Harry Hopkins was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s closet and more productive advisors. He served as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce in 1939 and 1940 and as a liaison between the U.S., Russia and Great Britain during World War II. While serving in the Roosevelt administration, Hopkins was dying of stomach cancer. Even though […]
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How to Start a Business in 2019
How to Start a Business in 2019 Nowadays, many people are seeing the benefits of starting up their own business. The process may not be entirely easy to go through – but with some finances and a little bit of determination, a person can become quite successful. You just have to follow the advice of […]
Richard Branson: You Don’t Have to Quit Your Job to Start a Business. I Didn’t
Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson’s got a well-earned reputation for being the sort of swashbuckling character who never shies away from a risk. Which might lead you to think he’d advise would-be entrepreneurs to jump into new ventures with both feet, quitting their day jobs and going all in on their dreams. But on his […]
Cracking the Code on Cutting Costs and Increasing Profitability as a Solopreneur
Solopreneurship is about as small as a small business gets. As a solopreneur, you don’t just run an entire business, you are the business. This means you are the CEO, accountant, manager, marketer, and what have you. Or, simply put, you wear all the hats. Sounds scaringly good, right? The probability of success, however, won’t […]
Learned Entrepreneurship What do the most funded startups have in common?
INTRODUCTION The world of startups is a dynamic place — for entrepreneurs, there is seldom any promise of vested interest or reward once they hit the ground running. Private equity and venture capital firms enjoy a hefty profit because they are supposedly good at identifying which startups sizzle and which ones fizzle, but is there a way […]
Entrepreneurial mindset for growth
When Jack Zhang decided to launch his cross-border payments start-up Airwallex, he did so without overly validating the idea so he would not talk himself out of it prematurely. The strategy flies in the face of usual corporate practice, but it has more than paid off for Zhang and his co-founders. In March […]
What drives great entrepreneurs
If any of you read one of my blog posts entitled “Six Things VCs look for in an Investment,” you may remember that the first entry on the list is “An Extraordinary Entrepreneur with Unique Insight.” I recently watched an outstanding presentation called “How great leaders inspire action” by Simon Sinek (embedded at the bottom […]
5 Reasons Startups Fail
Reason 1: Market Problems A major reason why companies fail, is that they run into the problem of their being little or no market for the product that they have built. Here are some common symptoms: There is not a compelling enough value proposition, or compelling event, to cause the buyer to actually commit to […]
Customer Acquisition: Maximizing your Funnel
This blog post focuses on how B2B companies can optimize their customer acquisition funnels using a customer-centric methodology to analyze and remove blockage points. Acquiring customers in the B2B world involves using a variety of marketing and sales steps with the goal of converting prospective customers into paying customers. The process is often thought of […]
Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition
In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit. Failure to get product/market fit right is very likely the number 1 cause of startup […]