entrepreneurs
10 Essentials Qualities For Entrepreneurs
By Martin at February 10, 2014 | 8:12 am | 0 Comment
To be successful as an entrepreneur, you don’t have to be a fabulous person, but it helps. Some people, and some entrepreneurs, have that something extra, like Simon Cowell is searching for on the X-Factor, that you can’t quite put your finger on. But the entrepreneurs that have “it” seem to be able to effortlessly get team members, investors, and customers to more...
How Entrepreneurs Should Prepare For Innovation & Change
By Martin at February 1, 2014 | 8:51 am | 0 Comment
It’s time for more entrepreneurs to reset their focus, and shift their thinking to completely different ways of doing things. Everyone talks about innovation, but the majority of business plans I see still reflect linear thinking – one more social network with improved usability, one more wind-farm energy generator with a few more blades, or one more dating site with more...
201st 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Investors Fund Businesses, Not Concepts
By Guest Post at January 18, 2014 | 11:56 am | 0 Comment
201st 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Investors Fund Businesses, Not Concepts During today’s roundtable, we had a couple of formal slide presentations, and a number of shorter dialogues. Direct Dialect First, Thelson Richardson from Miami, Florida, pitched Direct Dialect, a language teaching application. Thelson started off by saying that he wants to more...
Tips For Entrepreneurs To Balance Risk & Opportunity
By Martin at January 18, 2014 | 8:51 am | 0 Comment
There is no real business opportunity without risk. Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive dream of a get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active Angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk or no competition. My conclusion either way is that there is no market, or they more...
Why Entrepreneurs Need To Be Extra Tough Mentally
By Martin at January 7, 2014 | 8:21 am | 0 Comment
You have to be extra tough mentally to be an entrepreneur. While thinking about it, I realized that it’s really not that different from the toughness required and trained into America’s elite military force of Navy SEALs, who are known to be cool under fire, able to sense danger before it’s too late, and never give up on achieving their objective. I just finished more...
When Entrepreneurs Should Look For Help?
By Martin at January 2, 2014 | 8:31 am | 0 Comment
If an entrepreneur doesn’t find themselves in over their head at least 20% of the time, they are probably not pushing the limits, not taking enough risk, and probably not working on an idea that’s worth doing. The challenge in to know when and how to ask for help, and not let bravado and ego mask anxieties. The best people know when they don’t know, and know how to more...
How Entrepreneurs Can Exit Gracefully From Their Company?
By Martin at December 25, 2013 | 10:13 am | 0 Comment
For most entrepreneurs, their current business is not where they intend to stay until they die. At the right time, they all intend to make a graceful exit, and leave while still perceived to be on top of their game. The challenge is how to know and exit gracefully when the right time has come, without trauma to either the company or themselves. I haven’t seen much more...
199th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Final One For 2013
By Guest Post at December 21, 2013 | 8:52 am | 0 Comment
199th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Final One For 2013 During today’s roundtable, we had representation from Texas, California, and three cities in India. Nanothermo First up, Rekha Bangalore from Austin, Texas, pitched Nanothermo, a thermal cooling technology for LED lighting. Rekha needs some funding, and is having difficulty cracking the seed market more...
198th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Spotlight on Kae Capital, India
By Guest Post at December 13, 2013 | 10:33 am | 0 Comment
198th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Spotlight on Kae Capital, India During today’s roundtable, we saw a couple of entrepreneurs from the portfolio of Kae Capital based in India. Shopsense First up, Farooq Adam, working with Kae Capital from Mumbai, India, pitched Shopsense, a retail technology solution that enables brick-and-mortar retailers to place more...
Why Entrepreneurs Should Study Current Corporate Models
By Martin at December 4, 2013 | 10:15 am | 0 Comment
Startups are the corporations of the future, so I have long believed that entrepreneurs who study existing corporate models, rather than ignoring them with disdain, will likely profit from the exercise. In today’s fast-paced world, that means recognizing early and capitalizing on the changes that are bringing many big companies to their knees, before that company is more...
Entrepreneurs Are Born Or Made?
By Martin at November 30, 2013 | 9:03 am | 0 Comment
I have met several young people in business recently who believe that they are natural born entrepreneurs, and actually seem to feel that traditional training and experience may be a detriment to their success in this new world. I concede that some natural born skills do exist, but more often I tend to agree with Peter Drucker, who said “It’s not magic, it’s not more...
How Entrepreneurs Can Change The Image Of Business
By admin at November 25, 2013 | 8:27 am | 0 Comment
Large corporations and conglomerates, the engines of growth and vitality in the twentieth century, have lost their edge and their image. They have proven themselves unable to innovate, and they have lost more jobs than they create. My friends who “grew up” with lifetime careers in General Motors, Exxon Mobil, or even IBM, are now often too embarrassed to even more...
How Entrepreneurs Can Deal With Fear Of Success
By Martin at November 23, 2013 | 8:42 am | 0 Comment
In working with entrepreneurs and other business people over the years, I often hear stories of entrepreneurs who were so close to success, but somehow let it slip through their fingers. They could always give a rational excuse, like the market changed, but somehow it seemed that they were actually afraid of success, so they subtly undermined their own efforts. I more...
Key Relationship Skills For Entrepreneurs
By Martin at October 23, 2013 | 8:23 am | 0 Comment
Starting and building a company is all about leadership – formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles. Yet the image of leadership in business is at an all-time low, according to national leadership experts, considering the political debacles, record business bankruptcies, and executive more...
Sales Tips For Entrepreneurs
By Martin at September 26, 2013 | 11:03 am | 0 Comment
A good entrepreneur is not necessarily born a good salesman. In fact, they are often the opposite, more focused on building things rather than selling them. Yet, in today’s world of information overload, marketing and selling skills are critical to the success of every startup. The alternative “If we build it, they will come” approach has long been relegated to more...
188th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: SMB Focused Offerings
By Guest Post at September 20, 2013 | 8:20 am | 0 Comment
188th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: SMB Focused Offerings Today’s roundtable had an interesting mix of companies ranging from Internet-of-things to daily deals platforms. SSRLabs We started with Axel Kloth from Palo Alto, California, who pitched SSRLabs, a semiconductor concept. Axel rightly pointed out that chip funding in the Valley has dried up, and more...
Why Entrepreneurs Should Talk Less & Listen More
By Martin at September 14, 2013 | 9:03 am | 0 Comment
When you are not presenting to investors or your team, try to spend more time listening than talking. You can’t learn anything new while you’re talking, yet many entrepreneurs seem to never stop. It’s a sad spiral, since the more you talk, the less people really hear, meaning they don’t learn anything either. If someone left this article on your desk, read extra more...
187th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Peer Validation Is Irrelevant
By Guest Post at September 14, 2013 | 8:37 am | 0 Comment
187th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Peer Validation Is Irrelevant Today’s roundtable was yet another global event with entrepreneurs pitching from Brazil, India, United States and Europe. UTripz First, Eduardo Cardoso from Minas Gerais, Brazil, pitched UTripz, which he wants to build up to be an ad-supported content site featuring the top 300 travel more...
Why Entrepreneurs Needs To Get Their Fingernails Dirty
By Martin at September 10, 2013 | 7:53 am | 0 Comment
There is no substitute for diving into the key details of a new startup. Executives from large companies have sometimes long forgotten how to do this (“My people will contact your people to work out the details.”). Others hire consultants, or outsource much of the real work. These executives won’t survive long in a startup environment. An obvious reason is more...
186th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Mentoring Networks Do Not Work
By Guest Post at September 7, 2013 | 8:23 am | 0 Comment
186th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Mentoring Networks Do Not Work Today’s roundtable had the concluding portion of the presentations from Pakistan that I talked about last week. Smart SurgiSol First, Syed Hassan from Islamabad, Pakistan, pitched Smart SurgiSol, a training solution for surgeons looking to learn how to perform laparoscopic surgery and more...
