Posts Tagged ‘Leverage’

If you are planning to make entrepreneurship your future, then you probably think that you’re a fairly adaptable, fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy (or girl). That’s a good start, however, to achieve real success as an entrepreneur, you’re going to have to learn to change direction practically mid-sentence.

Here are the reasons why, as well as a few tips on how to make it a little easier.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the years, I’ve been privileged to be surrounded by many accomplished entrepreneurs. All of them have different stories about why they chose their path of entrepreneurship, and how their business grew, but all of them have one thing in common – instead of giving up when things went wrong, they learned to roll with the punches, and adapt to the given situation.

You see, the truth is, becoming an entrepreneur, or a small business owner, is a scary proposition. Whether you have capital lined up or you’re bootstrapping, and whether you’ve taken the plunge voluntarily or been forced to try your hand at entrepreneurship because you were laid off, there is always an element of fear involved.

Successful entrepreneurs leverage fear to their advantage. They feed off the excitement and exhilaration like an adrenaline junkie would when sky diving, leveraging the emotional high to keep them going, even when the chips are down.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the previous post we looked at what seeds funds are and why they are important.

In a recent blog post, Paul Kredowsky voiced his disapproval of the seed funding phenomenon. However, his post is less about the entrepreneur, than the seed funding companies themselves.
Read the rest of this entry »

The debate about whether the seed funding phenomenon is a bubble waiting to burst, or whether it’s a viable means of funding pre-revenue/start-up businesses still continues. This is my take on the landscape.

There was a time when if you wanted to fund your company you had four options, approach:

1. A bank
2. An angel investor
3. A venture capitalist

4. OR …… have an asinine risk tolerance and fund the project yourself with your own money.

At a certain threshold of funding, there was a catch twenty-two because banks are notoriously risk averse, and don’t normally fund businesses that have yet to prove themselves. Meanwhile, traditional VC firms couldn’t justify investing less than $3M-$5M in a Series A round, mainly because ROI based on growth trajectory (when investing in small amounts) wasn’t worth their while, especially when holding $700M+ under management.

Read the rest of this entry »

Business dinners are a great way for entrepreneurs to get to know potential partners, team members or even co-founders. It is also a great way to pick an advisor or mentors brain. These dinners allow you get to know someone better and create a long lasting relationship because you now have more than just a working relationship.

However, these dinners are often dull and stuffy or sometimes they are nights filled with an overabundance of alcohol. No matter what type of business dinner you may be a part of; here are some great tips that will help you make it through your night of professional dining.

Read the rest of this entry »

As the global economy undergoes more changes (and it will continue to do so) even more people will choose to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. Changes to corporate mindsets, downsizing and other upheavals in the “safe” world of formal employment are forcing many to embrace entrepreneurship, and start their own small businesses. Add to those the people with the burning desire to “be their own boss” and you have plenty of new entrants into the wonderful, frightening, exciting and exhausting world of being a business owner.

However, whatever your reasons for considering entrepreneurship instead of formal employment, there are a few traits you will need to cultivate in order to succeed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Carnegie once said “no man will make a great a business who wants to do it all himself or get all of the credit”. In other words, if you want to be successful as an entrepreneur you are going to need the help of others. This is especially true of the sole proprietor entrepreneur aka the Solo-preneur.

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently came upon a quote by Peter Drucker – “More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject.”

As an MBA, it made me think about the value of the degree I obtained. As a student in a part-time MBA program I went to class after work where all of the students counted-down the minutes until class was over so they could go home after a long day. Everyone told me that completing my MBA was a great accomplishment and employers will look upon it even more favorably in my case since I got my MBA while working full-time, which showed devotion and dedication. I was also told that now, more than ever, you need the MBA next to your name in order for people to take you seriously and consider you for new job opportunities.

Fast forward a year to where I am today and the only thing I can say is that everyone couldn’t have been more wrong.

Read the rest of this entry »