Blog
The Most Important 30 Seconds of Any Sale
We've written before on the importance of an elevator pitch - that all important, fact-filled summarized statement of your product or service value proposition. This article raises a few more points about the elevator pitch and an example of how it can be used effectively. The most •••
- February 29, 2008
Quiz #3: Did This Business Plan Succeed?
Test your entrepreneurship skills. Read through the profile below and try to determine whether or not you think this startup survived. The outcome (or the current status) is shown below: The Idea: Concept: Inspired by the success of Southwest Airlines (nyse: LUV) and JetBlue •••
- February 29, 2008
Tips on Making Decisions
Do you ever struggle with decision making? If you are the leader of a large organization, do you sometimes feel that your subordinates are merely nodding politely instead of telling you like it really is? According to research from Harvard Business School and a recent published •••
- February 29, 2008
How Can Start Ups Grow?
If you are trying to bullet-proof your business to insure that you don't fall prey to the statistics that reveal a 90% failure rate, this interview with Harvard Business School professor Mukti Khaire is an interesting read. Professor Khaire's research shows that new ventures that •••
- February 25, 2008
Top Ten Legal Mistakes Made by Entrepreneurs
The last thing a fledgling business needs are legal problems. As Christians, we would do well to heed the principle of scripture of settling disputes prior to being hauled before the court (Matthew 5:25 "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time •••
- February 25, 2008
Turning High Potential into Real Reward
According to Harvard Business School professor Joseph Lassiter, an entrepreneur's ability to transform a high-potential venture into a high-performance venture depends on combining what, how, and who they know. The article below features an interview with Professor Lassiter in •••
- February 25, 2008
NVL Member Wins Design Competition
New Venture Lab member Andrew Zwart (see Andrew's VentureNetwork profile here) recently won an Ontario-wide Engineering Innovative Design Competition and will now advance to compete in the Canadian-wide competition. He will also be entering a technical entrepreneurship •••
- February 21, 2008
Banking 2.0: New Capital Connections For Entrepreneurs
I will be the first to admit that I do not like the use of debt, but this new business model for banking is fascinating (see the story below.) Now, please don't rush out and sign up for a P2P (Person-to-Person) loan, but do take to heart the lessons here. This new banking business model •••
- February 20, 2008
Radical Design, Radical Results
Does your company design new products or services? If so, what is your design strategy? Launch and see; see and launch; or wait and see? Why is it that companies that are successful "radical innovators" do not listen to users when it comes to design? Innovative •••
- February 19, 2008
Quiz #2: Did This Business Plan Succeed?
Test your entrepreneurship skills. Read through the profile below and try to determine whether or not you think this startup survived. The outcome (or the current status) is shown below: The Idea: Concept: A Web-based service that delivers groceries, dry cleaning, videos and other •••
- February 9, 2008
Quiz #1: Did This Business Plan Succeed?
Test your entrepreneurship skills. Read through the profile below and try to determine whether or not you think this startup survived. The outcome (or the current status) is shown below: The Idea: Concept: Car dealerships want to move cars, but what they really want is to service •••
- February 9, 2008
The Next Wave of Web-based Work Applications
In the next generation of technology, collaboration is king. If you are tired of emailing around documents, presentations, spreadsheets and business plans with your colleagues, then the new "office 2.0" (think Web 2.0, but for your office) applications are for you: Office in a Cloud Why •••
- February 9, 2008
The Problem with Multilevel Marketing
Periodically, I will get questions about multilevel marketing (MLM) and whether or not I recommend it as a business opportunity. For those of you that are unfamiliar with that term, other terms for this type of sales and marketing include network marketing and pyramid marketing -- think •••
- February 9, 2008
Putting Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector
This is an interesting article that introduces a new case book authored by four Harvard Business School professors. In the book, the authors probe the reasons why non-profits have been unable to solve many of society's worst ills despite the best of intentions and trillions of dollars worth •••
- February 4, 2008
Sustainable and Unsustainable Trends
As you perform your business planning, whether you are planning a start-up or mulling over your annual plan for your existing business, consider the trends you see around you and attempt to determine whether they are a flash-in-the-pan fad (unsustainable trend) or whether they are trends with •••
- January 29, 2008
Breakthrough Idea for 2008: P2P
In terms of breakthrough ideas for 2008, consider in your business planning how to take advantage of the peer-to-peer, or P2P, networks that are springing up and disrupting so many business models. What started with music and spread to video and other content is now predicted to create havoc •••
- January 29, 2008
Get Ready to Compete with Billions of Entrepreneurs in China and India
Entrepreneurship has always fueled the American economy and has always added more jobs than corporate America has, but as the two world's largest populations catch the entrepreneurial bug (and as world markets become more and more global in nature), American entrepreneurs, as well as those in other •••
- January 28, 2008
Ivy League Education Absolutely Free
As I've written before, the entire college and university system is completely outmoded in today’s wired world. The university construct with its aggregation of professors and libraries came into being due to the scarcity of books prior to the printing press when students traveled to the •••
- January 26, 2008
The Problem with Being First
Those of us that participated in the craziness of the dot com days in the late 1990's through 2001 will no doubt recall that there was a rush to be first-to-market and launch your company quickly with the coveted "first-mover advantage" status. Simply having that phrase in a venture capital •••
- January 18, 2008
The Problem with Employees (Compared to Family Entrepreneurship)
If you have employees in your business or if you manage employees, you will know what I mean when I say that the current system of employing employees doesn't work very well -- especially when compared to a family business with a family working together. In early American history •••
- January 17, 2008
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