a professor of management at the Wharton School of Business, discusses these questions and more in a conversation with Knowledge@Wharton, the school’s online business journal. In the process, Amit offers insights into how entrepreneurs can identify new business opportunities and evaluate their potential and risks.
The Entrepreneurial Island
Filed Under: Articles of Interest
Tags: Articles of Interest
I stumbled across this post at smallbizbee.com, I think it has some great tips on how to stay connected to entrepreneurial communities. Below is an excerpt:
Running your own business can be a lonely affair at times, almost like being on your own island.
Sure you’re surrounded by employees, vendors, and hopefully lots and lots of customers but often it can feel like you are really the only one who understands the struggles and the triumphs.
It’s as if everyone you come in contact with is on just a slightly different level than you are, and the weight of realizing you are the one that cares the most about your business can leave you feeling isolated.
Read the full post here: http://smallbizbee.com/index/2009/03/06/8-ways-to-connect-and-get-off-the-entrepreneurial-island/
Job Seekers Start Their Own Businesses
Filed Under: Articles of Interest
Tags: Articles of Interest, Entrepreneurs
Did you know that 8.6 percent of all job seekers in 2009 started their own business?! Check out this interesting article from the New York Times, below is an excerpt:
Last year, more laid-off managers and executives grew tired of waiting for human resources departments to call them back. They took matters into their own hands by starting companies.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm, regularly keeps track of 3,000 high-level job seekers in a range of industries. Last year, 8.6 percent of these decided to take the start-up route, compared with 5.1 percent in 2008.
The biggest surge was in the third quarter. The hope is that this momentum “will carry into 2010, since new business development is considered critical to a sustainable recovery,” Challenger stated.
American Creativity
Filed Under: Articles of Interest
Tags: Articles of Interest, Entrepreneurs
Yesterday on the CBS Sunday Morning Show there was a fascinating segment on the wellspring of creativity in America. This piece struck a chord for me because creativity is what the entrepreneurial spirit feeds on. New businesses are formed everyday because someone like you has a creative idea and has the drive to make it a reality. Below is an excerpt from the transcript:
A new idea . . . a new approach . . . a new technique . . . creative breakthroughs can come like a bolt of lightning, or in the whisper of a muse.
Or, sadly, not at all. Many of us would welcome any sign of creative inspiration.
“Creativity is the ability to give the world something it didn’t know it was missing,” said Daniel Pink. “Create something fundamentally new, like the iPod. You have tens of millions of people now who carry around an iPod. Eight years ago I don’t think they knew they were missing an iPod.”
Even without your iPod, author Daniel Pink’s views may be music to your ears. A former speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore, Pink now writes about creativity, and believes we all have at least some potential.
“You have it ’cause you’re a human being,” Pink said. “Now when I say everybody’s creative, doesn’t meant that everybody is a budding Picasso or a budding Edison or a budding Toni Morrison. But the human species is defined by its ability to create.”
And he thinks this country’s got a pretty good track record of doing just that:
“What’s happened the last 10 years that has changed the lives of people all over the world? The iPhone: USA. Twitter: Started by a guy from Nebraska. Facebook: Started by a guy from Florida who went to Harvard and dropped out.”
And not just because America is a rich country with more time to think and create. Pink also credits what’s been a nurturing environment.
“In this country failure is less stigmatized than in other countries,” he said. “If I start a business and it fails, I don’t shame my entire family, okay? In fact, the bankruptcy code in this country affords me, quote, ‘a fresh start.’”
“What the American experience offers when it comes to imagination is that we’re a melting pot of so many different types of people,” said Walter Isaacson, who runs the Aspen Institute, a think tank in Washington. He has written biographies of two creative geniuses, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin.
“You see it at the founding of our republic,” Isaacson said. “You’ve seen that great Industrial Revolution where people were inventing the telephone, the telegraph, the light bulb, and everything else, the phonograph. You’ve seen the push that came because of the Internet and the digital revolution. And now we’re looking for what’s going to be the engine or the driver of a new creativity.”
The challenge for the U.S. is how to keep up that momentum.
Read the full story HERE.
