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Pick yourself up: Failure is key to success – The Baylor Lariat

Pick yourself up: Failure is key to success – The Baylor Lariat

By Kassidy Tsikitas | Staff Writer

Most people have been through a series of events in life that had failure after failure. The word “failure” is often associated with the lack of success, but a lack of success can turn into achievements and lead to a better life.

Failure is the key to success in life. Jason Cope published an article on the ScienceDirect website called “Entrepreneurial learning from failure: An interpretative phenomenological analysis”.

“Failure represents one of the most difficult, complex and yet valuable learning experiences that entrepreneurs will ever have the (mis)fortune to engage in,” Cope said.

You learn from your mistakes to excel. Every routine needs trial and error. To learn from failures to get to the end goal, it takes time. Remember to enjoy the time where it’s OK to make so many mistakes.

Some days are better than others, whether it’s self-inflicted by following habits or if you have random luck. Failure is an element of life that’s important for everyone to have at least once.

My first experience with failure was when I got my first failing grade in elementary school. After that bad grade, I excelled in school and got an award for having perfect overall grades all year-round.

In this part of my life, I learned that sometimes you have to pick yourself up, because no one will do it for you. Work hard for whatever you want most.

One of my favorite things to go by is Murphy’s law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. This motto can actually be used in a positive sense to lighten your vision of the future. If you keep a positive mindset, you will get to your overall final product of success.

College students have the tendency to know what failure feels like.

Learning from failure can help you come up with a better schedule to make sure you study for all of your classes, and yes, even that one class you slack off in. Remember, it’s OKto fail in life. Failing and developing the needed skills to correct mistakes will be helpful in your future.

Another way to learn from failure is to participate in class. Whether you know the answer or not, it is a good idea to put the effort in.

Imagine: in the future, you’re in a meeting, the boss is yelling, everyone is quiet and making things worse. That is an embarrassing situation. Whereas, the class moment of you getting the answer wrong isn’t as humiliating, you won’t see those people ever again and, most likely, five other people were thinking the same thing as you.

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiT2h0dHBzOi8vYmF5bG9ybGFyaWF0LmNvbS8yMDIzLzAxLzMwL3BpY2steW91cnNlbGYtdXAtZmFpbHVyZS1pcy1rZXktdG8tc3VjY2Vzcy_SAQA?oc=5

Why does Big Tech often fail in healthcare? – Healthcare IT News

Why does Big Tech often fail in healthcare? – Healthcare IT News

If there were a graveyard for failed health IT projects, it would be cluttered with the tombstones of initiatives first launched with fanfare by Big Tech companies such as IBM, Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

The question has been asked: Is healthcare too hard for Big Tech firms?

That’s the perspective of industry veteran Kyle Silvestro, who over the years has seen numerous tech companies spend billions to build healthcare projects, only to shutter them years later with little to show for it. Silvestro is president, CEO and chairman of SyTrue, a healthcare artificial intelligence/natural language processing company.

Big Tech firms continue to seek a seat at the healthcare table. And while some have been making inroads in recent years, especially with cloud offerings – it was hard to miss the big booths of AWS, IBM, Microsoft and others on the HIMSS22 show floor this past week – that progress has come after lots of trial and error. 

That’s often because consumer-facing tech vendors do not understand the nuances and complexities of healthcare, nor the unique challenges that come with massive amounts of inconsistent, siloed and dirty healthcare data that is not easily interpreted nor shared across organizations.

Healthcare IT News interviewed Silvestro to explore Big Tech in healthcare and discuss why he believes the constant entry and exit of non-healthcare specific vendors is stifling innovation and slowing healthcare transformation.

Q. How would you describe the history of Big Tech in healthcare?

A. The track record of Big Tech companies in healthcare is not a good one. Time and again, industry giants including Google, IBM and Amazon have embarked on healthcare initiatives, each setting expectations that their size, infrastructure and influence would help bring order to our nation’s dysfunctional, inefficient and archaic healthcare system – even if by force of will alone.

However, the actual impact of these efforts has been much different. Most Big Tech healthcare initiatives have ended in failure, stifling true innovation in the sector and reducing the market’s confidence in technologies that are successfully addressing real market needs.

Much like the promises, these failures have been grand in scale and thoroughly documented. Google Health, the search giant’s attempt at a personal health record service, shuttered after only three years, plagued by interoperability issues and low user adoption.

While excellent at answering questions on TV’s Jeopardy, IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence and data analytics platform made a nominal impact in healthcare, ultimately proving unprofitable before being sold off in pieces.

Similarly, Haven Health, Amazon’s joint venture with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway aimed at disrupting healthcare and health insurance, disbanded after three years when it became apparent that it would fall short of its grandiose ideals.

It’s easy to understand the appeal that healthcare has for Big Tech. It’s a $4.1 trillion market that is plagued by disorganization and waste. Big Tech has been successful at addressing these issues in broader consumer and business markets and many are confident they can apply similar principles to fix these inefficiencies in healthcare.

However, these corporate titans quickly discover that the healthcare industry is a different animal, with intricate, deep-rooted problems that can’t be solved with a one-size-fits-all approach. Truly improving healthcare requires specialized knowledge and applications that transform processes from the inside out.

Q. You suggest that most of the Big Tech systems are not customized for healthcare and require months or years to customize and are not scalable to address the needs of healthcare organizations. Please give an example of this, and the outcome.

A. Google Health is a prime example of how oversights in healthcare customization impact usability and the ultimate outcome. While the user interface for Google Health received praise both inside and outside the healthcare industry, the process for bringing data into Google Health was complicated.

Patients often didn’t get reliable health information transferred to them. Many didn’t take the time necessary to update details in their health records. Furthermore, information complexity became too difficult for patients to manage on their own.

The root of the issue here was the data itself. Big Tech companies continually underestimate the problem healthcare has with “dirty data.” Health data is rarely clean or consistent. It is full of industry-specific terminologies and formats such as ICD-10, SNOMED, RxNorm and MedDRA that don’t cleanly align or integrate with others.

Furthermore, patient data is contained in a multitude of disparate sources – including varied and distinct lab systems, imaging systems and electronic health records.

Adding to the difficulty, up to 80% of the data that healthcare organizations need to improve decision making is unstructured in nature, trapped in the clinical narratives of EHRs or as PDFs and image files that are difficult for machine learning algorithms to decipher.

The failure of Google Health to truly address the challenge of dirty data in healthcare created integration issues that its snazzy user interface couldn’t overcome.

Q. What do you think of the pending acquisition of Cerner by Oracle? Do you think Big Tech can make a major EHR sing?

A. Given the poor track record of Big Tech in healthcare, Oracle has a lot to prove in this arena. Oracle can’t fall into the trap of not giving healthcare the focus it demands simply because it is only a part of what the company does.

Oracle does have one thing in its favor that was absent from many other Big Tech companies that failed in the healthcare space. It’s starting with an acquired company that was born and bred to serve the needs of the healthcare community.

Oracle isn’t starting from scratch, attempting to apply its strategies and philosophies to a new, unfamiliar vertical. Oracle has a known entity in Cerner that is well-versed in the challenges of healthcare and has already addressed many of the issues that have historically caused many other Big Tech companies to abandon their efforts in the space.

Rather than trying to tear down and rebuild what Cerner has already done, Oracle should focus on leveraging its platform, database and low-code development tools to accelerate the modernization of Cerner’s established EHR.

If Oracle uses its resources to improve and streamline the EHR experience for the caregiver – via voice-enabled interfaces, secure cloud applications and more – it has a chance to succeed where other Big Tech companies have failed.

Q. What would Big Tech have to do to succeed where it has failed in healthcare?

A. Success in healthcare requires complete immersion in the space. It requires not only domain expertise, but a monumental investment in time, resources and money to address prevalent issues with dirty data, privacy considerations surrounding patient information, and interoperability challenges between all stakeholders in the care continuum.

When healthcare is only a piece of a Big Tech company’s overall operation, it becomes expendable. It becomes too easy for the challenges and costs to outweigh the potential benefits and payoffs. Therefore, it becomes easier and more tempting to abandon healthcare initiatives to strengthen short-term financial performance and appease shareholders.

To succeed, Big Tech needs to go all in on healthcare just as many smaller companies purpose-built for healthcare have done. At the very least, Big Tech companies should invest in and build upon the knowledge and solutions already entrenched in the space. However, these are moves most Big Tech companies seem unwilling or unmotivated to make.

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bsiwicki@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.

https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/why-does-big-tech-often-fail-healthcare

Seven biggest success to failure stories in world football as Euro champs Italy fail to qualify for World… – The US Sun

Seven biggest success to failure stories in world football as Euro champs Italy fail to qualify for World… – The US Sun

ITALY were left shellshocked after failing to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.

Roberto Mancini’s side were seemingly riding high after beating England to win the Euro 2020 crown at Wembley last summer.

Italy failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in one of the biggest shocks in world football

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Italy failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in one of the biggest shocks in world footballCredit: EPA

But just 257 days later, Italy were beaten 1-0 by North Macedonia as they were KO’d from World Cup qualification.

The Italians’ absence from Qatar this winter will go down as one of the biggest surprises in international football history.

But how does it compare to some of the other biggest shocks?

We take a look at seven of the biggest…

ITALY – 2022

JUST last summer, Italy were dancing on the Wembley turf parading the European Championship trophy in front of heartbroken England stars.

Seemingly a team very much on rise after years of poor performances by their standards, the Azzurri were expected to make a deep run in Qatar this winter.

Jorginho missed two penalties during Italy’s crunch qualification group-stage draw with Italy, which saw them need to fight through play-offs.

And incredibly, despite taking 32 shots on goal, Italy LOST through an extra-time screamer from Aleksandar Trajkovski to send North Macedonia to the play-offs final – and Italy home.

Most read in Sport

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GERMANY – 2018

IN 2014, Germany lifted the World Cup for the first time in 24 years after beating Argentina thanks to a Mario Gotze winner in extra time.

Fast forward four years and Joachim Low’s side were sent packing in the group stage of the 2018 tournament in Russia.

Germany lost Mexico in their group-stage opener thanks to a Hirving Lozano winner, before squeezing past Sweden 2-1 to keep their knockout stage hopes alive.

But a 2-0 defeat to South Korea ensured a star-studded squad including Mesut Ozil, Manuel Neuer, Thomas Muller and Toni Kroos were booted out at the first hurdle.

Germany were KO'd in the group stage of the 2018 World Cup just four years after winning it

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Germany were KO’d in the group stage of the 2018 World Cup just four years after winning itCredit: AFP or licensors

HOLLAND – 2018

NOT quite on par with Germany, but Holland’s demise absolutely shocking.

The Dutch roared to third place at the 2014 World Cup – losing on penalties to Argentina in the semis before thumping Brazil 3-0 to avoid finishing fourth.

But after that, the team went on an horrendous slump – failing to qualify for Euro 2016, finishing fourth in their group, or or the 2018 World Cup after ending up third in their pot.

Holland have since finished second in the 2018-19 Nations League – but only made it as far as the last 16 at Euro 2020 to prove their inconsistent patch is very much alive.

Holland went from third at the 2014 World Cup to missing two straight major tournaments

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Holland went from third at the 2014 World Cup to missing two straight major tournamentsCredit: Reuters

WALES – 2018

FANS were in dreamland after Wales reached the semi-finals at Euro 2016, even beating giants Belgium 3-1 in the quarters.

Their dream ended with a 2-0 defeat against eventual champions Portugal.

But it turned into a nightmare just months later after failing to make it out of a simple-looking World Cup 2018 qualifying group.

The Welsh were beaten to top spot by Serbia – who qualified automatically – with the Republic of Ireland coming in second.

Wales did qualify for – and reach the last 16 of – Euro 2020, but were thumped 4-0 by Denmark in the first knockout stage.

Gareth Bale is leading the charge for his nation to reach their first World Cup since 1958 after his double saw them beat Austria in the play-offs semi-final.

They’ll play Scotland or Ukraine in the final.

Wales reached the semi-finals of Euro 2016 only to miss out on qualification for the 2018 World Cup

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Wales reached the semi-finals of Euro 2016 only to miss out on qualification for the 2018 World CupCredit: News Group Newspapers Ltd

FRANCE – 2002

THE French clinched the 1998 World Cup on home soil with a flourish, thumping Brazil 3-0 in Paris.

But just four years later they were licking their wounds after being sent packing from Japan and South Korea in the group stage.

France lost their opening match 1-0 against surprise package Senegal, before a draw with Uruguay.

Incredibly, the reigning champions lost 2-0 to Denmark to ensure they would not make the knockout stages in 2002 despite boasting Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Zinedine Zidane and Co in their squad.

France went from champions in 1998 to group stage victims just four years later

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France went from champions in 1998 to group stage victims just four years laterCredit: EPA

DENMARK – 1994

THE Danes pulled off one of the all-time great upsets by beating Germany to the Euro 1992 crown.

But their star-studded squad including Peter Schmeichel and the Laudrups failed to make it to the 1994 World Cup.

Denmark were beaten to the tournament in the USA by Spain and the Republic of Ireland.

Denmark won Euro 92 but failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the USA

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Denmark won Euro 92 but failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the USACredit: EPA

ENGLAND – 1974

AND finally, England…

In 1966, the Three Lions won the World Cup – still their only ever major tournament win.

They only qualified for the 1970 edition thanks to their status as reigning champions and did manage to reach the quarter-finals.

But England failed to make it to the tournament proper in 1974 or 1978 in a shocking decade for the Three Lions.

England won the 1966 World Cup, only to fail to qualify in 1974 and 1978

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England won the 1966 World Cup, only to fail to qualify in 1974 and 1978Credit: PA:Press Association

https://www.the-sun.com/sport/4975551/biggest-success-failure-stories-football-italy-world-cup/

New Research on How to Overcome Setbacks – Psychology Today

New Research on How to Overcome Setbacks – Psychology Today

 JerzyGorecki/Pixabay

Source: JerzyGorecki/Pixabay

A setback is an occurrence that delays, prevents, or even reverses progress.

Some examples of self-regulation setbacks (i.e. lapses in self-control and self-discipline) are: cheating on a diet, purchasing non-essential items when on a budget, and watching TV or playing computer games when one should be studying.

Because setbacks are common, what differentiates successful from unsuccessful people is not whether they have ever experienced a failure. The differentiating factor is, instead, how they have responded—e.g., with greater determination and a renewed commitment to the goal vs. losing hope and giving up.

Research shows people are more likely to experience subsequent failures after an initial self-control failure. This is called the setback effect. The setback effect commonly occurs when a person attributes a failure to internal factors beyond their control (e.g., genetics).

According to a recent study by researchers Adriaanse and Broeke, attributing the initial failure to external sources can prevent the setback effect. Attributing the failure to external factors may allow people to refocus on the goal, remain confident in their abilities, and achieve sustained success. This research, published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, is discussed below.

Investigating a Technique to Overcome Setbacks

Study 1

Sample: 298 females; average age of 25 years old.

The authors recruited only women aged 18–30 who were trying to manage their weight. The goal was “to create a relatively homogeneous group for whom dieting is a relevant concern.”

Methods: At Time 1, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: control group, dieting intervention, or procrastination intervention.

The intervention had two parts; reading a text and forming an if-then plan. The text read: “Research has shown that whether you can get back on track actually has a lot to do with the way people think about the causes of their [unhealthy eating behavior/ procrastination].”

The next section instructed participants to attribute failures to external factors, “such as the environment, or the people around you that influenced your behavior.”

The implementation intention (the if-then plan) applied the above shift in mindset to potential future failures. For instance, those in the dieting group read: “If I fail to adhere to my dieting goal” then “I will reflect on the external factors that contributed to this failure,” and “will continue to pursue my dieting goal as usual.”

Those in the control group did not read the first text nor make an implementation intention.

At Time 2, procrastination and dieting success/failure were assessed. To take one example, dieting failure was calculated as the sum of daily ratings of the frequency of failure (i.e. of eating foods not allowed on the diet).

Study 2

Sample: 209 (138 female); average age of 33 years old.

Methods: The second study included only procrastination and control conditions. The procedure resembled that of the first investigation, with a few exceptions. For instance, intention and self-efficacy were also measured.

Baseline self-efficacy was measured with, “I feel in control over minimizing my procrastination behavior” and “I feel confident in my abilities to minimize my procrastination behavior.” Baseline intention was assessed with, “I intend to minimize my procrastination behavior” and “I plan to minimize my procrastination behavior.”

Preventing and Overcoming Setbacks By Preparing for Failure

Before discussing the results, let me reiterate that research suggests a single failure in self-control (e.g., cheating on one’s diet) can increase the likelihood of future self-regulation failures.

This setback effect is more likely when a person believes the negative result was caused by stable, internal factors (e.g., genetics, personality traits, lack of intelligence, low ability) than unstable, external causes (e.g., bad luck). Why? Perhaps because these internal attributions result in reduced self-confidence and self-efficacy.

The two investigations by Broeke and Adriaanse examined whether an intervention targeting how one explains a failure can help prevent the setback effect. Participants were instructed to acknowledge and pay attention to external factors when faced with setbacks. The results were promising:

On average, compared to the control group, those in the experimental groups “failed their diets once less, and… procrastinated 93 to 105 min less over a period of 3 days.” Analysis of data showed this effect was “fueled by an increase in people’s self-efficacy.”

So, the technique of preparing for setbacks appears to work. But why should we not try to prevent setbacks instead? Partly because setbacks are common and cannot always be prevented. For instance, individuals in the control group “failed their diets approximately six times and procrastinated approximately 230 min over a time period of 4 days.”

So, preparing for setbacks may be more helpful than preventing setbacks—particularly for individuals who are perfectionists or have a rigid way of thinking about goal pursuit and are quick to give up after a single failure.

JerzyGorecki/Pixabay

Source: JerzyGorecki/Pixabay

Takeaway

Despite our best attempts to prevent self-regulation failure and stay motivated and focused (e.g., through goal setting or progress monitoring), setbacks can still occur.

While it is healthy and adaptive to take responsibility for a failure and aim to improve performance, blaming oneself—especially internal causes beyond one’s control (e.g., thinking that “I’m weak” or “I have no willpower”)—is dysfunctional and has a negative effect on motivation and self-confidence.

Blaming oneself is also often inaccurate because, in many situations, we underestimate—or are not even aware of—external factors that contributed to the failure. For example, you may not be aware of the effects of a medication, TV commercials, or friends’ eating behavior on your experience of hunger and ability to stick to a diet.

So, the next time you experience a self-control setback, try this approach:

  • Consider external causes.
  • Remind yourself of previous successes and your potential to succeed.
  • Refocus on the goal and try again.

In short, to overcome setbacks and stay motivated, expect the best, but prepare for the worst. That is the key to success.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-new-home/202203/new-research-how-overcome-setbacks

These local founders share what ‘entrepreneurship’ really means – UPSTATE BUSINESS JOURNAL – Upstate Business Journal

These local founders share what ‘entrepreneurship’ really means – UPSTATE BUSINESS JOURNAL – Upstate Business Journal

At one point in Oliver Stone’s ’80s classic “Wall Street,” the lead character declares he’s not content with his lot in life. He’s thinking bigger. He’s angling to be “an entrepreneur in the Italian 15th century sense of the word — a mover, shaker.”

The entire premise of “Wall Street” is that of a young, smart, hard-charging American businessman looking to get rich, quick.  But these Upstate entrepreneurs tell the Upstate Business Journal the entrepreneurial life is about humility and a whole lot of hard work, most of it while no one’s watching.

‘A humbling road’

Eric Cooperman
Bottle Titan President and Founder Eric Cooperman. Photo provided

Eric Cooperman had been thinking about it for years — a solution that would help eliminate alcohol spoilage wrought by a supply chain that is poorly designed to transport beer and wine across vast distances. In July, 2021, he launched Bottle Titan, a Greenville-based startup that, while getting a lot of positive attention from the Upstate’s startup ecosystem, is still just a startup.

“This is a whole new world to me,” says Cooperman, whose background is in the hospitality industry. “It’s definitely a humbling road to be on.”

Far from the idea of the “self-made, boot-strapping individualist,” Cooperman says entrepreneurship is not for the lone wolf.

“It’s easy to bring out your ego and power through — put your nose to the grindstone — and get things done, but you have to turn outward and relinquish that ego. You have to be vulnerable enough to raise your hand and say the one word a lot of people are afraid of, which is ‘Help.’”

He said even he has to remind himself he’s an entrepreneur from time to time.

“We see the ultra-unicorn entrepreneurs and they have a certain air to them and I don’t feel like I have that swagger, that air. I still feel like a fish out of water. Even now, people say I’m an entrepreneur. I still don’t feel like that’s entirely true and it may take a while to feel that.”

‘Embrace failure’

Eric Weissmann photo
Photo provided by city of Greenville

NEXT Upstate’s Eric Weissmann says a big part of demystifying the idea of entrepreneurship is in telling the stories that quite often aren’t told.

“People tend to think it’s easier than it is because they only see the end product,” he says. “But the end product didn’t just happen. People don’t see all the iterations of that business, all the work going on behind the scenes that made it happen.”

As executive director of NEXT, Weissmann is in a unique position to hear those stories, which, truth be told, involve as much failure as they do success. But it’s the willingness to go through the failures that help successful entrepreneurs thrive.

“Embracing failure is key,” he says. “Which is always a tough thing. But, it’s okay to fail, to have the mindset of ‘let’s see what happens.’ And it’s a very liberating mindset.”

Strong mental game required

Dionne Sandiford

Dionne Sandiford, owner of custom embroidery and screen printing company Corporate Stitch, says entrepreneurs rise and fall based on how well they fight the battle of the mind.

“You’ve got to have thick skin — you can’t get your feelings hurt, go home and lick your wounds,” she warns. “You can’t let mistakes cripple you.”  Instead, she says a founder must be willing to do the homework, do the research, know the competition, and adjust.

Not only that, she says being an entrepreneur is about believing in something bigger than oneself.

“My story is so heavily filtered and layered through my belief in God, it has to be part of my story, because when the bank account looked rough and I wondered why I’d left my corporate job, it was ‘Okay, God, it’s me and you, we gotta make it happen,” she says.

Oh, and money? Not the motivator many think it is.

“You cannot do this for the money, alone,” she says. “There’s not enough money. It doesn’t work that way. In the end, it’s knowing your purpose, what you were put here to do and doing it.”

https://upstatebusinessjournal.com/business-news/these-local-founders-share-what-entrepreneurship-really-means/

Refugees as entrepreneurs: what’s behind their success or failure? – London School of Economics

Refugees as entrepreneurs: what’s behind their success or failure? – London School of Economics

From brainwave to fruition, a successful entrepreneurial journey is theoretically determined by social networks and cognitive abilities. But how can entrepreneurial success be explained in the case of refugees, who leave everything (including human ties) behind, and whose skills don’t necessarily apply in their host countries? Yi Dragon Jiang, Caroline Straub, Kim Klyver, and RenĂŠ Mauer explain why some refugees still manage to create businesses and explore the specific ways in which they navigate the entrepreneurial process. 


“Narenj”, or orange in Arabic, is the name Nabil Attar chose for the restaurant he opened in the French town of Orléans in 2018. An engineer by training, Attar fled the war in Syria and eventually made it to France with his family, where they were granted refugee status. Now a successful restaurant owner, he has become a poster-child of refugee-turned-entrepreneur for the UNHCR (the UN’s refugee agency). How did he manage? The answer lies in a mix of factors: his passion for cooking, his networking at the Refugee Food Festival and his will to build a new life for himself. These factors, which can be formalised as knowledge (cooking), motivation (willingness to start over) and social networks, are precisely the ones my co-authors and I explore in a study of refugee entrepreneurs. Why this study? Entrepreneurship may not suit all, but it is definitely a crucial issue for the integration into the labour market of the almost seven million refugees who have made it to Europe over the past few years.

Exploring entrepreneurship after trauma

Entrepreneurial success is often explained through two elements:

  • Cognitive abilities (imagination, knowledge, motivation) which are thought to determine the ability to recognise opportunities and create new businesses.
  • Social networks, through which budding entrepreneurs engage stakeholders.

What the literature assumes is that entrepreneurs’ continuous flow of life and experience allows them to benefit from their accumulated cognitive abilities and social networks in producing opportunities. But individuals may be subject to life events, like the death of a loved one or the threat of violence, that can disrupt their flow of life. As a result of such disruptive events in their home countries, refugees often start their lives in host countries with impaired cognitive abilities and fractured social networks. Unlike ordinary entrepreneurs, refugees start the new venture creation journey without the benefits of local market knowledge and may experience isolation due to limited language skills.

And yet, a number of refugees do thrive in new venture creation. For example, even in an extreme environment like the Zaatari camp in Jordan, refugees in the camp created more than 3,000 informal start-ups, generating $13 million per month. How do they become entrepreneurs with such disruptive backgrounds? That’s what we set off to examine.

For our study, we collected data from 18 Syrian refugees in France, Germany, and Switzerland over four years and tracked 50 ideas and 354 related actions. We used a model of an opportunity-production process that organises entrepreneurial actions into three stages: conceptualisation (considering an idea about a new product or service), objectification (reaching consensus among knowledgeable peers about the viability of the idea) and enacting (engaging in actions to draw in stakeholders and turn the idea into a working venture).

The four patterns of entrepreneurship among refugees

Our analyses identified four patterns, which show the probability of the entrepreneurs’ moving from one stage to the next, the sequence of how they move across the process stages, and the continuity of the process. The patterns are as follow:

1. Stuck in conceptualisation

Some participants dreamed up multiple opportunity ideas but did not take up many follow-up actions to bring them to life. For example, one Syrian imagined creating an automatic translation and check-out chip for supermarket carts but abandoned after failing to find a mentor and investor for the idea.

2. Focus and low iteration

In this second group, participants had a few focused ideas and followed a mostly fixed linear process, from conceptualisation and objectifying to enacting. The participants in this group did not attempt to iterate, i.e., return to a previous stage to improve on the viability of the idea.

3. Jump ahead and iterate backwards

The actions of these participants were unstructured, jumping straight from ideas to enactment before going back to objectifying. One example is a woman who used to run a trade company in Syria and tried to replicate her success in Switzerland by reaching out to her previous contacts in Syria before understanding the local market.

4. Enacting after early iteration

These entrepreneurs moved back and forth between conceptualisation and objectification several times before they finally closed in on a specific idea to enact, and then remained absorbed in the enacting stage until the opportunity was transformed into a product and tested by the market.

The key to success: embeddedness in the host country

Why such differences in patterns? We found that the degree to which the entrepreneurs “embed” in the home country versus the host country influenced the alignment of cognitive abilities and the use of networks. By embeddedness, we mean the extent to which people anchor themselves to a country’s cultural norms, values and learned routines. The concept is strongly related to temporality perceptions.

While navigating through the opportunity-production process, the entrepreneurs who followed patterns number 1 and 3 were mostly embedded in the home country. Although this provided them with quick access to resources and contacts, allowing them to generate ideas quickly, it was insufficient for producing useful opportunities in the host country context. These entrepreneurs were stuck in their past, all too eager to go back to Syria when the situation became stable again.

The entrepreneurs who followed pattern 2 were embedded in both countries, which helped them move forward. However, they were torn between past and present, and the combined information obtained from both home and host countries’ networks eventually confused the decision-making process.

Finally, the entrepreneurs who followed pattern 4 were mostly embedded in the host country, working on opportunity ideas that fitted the new context, and leveraging local contacts – an illustration would be Attar, who tailored his Syrian dishes to French tastes in his restaurant.

In conclusion, our findings are useful for refugees and support programs in the EU. Refugees need to focus on receiving coherent information from host countries so they can build new knowledge about what to do in the new context, and how. For example, training entrepreneurs in social skills and network-broadening strategies would be useful. Last but not least, our contribution around the importance of temporality has implications for non-refugee entrepreneurs in other disruptive situations, such as the Covid-19 crisis.

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Notes:

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2022/03/09/refugees-as-entrepreneurs-whats-behind-their-success-or-failure/

6 trends in global entrepreneurship | World Economic Forum – World Economic Forum

6 trends in global entrepreneurship | World Economic Forum – World Economic Forum

  • The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/22 captures entrepreneurial attitudes and trends, illuminating how entrepreneurs and the ecosystem has coped with the pandemic globally.
  • We highlight six emerging trends in entrepreneurship after COVID-19 based on over 150,000 survey respondents.
  • COVID-19 hit entrepreneurship hard, with fewer people starting new businesses and many established businesses failing. Yet some entrepreneurs are seizing new, emerging opportunities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all walks of life and entrepreneurs are no different. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2021/22 report captures entrepreneurial attitudes and trends in countries, illuminating how entrepreneurs and the ecosystem has been coping with the pandemic globally. We highlight six emerging trends in entrepreneurship after COVID-19 based on over 150,000 survey respondents (at least 2,000 respondents from each of the 47 GEM participating countries).

1. Positive entrepreneurial sentiment on opportunities suggests global recovery

There are clear indications of a global economic recovery reflected in positive entrepreneurial sentiments on finding new opportunities and starting a business. In 15 out of these 47 economies, more than half of those starting or running a new business agreed that the pandemic had led to new business opportunities. In 2020, this had been the case for just nine out of 46 economies. Similarly, in 2021, more than one in two entrepreneurs in 18 of 47 economies agreed that starting a business had become more difficult. In 2020, almost twice as many (33 out of 46 economies) had 50% or more of their would-be entrepreneurs agreeing that this was the case.

2. Entrepreneurial activity rates are still lower in most countries compared to pre-pandemic

GEM tracks entrepreneurial activity rates on an annual basis and a comparison of data across 2019, 2020 and 2021 show that entrepreneurial activity has yet to rebound to pre-pandemic levels in most countries. The decline has been more than a half in Poland, the Slovak Republic and Norway. However, there are exceptions, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, both of which experienced increases in entrepreneurial activity in each of the past two years. The following chart shows levels of Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) in each year for the 34 countries participating in GEM in each of 2019, 2020 and 2021.

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Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity

Image: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s 2021/2022 Global Report: Opportunity Amid Disruption

3. There is a rising trend of low-growth entrepreneurial activity

Through its Adult Population Survey (APS), GEM captures both entrepreneurial ambitions and growth expectations. Entrepreneurship is central to supporting job creation post-pandemic and high-growth businesses are crucial to achieving this objective. However, we observe a worrying trend of muted growth expectations among entrepreneurs. In a quarter of the economies studied, over half of those starting or running a new business expects to employ no one but themselves in five years. This may be indicative of high levels of “informal survival” businesses, hinting at new start-ups as a means of survival in the absence of alternate income opportunities owing to the pandemic.

4. There is a paradox between perceiving it as easy to start a business and intending to do so

We observe a tricky paradox in certain countries. While many adults perceive that starting a business in their country is easy, only a very small proportion are intending to start one. For instance, in the UK over 70% of respondents agree that it is easy to start a business in that country, however, less than 1 in 10 intend to start a business in the next three years. Similarly in India, over 80% of respondents agree that it is easy to start a business in that country. However, less than 1 in 5 adults expect to start a business in the next three years. In both these countries, over 50% of those seeing good opportunities to start a business report that fear of failure would prevent them from doing so. This suggests a need for informed policy-making to bring about cultural change to boost entrepreneurial intentions and provide more robust support to early-stage entrepreneurs.

5. Digitalization is rising among low-income countries and new entrepreneurs

Pandemic-induced restrictions and improving digital infrastructure have accelerated and increased the prevalence of digital technology adoption among low-income countries, where one in two new start-ups expect to increase the use of digital technologies to sell their products in the next six months. However new entrepreneurs embrace digital technologies more than established business owners in all but three economies: South Africa, France, and the Republic of Korea. There is a need for more incentives and/or training to invest in digital technologies to avoid established businesses being left behind as markets change.

The COVID Response Alliance to Social Entrepreneurs – soon to continue its work as the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship – was launched in April 2020 in response to the devastating effects of the pandemic. Co-founded by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship together with Ashoka, Echoing Green, GHR Foundation, Skoll Foundation, and Yunus Social Business.

The Alliance provides a trusted community for the world’s leading corporations, investors, governments, intermediaries, academics, and media who share a commitment to social entrepreneurship and innovation.

Since its inception, it has since grown to become the largest multi-stakeholder coalition in the social enterprise sector: its 90+ members collectively support over 100,000 social entrepreneurs across the world. These entrepreneurs, in turn, have a direct or indirect impact on the lives of an estimated 2 billion people.

Together, they work to (i) mobilize support for social entrepreneurs and their agendas; (ii) take action on urgent global agendas using the power of social entrepreneurship, and (iii) share insights from the sector so that social entrepreneurs can flourish and lead the way in shaping an inclusive, just and sustainable world.

The Alliance works closely together with member organizations Echoing Green and GHR Foundation, as well as the Centre for the New Economy and Society on the roll out of its 2022 roadmap (soon to be announced).

6. Entrepreneurship education in school continues to fail

With its National Experts Survey (NES), GEM captures the view of experts from each participating country on entrepreneurial ecosystem conditions in that country. A very worrying trend here is that experts generally assess entrepreneurial education at school as failing. Of the 13 ecosystem system conditions tracked, Entrepreneurial Education at School was rated last in 39 of the 50 economies participating in the NES in GEM 2021. This could potentially have long-term consequences such as limiting creativity, cultivating a poor understanding of market dynamics, and non-leveraging of new venture creation intentions among adults in the future, in turn hampering economic growth. This ought to be an easy characteristic of the entrepreneurial ecosystem to get right – instead so many seem to be getting it wrong. Let’s make the 2020s the decade when Entrepreneurial Education in School went from being the worst to best rated of the GEM ecosystem conditions.

Conclusions

There is no doubt that the pandemic has hit entrepreneurship hard, with fewer people starting new businesses, and many established businesses failing to survive. Yet there are encouraging signs, as some entrepreneurs seize new and emerging opportunities, including for digital trade. There is much to do to support entrepreneurship, not least in creating role models demonstrating that initial business failure can be the springboard to future success. A good place to start would be in schools, where successive generations have been ill-prepared for a life of entrepreneurial activity.

License and Republishing

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/6-trends-in-global-entrepreneurship/

4 Ways to Manage Failure | Inc.com – Inc.

4 Ways to Manage Failure | Inc.com – Inc.

Rudyard Kipling’s line, “I never made a mistake in my life that I couldn’t explain away afterwards,” rings so true.

Failure is part of the creation process. The important thing is how we manage it. Here are four ways to manage failure.

Acknowledge failure wholeheartedly

Why should we acknowledge failure? What good comes out of it?

  • When we accept our mistake, we grasp the reality around the mistake. False justification blurs this reality and drapes it in harmful make-believe. 
  • When we show our vulnerability, we exhibit our humanness. We immediately become a receptacle they can trust to pour their shortcomings into. In other words, we instantly become more approachable.
  • When we admit a mistake, we prevent the situation from snowballing into something much bigger and less manageable. 

Don’t assign a fixed meaning to failure

Meaning is not written in stone. There may not even be such a thing as “absolute meaning.” It’s just opinions, observations, interpretations, or perspectives. We can all agree that the world is dynamic. If we stop attaching fixed meanings to experiences, we will be able to keep a better tab on our mistakes, failures, and accomplishments.

Perhaps it’s better explained through a parable. There were two patients. Both were diagnosed with respiratory distress and their doctors recommended a thorough examination. The patients were nervous about their fates.

Through a bizarre set of coincidences, their reports were swapped.

The first patient, who had a very minor bronchial inflammation, was informed that he had Stage 1 cancer. The second patient, who actually had cancer, mistakenly learned that he had mild bronchitis.

The guy with cancer, learning incorrectly that he had a mild respiratory problem, started recovering really well. He defeated the disease, at least in his mind, and went back to his merry-making ways (cancer being what it is must have caught up with him, but that’s another story).

The other guy, suffering from nothing but an elementary bronchial infection but thinking he had cancer, became really sad. He started withdrawing into a shell. He lost the battle in his head first, and then via a psychosomatic response of the body, began to exhibit worsening symptoms from inflammation.

This parable shows that we change according to the meaning we assign to situations, irrespective of what the actual truth.

Be creative around failures

One of Massimo Bottura’s employees dropped a dish and stained an expensive carpet. Bottura, owner of Michelin three-star restaurant Osteria Francescana, did not scold him nor cut his pay. Instead, he created a new dish called Oops! I dropped the lemon tart. This is an example of being impossibly creative around failure.

We appreciate a great book, a classic movie, or an intelligent design. What is common to them? They are all finished products. We enjoy watching Finding Nemo without ever imagining that in the draft stage, there were about 125,000 sketches, and most of them sucked.

Only by being creative around failure can we get a Jackson Pollock 360-degree view of it. Pollock was the first guy to paint with his canvas on the floor. This way, he could move around his painting, thereby gaining a 360-degree perspective.

Sometimes, for all we know, success may lie merely one degree beyond our angle of visibility. 

Think of failure as “one more plan that didn’t work”

“I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work,” said Thomas Edison, adding “when I have eliminated all the ways that won’t work, I will find a way that works.” 

Why is WD-40, a handy lubricant and rust protection solvent, named so? It is because the finished product was created after 39 failed attempts.

Why should we believe success owes us anything? Why should we think immediate success is our right? Why can’t we string together our failures positively and use them as a vestibule to reach success?

Failure is just one more plan that didn’t work. And when “one more plan” becomes too many in numbers, something starts clicking. Something beautiful emerges.

https://www.inc.com/inc-masters/4-ways-to-manage-failure.html

5 Ways Future Entrepreneurs Can Turn Vision into Reality – Entrepreneur

5 Ways Future Entrepreneurs Can Turn Vision into Reality – Entrepreneur

May 13, 2021 7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

When I was young, I always knew I wanted to be an . Most of my school friends wanted to be doctors, lawyers or firefighters. Not me: I was driven from childhood toward . I sold lollipops from my backpack when I was in grade school; being a serial entrepreneur was a gift from an early age. 

In spite of trying to find a ‘traditional’ field for my future career, I can recall sitting in an Accounting 101 class and tuning out because I imagined that someday, I would just hire an accountant. I wanted to use my vision and strengths to do what I was good at; then I would hire people who were more passionate about those subjects that didn’t interest me.

I’ve spent the past 20 years building multiple SEO businesses, and I still think of myself as more an entrepreneur than SEO strategist. I’ve learned a few things along the way (I’m still learning new things every day), and I’ve certainly made my fair share of mistakes over the years. So I’d like to encourage future entrepreneurs with I wish someone had shared with me when I was considering this journey of bringing my vision to reality.

1. Educate yourself beyond college courses

I went to college. I have nothing against college. But college is designed to teach you how to learn, not necessarily what to learn, so you can only gain so much. There are many other skills learned in college that help an entrepreneur, such as interpersonal skills, research skills and time management.

Learning is a life skill, and reading is the means to learning. Your interests will lead you to your own research, discovering relevant podcasts, following experts in the field and networking with like-minded individuals. 

One characteristic of successful billionaires (think , , ) is their voracious reading commitments. “Walk into a wealthy person’s home,”  states Rich Siebold in his book,” How Rich People Think, “and one of the first things you’ll see is an extensive library of books they’ve used to educate themselves on how to become more successful.”

To explore new areas of interest, or dig deeper into topics that fascinate you, immerse yourself in podcasts. They allow you to multitask while learning; you can listen while you drive, exercise or relax in the evening. They bring to your awareness and inspire and your entrepreneurial mind. It’s encouraging to hear people sharing about their ideas, successes and failures during a podcast conversation. 

Related: Listen Up! 4 Reasons Why Podcasts are One of the Best Life Hacks Around 

2. Foster your vision

I think everyone has big ideas, but not everyone has a true entrepreneurial spirit. Of all of the big ideas, maybe 95 percent of those ideas never get executed. Probably only 5 percent are the brave ones, the entrepreneurs, who follow their passion and bring their vision into a reality. Of those, I would estimate that only 1 percent actually see it all the way through. Following the entrepreneurial spirit is a risk, for sure, and many folks are more comfortable in the safety of a 9-to-5 job. 

That entrepreneurial spirit inspires vision. Vision to see something lacking in the world and finding a solution to solve that problem. It takes bravery to move beyond what one can see today, and the vision of a new solution for the future. There are obstacles to move beyond: fear, uncertainty, failure, financial means, inexperience. It takes bravery and wisdom to create a plan, seek guidance in areas of weakness and work the plan you’ve created. It comes down to believing in yourself and your vision and moving outside of your comfort zone.

3. Seek advice

Everyone starts at the same place: the beginning. None of us enter the business world having all of the answers. Most of us don’t even know which questions to ask to find the answers! The gifts of entrepreneurship are creative vision and tenacious drive. However, that comes with the challenge of not having the experience to ensure a clear vision and properly directed drive.

Building a team of advisers excels progress. Sir Isaac Newton stated the evergreen truth: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Having those who have experienced the ups and downs of success share their insights with me has been invaluable. I couldn’t be where I am today without them. And, the truth is, we never outgrow our need for advisers and mentors.

Related: You Need a Mentor: Here’s Where to Find One for Free

4. Never be the smartest person in the room

Humility goes a long way. I believe I can always learn something from every person I encounter. I practice asking questions during meetings and not just doling out answers. I hire the smartest people in their areas of expertise. Then I share my vision, empower them to lead and get out of the way.

You’ll know you’ve succeeded when your business is growing without you: When there are people, processes, systems and a community culture in place. It took me a long time to get there, but now I have an amazing team who are doing remarkable things! There’s nothing better than seeing your vision emerge into multiple businesses.

One of my core principles in life is that everyone is treated in the same way. An intern just starting out gets the same respect as a VP. It doesn’t matter where they are on their career journey, how much money they make or how much power they have. I never look at anyone differently. That matters.

5. Fail forward

Denzel Washington’s commencement speech about failure inspired me. He said, “Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.”  If we don’t try, we’ll never fail. If we don’t fail, we’ll never move forward. Have courage and try, even if it’s at the risk of failure: I call it failing forward.

Remember there’s a small minority of people who are willing to create their entrepreneurial vision and path. Every single one of them made a ton of mistakes. You’re going to make mistakes too, and that’s okay. You want to fail forward, and that means being 1 percent better each day than you were the day before. These actions create results that bring about momentum toward success.

Related: 4 Ways I Fail Forward on a Daily Basis and Why You Should Do the Same

I appreciate the mistakes I’ve made because I’ve learned from them, and they are now a part of this incredible journey that I have been on. Entrepreneurs have vision, see problems, create solutions and change lives. Learning from other entrepreneurs’ journeys helps facilitate the path of your success and mine.  

once said, “A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.” To all the future entrepreneurs out there, just know that your worldview will be vastly different 30 years from now. 

When you experience entrepreneurial success from bringing your vision to life, and look back through the lens of your decisions, mistakes and successes, my hope is that you pass along your encouragement and experience to help future entrepreneurs bring their vision to reality.  

Related: 4 Reasons You Don’t Necessarily Need a College Education to Earn Big
  https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/369796

Why Do Startups Fail? – BBN Times

Why Do Startups Fail? – BBN Times

Why Do Startups Fail?

Running the risk of failure is a common concern for most startups.

And it’s not surprising, according to CB Insights, 70% of newly founded tech companies fail. The reasons for breakdowns are different from the inability to satisfy market needs to burnout and budget issues. In 2021 the possibilities that a startup can run out of money faster or never find any fundings have become even more realistic due to the economic recession that started with Covid-19. 

On the bright side, there are startups that emerge and develop successfully even in times of crisis. For example, Cockroach Labs develop commercial database management systems, Funnel that provides SaaS for marketing and advertising, and many others. They managed to tap into their market niche, keeping their businesses afloat during the pandemics and even increasing their revenues.

In this article, we discuss why do most startups fail and find ways to avoid it.

Businesses Failure Statistics

3 Vital Business Setups

Before we dive into statistics, it’s important to realize that the risk of failure goes hand-in-hand with startups. The reason is the startups’ nature. It involves innovation and fast expansion. 

Innovation entails testing the newest technologies, products, and services that have never been tested before. 

Expansion involves quick business scalability due to exponential growth and requires much business flexibility. 

A startup represents a business experiment with great potential. This way, the more experimental and innovative a startup is, the riskier and prone to failure it is. This fact is backed up with statistics.

Startup Genome in its pre-pandemic report claims that 11 out of 12 startups fail. The highest risks of failure have early-stage startups. A large number of them don’t even get registered as a legal entity, being funded by the founders, their friends, or even family. However, if a startup manages to keep afloat in the market, it’s more likely to succeed in the future. The CB Insights discovered that 70% of startup tech companies fail in about 20 months after raising their first financing. 

If a startup failure rate is so high, why do businesses still invest in them? 

The reason can be found in statistics again. Investopedia states that one successful startup can offset the costs of the failed ones. It means that if we take 100 startups, 10 successful companies will cover up the investments on 90 failures. Therefore, startup investors aren’t afraid to lose the money they invest in startups. However, for startups to attract investments they have to present a viable idea, long-term development plan and show ambition and enthusiasm about their product.

Reasons Startups Fail and How to Avoid Them

3 Proven Methods to Get Startup Funding

The reasons for startups’ failure can be divided into three categories related to work with customers, company culture and stakeholders, and lack of investments and resources.

1. Startup/Customer Relationship

According to CB Insights, the main reason why most startups fail is the absence of the market need. It means that startups’ products or services don’t address the pain points of their target audience and, as a result, fail to fit in the market.

Poor product design is another customer-related issue. It often occurs when startups ignore their customers’ feedback. Instead, they build a cool product for themselves, failing to adapt them to their customers’ needs.

To avoid these challenges effectively, startups should spend a sufficient amount of time on careful market validation. They need to investigate the market, decide who is the target audience, and pivot timely. For this, they can develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) prior to the main product release. 

A properly built MVP can help startups discover serious mistakes at the start, allocate budget more accurately and build only the necessary app functionality, shorten the product’s time to market, and better adjust it to end-users.

2. Company Culture and Stakeholder Issues

Apart from marketing problems, startups can encounter inner policy, staff, and operational constraints. For example, when a company collapses as its founding team can’t create a viable MVP due to hiring staff with low or irrelevant qualifications and no clear product development plan.

Other issues can include the lack of communication and coordination in a team, or between the founders and investors. For example, troubles in partnership deals, new product releases, and overall organizational structure. 

Some startups can suffer from losing focus after the first unsuccessful product release, diminishing interest in further business development. 

Another essential element for a successful startup is a properly chosen technology stack. The software development market offers a wide range of tools that startups can use for their apps. Some tools can be more suitable and efficient than others and their choice depends on the industry or technologies embedded in the product. Therefore, they should have a good understanding of which instruments they need to build their apps. 

Startups can easily avoid a vast number of staff and inner operational issues by utilizing IT outstaffing services. This effective approach allows hiring knowledgeable marketing and technical teams who have extensive experience in product development and high organizational skills. This way, you’ll get a team of highly qualified specialists who are ready to solve even the most challenging startup issues.

3. Lack of Investments and Resource Problems

A common startup issue is a lack of investments and wasteful use of resources. Raising funds is always difficult. Startups have to put much effort into getting potential investors interested in their idea. To make it more attractive, startups have to elaborate on their business plan and marketing strategies. The idea has to be clear and simple for investors to believe in it. 

Although some startups manage to find the necessary investments many of them fail due to their irrational use. For example, they can invest in unnecessary product functionality or use wrong development strategies. The strategies can include hiring full-time development teams when the budget is tight or outsourcing too complex functionality to a freelancer who doesn’t have enough qualifications for building it. 

One of the effective ways to solve staff and spending issues in a startup is to develop a detailed resource plan. A resource plan helps companies to hire a sufficient number of employees and allocate their budgets wisely. For this, startups often consider various engagement models for hiring highly skilled specialists from outsourcing companies, or any other strategies. 

Key Takeaways

If a startup successfully tackles business development problems at its launch and first year of survival, it doesn’t mean that later it won’t face serious obstacles. To minimize the possibility of failure startups should:

  • carefully test their business assumptions – usually, startups require 2-3 times longer validate the market than they expect;
  • precisely estimate their value of the intellectual property – they tend to overestimate the idea before it hits the market;
  • make shifts in their business strategy to test their business model or product from a new angle after receiving customer feedback;
  • hire professional teams with relevant experience for effective, well-timed, and affordable development;
  • carefully choose the tech-stack for the built digital solution;
  • precisely elaborate their business plan to avoid inconsistent development.

Conclusion

Business Advice for Startups

Building a startup has always been a risky business no matter if it’s an economic boom or a recession. In hard economic times, there is still a wide range of investors who are ready to put their money in startups. To attract these investments startup businesses have to work carefully on their products and clearly present their ideas in the investment market.

However, if startups manage to raise funds, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their project will work smoothly. Startup businesses will have to solve many other issues, including taking the right product marketing steps, establishing strong and knowledgeable teams, and streamlining inner workflow.

https://www.bbntimes.com/companies/why-do-startups-fail

2 Historic Business Flops by Legendary Entrepreneurs Reveal a Poignant Truth About Failure – The Epoch Times

2 Historic Business Flops by Legendary Entrepreneurs Reveal a Poignant Truth About Failure – The Epoch Times

In this essay, I want to tell readers about two of the last century’s big and fascinating business failures. But first, some related insights.

In her 2008 commencement address at Harvard University, “Harry Potter” author J. K. Rowling famously asserted, “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.”

So many well-known businesspeople failed before they succeeded or failed at something after they succeeded. Learning from failure is a cardinal rule of entrepreneurship. The difference between a bad entrepreneur and a good one is not failure, but rather, allowing failure to sink you or to teach you. The motivational speaker Dennis Waitley said: “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

Risk is unavoidable in an ever-changing and uncertain world. You cannot avoid failure by trying to avoid risk. You will simply fail in the effort and reduce your chances for success.

The entrepreneur assembles factors of production in the present and hopes that his decisions will be validated by the future market conditions he anticipates. But not even the smartest human being knows everything about the tomorrow that has not happened yet. Risk of failure is inherent in any investment in an uncertain future.

Like his father before him, candy maker Milton Hershey flopped multiple times before he prospered. So did cartoonist, filmmaker, and theme park pioneer Walt Disney. Being good entrepreneurs, they didn’t give up. They learned and they persevered.

Reasons for failure include poor planning or poor implementation of a plan, undercapitalization, managing people badly, lousy marketing, innovating too slowly, underestimating the competition, being overwhelmed by the unforeseen, or simply failing to learn from previous failures.

You can fail because you didn’t think big enough. You can fail because you thought too big. And you can fail for any number of reasons and sizes in between.

This excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s April 1910 “Man in the Arena” speech in Paris provides me with the perfect segue to the rest of this essay:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

The two business flops I want readers to know about featured two North American entrepreneurs operating decades apart but in the same South American country—Brazil. The first was Henry Ford, the second was Daniel K. Ludwig. To borrow again from Roosevelt, they dared greatly.

henry ford
henry ford
Inventor and industrialist Henry Ford (1863–1947) sitting at his desk in his office in Highland Park, Mich. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Ford’s name was known everywhere a century ago and likely still is today. When the last Model T rolled off his assembly line in Michigan in 1927 (making way for its successor, the Model A), he had sold 15 million of them for an average of a few hundred dollars apiece. By enriching so many people with the first mass-produced, affordable automobile, Ford became rich himself. But solving problems was always more interesting to him than making money. Dealing with a British rubber monopoly was the problem that gave him a big idea.

Knowing that Brazil’s Amazon region was packed with rubber trees that produced the latex he needed to make automobile tires, Ford set his sights on building his own rubber operation there. He negotiated with the Brazilian government, and in 1927, he finalized an agreement by which he secured 2.5 million acres along the Tapajos River, a hundred miles south of where it flowed into the Amazon at the city of Santarem. In exchange, he would have to give the government a 9 percent share of the profits. The centerpiece of the project would be a new town, which the auto magnate christened “Fordlandia.”

Talk about thinking big! The man from Dearborn envisioned not only a massive rubber-producing operation 4,000 miles from home, but also a utopian village where his Midwest American values would transform a foreign society. It was a Herculean challenge in every way—logistically, environmentally, culturally, and economically.

It took a small fortune and only six years before Fordlandia collapsed. The Brazilian workers disliked American food and cared even less for Ford’s ban on alcohol (even in their own homes). Bugs and diseases did not approve of the rubber trees Ford’s managers planted. Fordlandia closed and Ford moved operations upriver but within a decade, those shut down, too. The invention of synthetic rubber in the 1940s made natural rubber obsolete.

Ford’s grandson Henry II sold everything back to the Brazilian government in 1945 for a loss, in today’s dollars, of nearly $300 million.

Daniel K. Ludwig (1897–1992), also a Michiganian, never gained the notoriety of Henry Ford but that was fine with him. He deliberately shunned the limelight his entire life. His Brazil project in the 1960s and ’70s, though, was just as spectacular as Ford’s.

daniel k ludwig
daniel k ludwig
Entrepreneur Daniel K. Ludwig (1897–1992). (Public domain)

Ludwig’s first entrepreneurial venture took the form of transporting lumber and molasses on freighters plying the Great Lakes. He was just 19 when he started the company. Over the next half century, he built one of the world’s largest fortunes by mastering the businesses of shipping (he practically invented the supertanker), hotels, insurance, orange groves, oil refining, and cattle ranching.

At the age of 70, long after he could have retired to a life of luxury, Ludwig came up with his big Brazil idea. He bought 4 million acres not far from the ruins of Fordlandia and planned to build a pulp paper mill. But first, he would create a model community called Monte Dourado and develop local agriculture to feed the inhabitants he hoped would work in the mill.

A tall order grew much taller when Ludwig decided that rather than construct the mill from scratch on site, it was more feasible to build it in Japan and ship it across the ocean to Brazil. That’s right. He built an entire paper mill in Japan and towed it in two giant pieces all the way to Brazil, and then hundreds of miles up the Amazon.

Perhaps it tells you how unentrepreneurial I am that the thought of such a venture would never have occurred to me, at any age. But I am grateful that there are people in the world who are obviously more courageous and more visionary than me.

Once the plant was assembled in 1979, it began producing 750 tons of cellulose every single day. Nonetheless, the project as a whole yielded losses that forced Ludwig to sell it all to Brazilian investors in 1981. He devoted the remaining decade of his life to financing cancer research, donating hundreds of millions of dollars for that purpose.

What are we to make of gargantuan gambles like Fordlandia and Monte Dourado? The small-minded will be quick to criticize, to be sure. They are probably the same people who dismiss the dreams of present-day entrepreneurs to explore the deepest ocean floor or to colonize Mars. From me, however, you won’t hear anything but an encouraging word when someone thinks big (especially if he does it with his own money).

I am sure that neither Ford nor Ludwig ever tried to fail. It is not a difficult task if you think about it. I am also sure that neither man enjoyed it when it happened. But I am also certain that they did not fear it. Ford himself once said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

Do not be afraid of failure. Be prepared to learn from it. Do not fail to take a risk because you are afraid the dream might not succeed. If fear of failure were all it took for humans to fail to act, wouldn’t we still be living in caves? When great men like Ford and Ludwig take big chances, it inspires others to take chances too, big and small.

I do not sneer at failures like the two I have written about here. I marvel at them and wish that I had half the courage to try such remarkable ventures. It is indicative of a spirit without which humanity’s existence would be dull and stagnant.

It is no compliment to be among “those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” 

“Milton Hershey Showed that Persistence is the Key to Success” by Lawrence W. Reed

“Failure Made Disney Great” by Lawrence W. Reed

“Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City” by Greg Grandin

“Fordlandia: Henry Ford’s Forgotten Rubber Empire Deep in the Heart of the Amazon” by Morgan Dunn

“The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig” by Jerry Shields

“Daniel Ludwig, Billionaire Businessman, Dies at 95” by Eric Pace

Lawrence W. Reed is FEE’s President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty, having served for nearly 11 years as FEE’s president (2008-2019). He is the author of the 2020 book, “Was Jesus a Socialist?” as well as “Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction” and “Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism.” Follow on LinkedIn and Twitter and Like his public figure page on Facebook. His website is LawrenceWReed.com

This article was originally published on FEE.org

https://m.theepochtimes.com/2-historic-business-flops-by-legendary-entrepreneurs-reveal-a-poignant-truth-about-failure_3806624.html

Unravelling the startup culture – The Nation

Unravelling the startup culture – The Nation

Globally, startup culture has matured. However, for Pakistan, only the past few years have seen significant growth in the trend as various ventures raised significant funds to help the industry flourish. In 2020 alone, Pakistani startups raised $65 million, further encouraging the youngsters to step up on the entrepreneurial path, however difficult it may be.

Despite earlier ground realities such as the lack of entrepreneurial scope amongst the youth, the last decade saw young minds seeking to ‘start up’ something of their own. To support such young entrepreneurs, Pakistan has launched more than a dozen incubation centres, numerous accelerator programmes and investment platforms where entrepreneurial minds are trained, harnessed and given their first boost.

While undoubtedly our country has an abundance of talented and innovative minds, with optimistic cash flow now rolling in, the question of why this brilliance never reaches full potential comes up far too much.

Evidently, the reason why many startups crash before reaching the cultivation period is due to the approach of the entrepreneurs themselves. Many enter this sector thinking it will give them easy and fast cash since they will be earning on their own. In reality, the initial years are all about hard work, passion and dedication. After a few bumps in the road, many entrepreneurs retreat to stable income jobs and develop a fear of failure as their confidence is shaken.

Failure is a word that is hushed and brushed under the carpet in our conservative society as it negates success and growth. A failed idea, individual or startup is often met with humiliation and frowns and this massively discourages entrepreneurs from taking the first few steps, let alone trying again from scratch if they fail. Parents should be pushing their children towards creativity and thinking outside the box instead of promoting safe and risk free plans.

Outside of this inherent problem, there seems to be a serious lack of funding available for start-ups which prevents them from growing into established businesses. It is pivotal for entrepreneurs to attract enough investments to see their business take full flight. Unfortunately, despite having investment platforms, the raised funds are mostly not enough to help the business itself for the long term.

To top it up, well established companies in the corporate sector are always hesitant to invest their money in a new venture. A well-known reason behind this is the poorly strategised startup plans. A strong framework that has a smooth exit strategy at its maturity is a sound startup plan for large investors. Unfortunately, this is not the case with many infant businesses.

Planet N Group, Invest2Innovate, Techstars Ventures, Abraaj Group and Frontier Digital Ventures are amongst the few daring corporations that are taking steps to create a startup ecosystem. Two more big names known for their vision and innovative approach are Arpatech and DotZero, both of which have been at the back of some significantly successful startups.

Another notable name to highlight is the application, Careem. Belonging to humble beginnings itself, Careem now takes pride in cultivating entrepreneurial ideas amongst its employees, some of which have successfully managed to launch their own ventures.

While these corporations are working for the entrepreneurial journey, the education sector also needs to step up. The addition of entrepreneurship courses at an early stage of the academic curriculum, accurate training on how to set up a business and encouraging entrepreneurial ideas are some of the steps that can help youth kickoff startup plans.

When setting up a strong foundation in any sector, it is essential to rise above mediocrity and safe zones. Young entrepreneurs must have apt knowledge and evaluations tactics to step strongly into the market, and the education sector has a role to play as well. This is the point in history where Pakistan shifts its focus towards 55 percent of its under-19 population and cashes in on their potential. It is time we accept that we require new economic patterns and earning trends if the wish to compete in this fast-changing global environment.

https://nation.com.pk/11-May-2021/unravelling-the-startup-culture

2020 Most Disruptive MBA Startups: Stride Funding, Harvard Business School – Poets&Quants

2020 Most Disruptive MBA Startups: Stride Funding, Harvard Business School – Poets&Quants

MBA Program: Harvard Business School

Industry: FinTech / EdTech

Founding Student Name(s): Tess Michaels

Brief Description of Solution: Stride offers affordable, flexible financing via income share agreements (ISAs). With an ISA, students agree to pay a fixed percentage of their income for a specified number of years after graduation. Stride is currently focused on STEM and healthcare students across graduate programs and alternative education programs.

Key ISA benefits include:

  1. Affordable and flexible payments tied to earnings
  2. Downside protection (i.e., no payments when making <$40k)
  3. Shorter duration (<5 years vs. 10+ for traditional loans)
  4. Career resources (i.e., weekly content, placement partnerships, resume services, peer2peer networks)

Funding Dollars:  >$3.75 Million in Venture Capital

What led you to launch this venture?  As a first-generation graduate student entering Harvard Business School, I explored different financing options and realized once you add tuition, books, and housing, graduate school is incredibly expensive, so I sought better ways to align the cost and value of education.

With rising tuition costs and increasing unemployment rates (#thanksCovid), students are increasingly cautious about how to pay for school. Additionally, traditional loans are 10+ years in duration, inflexible, accrue interest while in school, and have misaligned incentives.

We sought to offer a short-duration, more flexible and supportive financing product to give students increased confidence about their choice to go back to school. We see the strong demand for ISAs especially in uncertain market environments like we have today. We’ve seen a 4x month-over-month increase in our application volume during Covid.

Education is key to mobility, and ISAs are a much better way to fund it!

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? 

* Impact: We have funded 95% STEM students, 85% women, and 75% under-represented minorities to-date.

* Scale: We’ve gained significant student demand and improved the effectiveness of our marketing channels. We’ve had over 2,000 ISA applications with over $60 million of ISA demand. We’ve successfully funded and on-boarded our first two cohorts of students in top STEM programs at schools like Columbia, NYU, Penn State, Northeastern, Rutgers, Texas Tech, Carnegie Mellon, etc. We are in the process of integrating and launching with a top 3 national STEM provider that serves over 1,000 students per year via ISAs.

* Product: We’ve fully built and launched our in-school ISA product. We offer an end-to-end solution from origination, pricing, underwriting, contracting, funding, and career support. In 2019, we did an asset acquisition of another ISA player (Base Capital), including a proprietary python-based pricing model incorporating millions of resumes increasing our analytics capabilities and competitive moat.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? HBS offers unparalleled access – access to inspiring professors, dedicated mentors, top investors, and diverse peers. I’ve learned from professors how to scale a tech venture, build a brand, value our business, and learn from entrepreneurial failure. I’ve gained mentors organically, such as Tina Sharkey (founder of Brandless) who was a speaker in my Creating Brand Value course who then became an advisor, operating capital investor, and ISA capital investor.

I vetted and launched Stride during HBS ‘Start Up Bootcamp’. I gained office space and helpful mentors via the Venture Incubation Program and I was able to ideate with peers and advisors who kept us accountable on our timelines and milestones during the HBS Rock Accelerator. We had weekly meetings with Entrepreneurs-In-Residence and a set of peers going through parallel journeys.

Lastly, it was special to be on campus surrounded by students who experience the pain point we’re trying to solve daily. Several of my classmates were a part of the journey – Stride truly is “for students by students.”

What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? Peter Thiel was the founder who inspired me to pursue entrepreneurship. While at UPenn, I heard Peter give a talk after he released his book Zero To One. During his talk, he emphasized that being an “entrepreneur” is not a goal, rather pursuing a significant problem you’re passionate about solving and becoming an entrepreneur to do so is what creates meaningful businesses. Thus, when I personally experienced the pain point and saw the need for more flexible educational funding options, I went all in on building Stride. Also, he emphasized the importance of being bold and innovative – not just horizontal, incremental progress of going from 1 to n but vertical, transformational progress of going from zero to 1 – we strive to disrupt the traditional student loan industry!

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? My favorite class was Tech Sales given sales is such an undervalued yet critical skill regardless of the role we pursue post-graduation. The class was taught by two incredible professors and practioners, Lou Shipley (CEO of Blackduck Software which was bought by Synopsis) and Mark Roberge (SVP of HubSpot). The class was very hands-on with mock sales calls, sales interviews with local sales reps from reputable local firms (e.g., Toast), and guest speakers from relevant backgrounds.

Also, the case method at HBS is such an impactful, unique teaching approach. We learn from fellow peers who have collective experiences that far surpass any individual or any textbook – from the military to Tesla to early stage start-up and big corporations – who are invaluable to the learning experience.

The biggest lesson I learned was around the importance of inquiry vs advocacy: ask the right questions early. I constantly keep “BANT” (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) as key questions I want answered during early calls to ensure I know the best next steps and key stakeholders to effectively partner.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? I’m grateful for the number of highly engaged, supportive mentors I’ve gained at HBS. I have been able to meet professors with incredible networks who have given me great guidance and I’ve been able to learn from their careers. Professor Jeff Bussgang most directly influenced by HBS experience and journey growing Stride. He was my IP advisor for two semesters guiding me during Stride’s growth. He has introduced me to many VC investors, potential partners, advisors, and supporters of Stride. He’s been a big advocate for the business, forced me to think differently and bigger, and recently invested in our business. I appreciated his guidance beyond tactical facets of the business to more “soft” areas such as people management, hiring decisions, etc. Being an entrepreneur is a 24/7 job, and it’s great to learn from someone who’s been through that journey and came out stronger and wiser.

How did the pandemic impact your startup plans? During Covid-19, we have expanded our offerings, raised capital sooner, been more thoughtful on cash burn, and integrated virtual “bonding activities” to keep the team strong.

We have expanded our core business from just traditional schools to alternative education providers (e.g., coding boot camps) given the tailwinds in the space. Also, during recessionary periods, more people go back to school, and we help them do that through flexible and affordable Income Share Agreements (ISAs). More than ever, students need an advocate for their success after school; during COVID-19, Stride has been building a network of future employers, partnering with interview prep consultants and connecting students with one another for support.

We also raised more VC capital during Covid to ensure we have enough runway and we temporarily froze hiring to better manage the cash burn.

While we had to onboard interns virtually, we want the team to continue to feel connected, so we’ve integrated weekly bonding activities such as improv, game nights, trivia, etc. It has been a great way to keep everyone together – like a family – optimistic and resilient.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? Stride aims to elevate educational experiences and accelerate economic empowerment through affordable funding of higher education. That goal drove us to think more broadly about outcome-driven financing.

Over the next year, we plan to sign up and onboard over 1,500 students onto Stride’s platform. We’ll have grown the Stride community offering career support, mentorship, placement partnerships, and networking to ensure the best outcomes for students. Over the next five years, we will expand via new markets (e.g., alternative education partnerships, corporate upskilling, international grad students), and new products (e.g., refinance). This is Stride’s first product in the broader vision of making outcome-driven financing the future – we’re wholeheartedly focused on helping students hit their stride!

DON’T MISS: MEET THE MOST DISRUPTIVE MBA STARTUPS OF 2020

https://poetsandquants.com/2020/10/23/2020-most-disruptive-mba-startups-stride-funding-harvard-business-school/?pq-category=students

Belief Systems – You Have Been Conditioned To Be Mediocre – Business 2 Community

Belief Systems – You Have Been Conditioned To Be Mediocre – Business 2 Community

You Have Been Conditioned To Be Mediocre

Your belief systems are the result of early conditioning. The educational system in America is responsible for suppressing the flames of entrepreneurship as soon as we enter public school. Our educational systems has taught you to avoid any activity where there is a potential for failure. As a result, you have been conditioned to be mediocre.

As babies, when we learn to walk our first attempts, end in failure. With the encouragement of our parents, we were urged to try over and over again until finally, we manage a single step before crashing to the floor. After a few more attempts we string together 2 steps then 3 and so on until we master walking. As the saying goes “practice makes perfect” right. Then we go to school and are told that failure is bad. When we fail we are conditioned to feel bad and over time we learn to avoid conditions and situations where we might fail.

As adults, most people never try their hand at entrepreneurship because they do not believe it is possible to succeed. They choose to dwell on the small business failure rates as justification for their inactions. Occasionally, some might make a halfhearted attempt at a side hustle and when they experience their first failure they abandon it quickly and settle back into a life of mediocrity. They use the failure of their experience as a reinforcement of their belief system. It has been said that, “Beliefs drive our behaviors and that our behaviors lead to our results.” Beliefs are the cause, behaviors the effect, and success is the predictable result.

Successful entrepreneurs know their behaviors are driven by their beliefs and that it is their behaviors that allow them to succeed.

Recommended For You Webcast, March 26th: Deterministic Attribution for the Win: Why Classic Attribution Approaches Are Setting You Up to Fail
Register Now

Entrepreneurs approach each day with passion, purpose, and excitement, knowing that opportunities are unlimited. This mentality sets off a firestorm of events that lead them to bigger and better opportunities. They walk through life thinking they have the world by the balls and can create their own future that leads to behaviors that support their beliefs and motivates them to take actions that generate results.

“Abundance attracts abundance” the same as “scarcity attracts more scarcity”. As saying goes,

“If you think you can, you can, if you think you can’t, you’re right”.

Mary Kay Ash

If you are afraid of risk failure you will never act. If you believe you will be successful in business your operating with an abundance mentally and you are on your way to being successful.

All of us have everything we need to be successful in whatever we choose, but most people do not know it. Successful entrepreneurs do, that is why they are successful. Being successful is not rocket science. It all starts with what you believe.

Are your belief systems preventing you from being successful?


https://www.business2community.com/workplace-culture/belief-systems-you-have-been-conditioned-to-be-mediocre-02293350

4 Ways Do-It-Yourself Entrepreneurs Can (and Should) Keep Things Simple – Entrepreneur

4 Ways Do-It-Yourself Entrepreneurs Can (and Should) Keep Things Simple – Entrepreneur

If you’re new to the DIY business model, make sure to do things the right way to protect your sanity.

January 30, 2020 5 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The world of entrepreneurship can seem extremely complex. After all, entrepreneurs have a lot of different responsibilities on their plates. From developing products and services to managing contractors and marketing campaigns, the to-do list can seem never-ending.

Despite this, the oft-quoted cliche, “Keep it simple, stupid,” still has great meaning for entrepreneurs — especially those who bring a do-it-yourself attitude to their work. By streamlining your focus and keeping things simple, you will avoid getting stressed out and burned out. Here’s a guide for tapping into your inner DIY entrepreneur.

1. Focus on the one thing your business does best

One of the most common mistakes new entrepreneurs make is trying to be all things to all people. They want to provide an incredibly wide range of products and services in an effort to draw in a huge audience from their target industry. The problem is that this usually results in doing a mediocre job in a lot of areas, rather than doing one thing really well.
Continue reading “4 Ways Do-It-Yourself Entrepreneurs Can (and Should) Keep Things Simple – Entrepreneur”

Time Management Is About More Than Life Hacks – Harvard Business Review

Time Management Is About More Than Life Hacks – Harvard Business Review

Executive Summary

There is certainly no shortage of advice — books and blogs, hacks and apps — all created to boost time management with a bevy of ready-to-apply tools. Yet, the frustrating reality for individuals trying to improve their time management is that tools alone won’t work. You have to develop your time management skills in three key areas: awareness, arrangement, and adaptation. The author offers evidence-based tactics to improve in all three areas.


Maurizio Cigognetti/Getty Images

Project creep, slipping deadlines, and a to-do list that seems to get longer each day — these experiences are all too common in both life and work. With the new year resolution season upon us, many people are boldly trying to fulfill goals to “manage time better,” “be more productive,” and “focus on what matters.” Development goals like these are indeed important to career success. Look no further than large-scale surveys that routinely find time management skills among the most desired workforce skills, but at the same time among the rarest skills to find.

So how do we become better time managers? There is certainly no shortage of advice — books and blogs, hacks and apps, all created to boost time management with a bevy of ready-to-apply tools. Yet, the most frustrating reality for individuals trying to improve their time management is that no matter how effectively designed these tools might be, they are unlikely to work. Simply put, these tools presume a person’s underlying skill set, but the skills comprising time management precede the effectiveness of any tool or app. For example, would anyone seriously expect that purchasing a good set of knives, high-end kitchen equipment, and fresh ingredients would instantly make someone a five-star chef? Certainly not. Similarly, using a scheduling app without the prerequisite time management skills is unlikely to produce positive time management outcomes.
Continue reading “Time Management Is About More Than Life Hacks – Harvard Business Review”

‘I Never Thought It Could Happen to Me’ — How to Avoid Business Fraud – Entrepreneur

‘I Never Thought It Could Happen to Me’ — How to Avoid Business Fraud – Entrepreneur

Pyramids, Ponzis and beyond; beware the things we don’t think about that can do us in.

Elizabeth Holmes, founder and former CEO of Theranos.

January 27, 2020 14 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

It began with a private note from a dear woman friend who was more than 70 years old and recovering from the most recent of several hospital stints. I checked in on her, as I often do. When she responded, she gave me shocking news I would have never suspected. She had invested $300,000 in a program to create authority websites through a friend and his family who we have both known and worked with at various levels since roughly 2014.

“It’s awful,” she said. “Rapid growth, lack of communication. I invested $300,000, and it could all go down the drain.”

She suggested I write an article, not about the individual or company (plenty is being written by the traditional press). She wanted me to give insights on ways for people to protect their investments, especially when investing with someone they know and trust. This is that article, along with my thoughts on how to protect yourself as an entrepreneur from ever becoming guilty of getting into a situation like this yourself.

In the days since my friend’s email, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a complaint to the aforementioned company on December 27, 2019. All assets in this particular company are now frozen. The doors are locked, its 100 employees were dismissed without warning or severance in the final days of the year, and its assets are now in receivership. So, what went wrong?

Related: This Startup Raised $30 Million. Now, It’s Founder Is Accused of Fraud.

The company had assisted investors (some 500, to the tune of at least $75 million, according to the SEC) in buying or creating revenue-creating websites the company would build, maintain and host. The company would advertise and grow the Google authority and revenue of the sites at its own cost, and outside of a $1,000-a-month service fee to the investor, pledged to return either 50 percent of the revenue or, if revenue was insufficient to meet the return, guarantee the investor an annual return of 13-20 percent of initial investment, paid monthly.
Continue reading “‘I Never Thought It Could Happen to Me’ — How to Avoid Business Fraud – Entrepreneur”

The rise of extra-small businesses and the end of corporate jobs – Quartz

The rise of extra-small businesses and the end of corporate jobs – Quartz

Silicon Valley is obsessed with billion-dollar businesses. We are constantly hyping our unicorns—there are now more than 200 of them. As a result, it is easy to forget that 99.9% of US businesses are, in fact, very small. The US alone has more than 20 million XSMBs (extra small businesses). Firms with fewer than 20 employees are growing faster than any other category of small business, which together employ nearly 50% of the private workforce, and the ranks of the gainfully self-employed are swelling. Collectively, they are a force to be reckoned with.

As we transition to a more digital, distributed, and data-driven world, the future of work will be built not by the largest companies in the world, but by the smallest. If the past decade in tech was defined by unicorns, here are five reasons why the next decade will be shaped by XSMBs.

1. Working a regular job is no longer a reliable way to create wealth—but starting your own business is

Despite America’s reputation as a land of opportunity, social mobility is on the decline, with people born into low socioeconomic status more likely than ever to become stuck there. In 1940, 90% of young adults earned more than their parents. Today, only 50% of adults make more money than their parents.

Continue reading “The rise of extra-small businesses and the end of corporate jobs – Quartz”

The Top 5 Big Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Buying a Business – NuWire Investor

The Top 5 Big Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Buying a Business – NuWire Investor

If you’re looking to buy a business but new to the entrepreneurial way of doing things, buying a business can seem daunting at the very least. As a result, many buyers are prone to making mistakes with potentially serious consequences.

So to keep you heading in the right direction with your feet firmly on the ground, let’s look at the top five mistakes entrepreneurs are likely to make when buying a business.

  1. Overextending on finance to purchase

The lure of becoming your own boss can induce people to make bad decisions. It’s a common mistake to take on a serious debt commitment when buying a business. But you should never agree to buy any enterprise you cannot afford. Statistics suggest this is often the main reason for a business failure. After all, if you are overextended, you’ll have no operating cash to advertise and meet the everyday cost of running the enterprise. Consequently, you don’t secure enough customers to support your cash flow requirements and closure soon becomes the only option.

If you can’t afford to buy and run a business, it’s better to wait until your prospects improve or develop some kind of team strategy to share the financial burden.

Continue reading “The Top 5 Big Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Buying a Business – NuWire Investor”

How entrepreneurship can make you happier – The National

How entrepreneurship can make you happier – The National

There are certain things in my life that I like done my way, and one of them is how I manage my businesses. I like to start my day before sunrise, with a run and meditation exercises, followed by going over my to-do lists, checking emails and then meeting up with my clients. I’m also the type of person who performs extremely well under tight deadlines. I can wrap up my whole work day in just three hours if I had to and still accomplish everything I planned on doing that day. This simple control over my routine and how my work is conducted contributes greatly to my happiness.

Entrepreneurship can contribute positively to our overall well-being. One study… found that counties with a high concentration of small businesses have healthier populations than those who rely on large companies

Manar Al Hinai

A 2012 study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, found that graduates of their MBA programme, who started their own businesses, ranked themselves happier than those from other professions, regardless of how profitable their ventures were. Their work routines have a lot to do with it.

“There’s a sense that they have control over their own time, even if they’re putting in a huge number of hours,” Ethan Mollick, one of the participating researchers in the study, said.

Entrepreneurship can contribute positively to our overall well-being. A study by sociologists from Baylor University and Louisiana State University published, exploring 3,060 counties and parishes in the US, found that counties with a high concentration of small businesses have healthier populations than those who rely on large companies.

From my experience, I found that there are several factors that, when incorporated into your daily routine, will help you maintain satisfaction levels with your entrepreneurial experience:

Continue reading “How entrepreneurship can make you happier – The National”

Why Social Entrepreneur Kuda Biza Defines ‘Now’ as ‘No Opportunity Wasted’ – Entrepreneur

Why Social Entrepreneur Kuda Biza Defines ‘Now’ as ‘No Opportunity Wasted’ – Entrepreneur

Here’s how he’s fulfilling the purpose of entrepreneurship: to solve problems and improve lives.
January 24, 2020 7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In this series called Member Showcase, we publish interviews with members of The Oracles. This interview is with Kuda Biza, co-founder and CMO of Nunbelievable, co-founder of #ThisIsMyEra, and founder of the Amani Hope Foundation. It was condensed by The Oracles.

Who are you?
Kuda Biza: I build companies to solve the world’s biggest problems: education and hunger. My calling is to use business to impact lives.

My entrepreneurial journey began at 9 years old, cleaning my neighbors’ windows in Harare, Zimbabwe. In college, I launched a socially conscious clothing line with only $150, which has educated hundreds of African children. After college, I spent 10 years working for a Fortune 500 firm, bringing disruptive business opportunities to market and managing multimillion-dollar business lines. I also launched  #ThisIsMyEra, a social enterprise focused on personal development.

Today, as co-founder and CMO of Nunbelievable, I’m working with our customers to end the hunger crisis in a delicious way. Nearly 40 million Americans don’t know where their next meal will come from. So, for every batch of cookies we sell, one of those Americans receives a meal.

Share an interesting fact about yourself that not many people would know.
Kuda Biza: I learned Arabic for a bracelet brand I launched in Saudi Arabia years ago. During a visit to Guatemala, I saw these beautiful handmade bracelets and wanted to bring them to the United States. But they already had a U.S. distributor, so I asked their CEO if I could open doors for them in Africa and the Middle East.

My intern was from Saudi Arabia, so I bought 400 bracelets, and he moved home to sell them. In less than 48 hours, we sold every last bracelet at a bazaar. That’s when we knew we were on to something big. A few months later, we opened a store in the largest mall in Jeddah.
Continue reading “Why Social Entrepreneur Kuda Biza Defines ‘Now’ as ‘No Opportunity Wasted’ – Entrepreneur”

10 Great Leadership Skills For Project Management – Irish Tech News

10 Great Leadership Skills For Project Management – Irish Tech News

Stepped into a new leadership role? Want to make the most of your opportunity to lead a project team? Read about the 10 great leadership skills for project management.

A great number of projects fail. Among the many reasons, lack of effective leadership is one important reason. Before we dive into the 10 great leadership skills for project management, let us look at the statistics to understand the gravity of the situation.

As per the Project Management Summit survey, the failed projects cost Euro 580,000 on an average in Ireland alone. This research, involving 407 professions from various sectors, found that one-fifth of the projects taken by Irish organizations have failed recently.

Now, every failing project means a lot of hard work, money and time going down the drain. The above mentioned survey also highlighted the loopholes. The major reasons for failure are communication and organizational problems, scope changes, poorly defined objectives, etc.

Poor resource planning and lack of involvement of team members are other important causes.

The question arises, what difference can the right leadership skills make?

Well, a great leader can change the game because he believes in inspiring and not controlling. A leader works for passions and not for a paycheque. A leader works with a vision.

You might think but I am already passionate enough but still failing. What about that?

Well, the right intentions have to be matched with the right skillset. This is what I am going to reflect upon in this article. The objective is not to stay a manager but to become an effective leader to take every single project to success.

Continue reading “10 Great Leadership Skills For Project Management – Irish Tech News”

6 skills required to be an effective entrepreneur – Josep Vinaixa

6 skills required to be an effective entrepreneur – Josep Vinaixa

Becoming a successful entrepreneur is no easy-feat. In fact, it’s an industry and career that is often tainted with failure and misfortune. This is because a lot of people get into the world of entrepreneurs for all the wrong reasons. If you think this type of life is all about the luxuries, success, opulence and fancy venues, then think again. There’s a hell of a lot of hard work, dedication, long days, fatigue and, at times, burnout. So, if you think you want to become an entrepreneur, here are several skills you should master and hone, in order to get the most out of your chosen career.

Dedication

You can’t be a successful entrepreneur without being completely dedicated to your cause. There are no two ways about it. There are many great examples of real entrepreneurs that reflect such sentiments. Indeed, Amel, a young entrepreneur from Norway, has hundreds of thousands of YouTube followers, all because of his dedication to his business ideas.

There will be long days, a lot of meetings and a lot of backpedalling in order to achieve your goals. But at the end of the day, if you are dedicated to your goals and understand how to achieve them, you will find success.
Continue reading “6 skills required to be an effective entrepreneur – Josep Vinaixa”

An entrepreneur’s journey: Failure and resilience – Alaskajournal.com

An entrepreneur’s journey: Failure and resilience – Alaskajournal.com

Editor’s note: The following includes excerpts from the University of Alaska Center for Economic Development’s The Failure // Resilience Project brief, which explores elements of entrepreneurial failure via a combination of storytelling and research. The full brief is available at ua-ced.org/reports-and-projects. A companion film featuring 10 Alaskan entrepreneurs sharing their stories of failure and resilience will be shown at the Bear Tooth Theater as part of the One Course Discourse series on April 17 at 12 p.m., followed by a Q&A session with entrepreneurs.

Bill Popp had a stable job at Safeway and was on the management track. If he stayed the course, he was well-positioned to climb the company rungs—except he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay in Soldotna and own a music store.

After consulting with his wife (who also worked at Safeway) in October of 1990, Popp cashed out his 401(k), applied for and received an SBA-secured loan, and opened Toonz: an 800 square-foot music retail store with two employees.

Success happened fast.

“We hit a nerve with consumers, and blew out our inventory that first Christmas season. There wasn’t a piece of music left on the shelf after New Year’s Eve. We definitely found a market need that wasn’t being met until we came along,” Popp says.

Within three years, Toonz had grown to nearly six times the size of the original store, filled with music and books in Soldotna. Popp opened an 1,800 square-foot location in Homer, and between both stores, he employed 23 people.

In 1992, Popp was named the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce Small Businessperson of the Year and received a legislative citation for his work and philanthropy. Gross sales exceeded $1.1 million three years later.

“I was the Toonz guy,” says Popp. “The guy people went to for community contributions, the go-to music and books guy. It was happening.”

Then, it wasn’t.

Caught in a price war between box chain stores, Toonz was out of business by the end of 1996. In retrospect, it ended quickly, but Bill remembers it as a long and painful descent.

“We tried every marketing tactic, everything,” Popp says. “It staved off the inevitable but the sales volume kept going down and I didn’t recognize the truth in front of me. I kept thinking, ‘Tomorrow is another day, customers will see our value…’ but they didn’t.”

After closing, Popp made his final payroll and paid his taxes, but had to break his lease, resulting in filing for personal bankruptcy. He helped the banks liquidate his business and sell the assets, and was able to restructure debts to keep his home.

“It was crushing, and I was damn near clinically depressed. I invested every part of my being into the business, poured my blood, sweat, tears and passion into it. Toonz was inextricably intertwined with who I was,” Popp says. “And then after we went out of business I felt about two inches tall. I didn’t want to go out in public or see friends.”

Life went on, and Popp returned to work — this time for Fred Meyer.

“I may have failed in business but there’s no shame in honest work and I needed to do my part with my wife to take care of our family,” he says.

Working at the grocery store gave him a steady income and time to grieve his business closure until he finally made peace with it.

“I embraced the fact that I had just failed spectacularly, owned it, and wasn’t ashamed of it any more.”

Popp’s story is not unique; in fact, research shows that half of businesses fail during the first five years.

Continue reading “An entrepreneur’s journey: Failure and resilience – Alaskajournal.com”

1000 Entrepreneurs: Ken Aldrich on 30 Years of Venture Capital and 50 Successful Businesses – GuruFocus.com

1000 Entrepreneurs: Ken Aldrich on 30 Years of Venture Capital and 50 Successful Businesses – GuruFocus.com

Over the last three decades, Ken Aldrich has successfully invested in over 50 businesses and has personally co-founded almost a dozen himself. He considers himself a jack of all trades, having been involved in everything from biomedicine to real estate. Some of his most successful investments include helping start one of the first wind parks in Palm Springs and Green Dot Corp. (NYSE:GDOT), which has become the world’s largest prepaid debit card company. In May, Aldrich published his book, “Dream Toolbox,” which aims to guide readers toward establishing an entrepreneurial mind and gaining control over their financial world.

Before the business

Prior to entrenching himself as an entrepreneur, Aldrich started his career as a wage earner practicing law. He spent a great deal of time and effort to earn his law degree and land a spot in a well-established firm. With a clear career path ahead of him, Aldrich got to work earning his keep and establishing his position in the firm. However, one definitive moment stands out as the time when he became dissatisfied with his work.

This moment would revolve around sandwiches of all things. Working alongside one of the senior partners at the firm, Aldrich was helping to create a registration statement for a public company. At the end of the session that fateful day, the underwriters and the people from the company headed out to get dinner:

“At the end of the day the company and the firm that was doing the underwriting turned to us, the lawyers, and said ‘Well that was really good. Can we have a new draft of the work in the morning at nine and we will start again?’ Off they went to have dinner at Chasen’s and we ordered sandwiches,” Aldrich said.

To provide context for those who do not know the Los Angeles restaurant history, Chasen’s was a well-known restaurant that was often frequented by famous celebrities until its closing in 1995. Based upon the prestige of the restaurant’s chili, it is easy to conceive a distaste for sandwiches after a long day at work.

While in his 20s Aldrich did not have an issue eating sandwiches, yet he was thinking toward his future. “My partner, that I was working for, was in his 30s or 40s. I do not want to be the guy eating sandwiches in his 30s or 40s, and I do not care how much they pay me for it,” Aldrich said. It was in this moment that he decided that he would much prefer to be the guy going out for a nice dinner after work.

With clear motivation, Aldrich set out to find himself a new career path. He landed himself a contractual position at an investment banking firm. This provided him with some needed experience and training, alongside a foot in the door with a name behind him. This new venture would come with an inherent risk, one that Aldrich would feel almost immediately.

Continue reading “1000 Entrepreneurs: Ken Aldrich on 30 Years of Venture Capital and 50 Successful Businesses – GuruFocus.com”

Top 3 Obstacles Entrepreneurial Women Must Overcome – Entrepreneur

Top 3 Obstacles Entrepreneurial Women Must Overcome – Entrepreneur

Hurdles still remain before females gain true parity in business.

January 21, 2020 4 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There’s plenty of reason to believe 2020 is going to be the year of the female entrepreneur. The workforce is becoming increasingly diverse as more women, including women of color, seek to make their visions a reality and capitalize on it. A study commissioned by American Express reported that, as of January 2017, an estimated 11.6 million female-owned businesses generated more than $1.7 trillion collectively in revenue.

However, it’s worth noting that while startup life is obviously never easy, tackling it head-on as a female entrepreneur presents its own unique set of challenges. Thankfully, we are at the cusp of a shift, and these obstacles should soon be a thing of the past. But until then, here are three hurdles worth looking out for, and how to leap over them.
Continue reading “Top 3 Obstacles Entrepreneurial Women Must Overcome – Entrepreneur”

Finding value in failure: Entrepreneurs look back at failed ventures – Argus Leader

Finding value in failure: Entrepreneurs look back at failed ventures – Argus Leader

Chad Hatch
Chad Hatch (Photo: Submitted)

When it comes to inspiration, it’s often success stories that garner the most attention.

But a comment made by a local entrepreneur generated interest in an event that would highlight just the opposite: failure.

“The idea for Failure Fest originally came from Josh Sopko,” said Startup Sioux Falls Founder Matt Paulson. “He made the offhand comment, ‘What if we did something like 1 Million Cups, but told the stories of businesses that failed?’ I liked the idea, and the Startup Sioux Falls team ran with it to make it a reality.”

Failure Fest was held last week at the Museum of Visual Materials in downtown Sioux Falls. It featured 15-minute talks by two local entrepreneurs—Clint Brown, partner at Alluvio, and Chad Hatch, partner at Bird Dog Equity—with time for questions afterward.

Continue reading “Finding value in failure: Entrepreneurs look back at failed ventures – Argus Leader”

The failure in pressuring kids to succeed – Miami’s Community Newspapers

The failure in pressuring kids to succeed – Miami’s Community Newspapers

“Don’t be afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still…” – Chinese Proverb

At a recent Career Day at an Atlanta elementary school, I was asked to present four 20 minute Student Success Project “Real Life Talks” throughout the day. Twice, out of the four sessions, the problem of their parents pushing them too hard was discussed. And this was in elementary school! It’s not out of the mouth of babes but rather from the already frazzled minds of young students.

WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE

Our kids (all grades) are embedded in a culture driven by competition and perfectionism, where success is defined by status, performance and appearance. These values are transmitted to our children nonverbally through our emotional reactions, what we pay notice to, are impressed with, and praise or discourage in them.

Continue reading “The failure in pressuring kids to succeed – Miami’s Community Newspapers”

Why Being Kind to Yourself Is Key to Entrepreneurial Success – Entrepreneur

Why Being Kind to Yourself Is Key to Entrepreneurial Success – Entrepreneur

Once we silence our inner critic, we’re free to live on our own terms.

January 19, 2020 6 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” — Jack Kornfield

I remember sitting in the middle of a tech conference years ago when I first founded my company, JotForm. I watched as, one by one, established entrepreneurs took turns in sharing their stories of success. Every time one would get up to speak, I heard this small, nagging voice in my head tell me: You’re not good enough.

I had fallen into the trap of comparison and self-pity, which then led to a snowball effect of self-criticism. Why can’t I reach my goals faster? Why am I the only one struggling to scale up my startup?

Not only was I beating myself up over my perceived shortcomings, I wasn’t seeing the whole picture.

It was only after a few days had passed and I’d had some distance from those initial negative feelings that I was able to see the situation for what it was. Those entrepreneurs have been at this longer than I have. I can’t possibly know all of the struggles and challenges they’ve faced along the way. No one is perfect.

This wasn’t the first or last time I felt this way. During the course of building my startup, I’ve had to learn to stop listening to my harsh, judgmental inner voice. It’s ultimately taken me 13 years to stop being my own worst critic and cultivate more kindness toward myself.
Continue reading “Why Being Kind to Yourself Is Key to Entrepreneurial Success – Entrepreneur”

Bend’s Picky Bars goes through its paces | Business – Bend Bulletin

Bend’s Picky Bars goes through its paces | Business – Bend Bulletin

Had someone asked Jesse Thomas a little more than a year ago if his energy-bar company, Picky Bars Inc., would turn a profit, he would probably have scoffed.

Thomas thought the end was near: major disruptions in manufacturing, $200,000 worth of rancid product that needed to be tossed, a depleted inventory and the loss of six employees. He and two partners, Lauren Fleshman and Steph Bruce, were out of money.

Flash forward to today, and the 39-year-old triathlete sees a rosy picture for his nearly 10-year-old company that makes nutritional bars, oatmeal and granola for athletes.

“2018 was the worst year, and 2019 was a great rebound for us,” Thomas said from his Box Factory distribution center. “2019 was also my worst year athletically, but that then subsequently allowed me to work on the business.”

Between the rancid rice protein used in his energy bars and running out of stock for two months, the company sustained a loss upwards of $450,000, he said.

“For a company our size, that’s a lot of money,” Thomas said. “It was everything and more.”

It’s not an unheard of scenario, said Oregon State University-Cascades business professor Julie Ann Elston. Nearly three-fourths of all entrepreneurial ventures end in failure. The No. 1 reason for failure across all industries is a lack of capital, Elston said.

“It’s really hard,” Elston said. “It’s just as hard to start a small business as you’re becoming an elite athlete. There are millions of ways you can fail.”

Continue reading “Bend’s Picky Bars goes through its paces | Business – Bend Bulletin”

12 Mental Health Hacks for Entrepreneurs – Thrive Global

12 Mental Health Hacks for Entrepreneurs – Thrive Global

There’s a mental health crisis among entrepreneurs. And, that shouldn’t be all that surprising. Being an entrepreneur is stressful, full of uncertainty, unhealthy comparisons, and social isolation. It’s gotten so bad that research conducted by Michael A. Freeman has found that start-up founders are:

  • Twice as likely to suffer from depression.
  • Six times more likely to suffer from ADHD.
  • Three times more likely to suffer from substance abuse.
  • Ten times more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder.
  • Twice as likely to have a psychiatric hospitalization.
  • Twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts.

These are concerning stats for all businesses. It’s time that we begin to remove the stigma around mental health so that we can address the struggles that entrepreneurs are facing. But, until we reach that point, here are twelve ways that founders can begin improving their mental health.
Continue reading “12 Mental Health Hacks for Entrepreneurs – Thrive Global”

From Failure to the Future – How Aquamarine Hopes to Succeed on Kickstarter – TechRaptor

From Failure to the Future – How Aquamarine Hopes to Succeed on Kickstarter – TechRaptor

Way back in 2018, I went to New York’s only dedicated gaming convention, Play NYC, with several other colleagues from TechRaptor. Among the many games I found was Aquamarine, a pretty little survival game with a retrofuturistic aesthetic, chill music, and beautiful art. Patric Fallon of Moebial Studios left a career in music journalism to make his dream come alive and he seemed pretty darn passionate about it.

That game soon made its way to Kickstarter in late 2018, but it didn’t manage to make its goal. Now, Fallon is bringing his game back to Kickstarter after more than a year of hard work and a couple of new developers added to the team. I had a chat with him over email about what happened and what’s in store for the future of Aquamarine and Moebial Studios.

Aquamarine Moebial Studios Disc

Continue reading “From Failure to the Future – How Aquamarine Hopes to Succeed on Kickstarter – TechRaptor”

How to turn a WhatsApp thread into a flying start-up – BusinessCloud

How to turn a WhatsApp thread into a flying start-up – BusinessCloud

Sylvia Brune has spent her whole life travelling.

Raised by missionary parents, she lived in Asia for a time during childhood but regularly found herself in a new country as the family upped sticks. In attempt to create some stability, at age 15 she moved to her aunt and uncle’s in Norway – only for her uncle to secure a new job which took them Ethiopia.

Brune opted to travel with them to Africa before attending university. Following graduation, she joined consultants McKinsey in Denmark with a clear plan to climb the career ladder.

But thoughts of finally settling down were soon discarded as she and McKinsey realised she was “a rubbish assistant”.

“There were a lot of things that I was supposed to do that I didn’t really see the point of, so I was selective. Apparently, in that role, you’re not supposed to be selective!” she told BusinessCloud.

Not even being aware of what an entrepreneur was at this point, she nevertheless volunteered to arrange an award ceremony for entrepreneurial ideas.

After interviewing the nominees, Brune was left inspired by their energy and wanted to match it by becoming an entrepreneur herself. She just needed a good-enough idea.

“The entrepreneurial bug just kind of bit me, and there was no going back,” she said. She joined Kenyan-based investment fund accelerator programme 88mph – which takes its name from the speed the DeLorean must travel to instigate time travel in Back to The Future – and stayed with the firm for four years, helping to invest in African web technology companies.

Continue reading “How to turn a WhatsApp thread into a flying start-up – BusinessCloud”

Tesla’s New Broken-Glass Cybertruck T-Shirt Is Everything You Love About Elon Musk – Inc.

Tesla’s New Broken-Glass Cybertruck T-Shirt Is Everything You Love About Elon Musk – Inc.

Tesla‘s newest product is a T-shirt emblazoned with an image of the broken Cybertruck window from the vehicle’s launch event that went spectacularly awry. As you likely know, Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen threw metal balls at the Cybertruck’s windows onstage. They were supposed to bounce off, but the windows broke instead. Selling T-shirts to commemorate the moment is a classic Elon Musk move.

What did you do the last time you had a huge and humiliating public failure? I’ll bet whatever it was, it didn’t involve printing up thousands of T-shirts with a picture of that failure front and center. That’s what makes Musk so delightfully different from you and me.

When I first started learning about, and writing columns about, Musk, I quipped that Tesla was less a company than it was a cult of personality. I still think that’s true, but over time I’ve become a willing member of the cult, and things like that broken-window T-shirt are a good illustration of why. Here’s what that new product tells us (not that we didn’t already know) about the company’s quirky leader.
Continue reading “Tesla’s New Broken-Glass Cybertruck T-Shirt Is Everything You Love About Elon Musk – Inc.”

Why Business Growth Relies on the Acceptance of Negative Space – Business 2 Community

Why Business Growth Relies on the Acceptance of Negative Space – Business 2 Community

I love negative space.

Designers everywhere know about the hidden images within the Toblerone and FedEx logos that unlock the subliminal power of the brand’s purpose. Less well known are the logos of The Food Writers Guild, Spartan golf clubs and ED (Elettro Domestici). Look them up, discover the power of Gestalt in design and open the door to a whole new conversation starter…

These designs and the thinking behind them serve to remind me that there is negative space in just about everything we do, or to be more specific in the things we don’t or can’t do.

Continue reading “Why Business Growth Relies on the Acceptance of Negative Space – Business 2 Community”

MyPillowÂŽ Inventor Offers Hope To Addicts In New Memoir – Southernminn.com

MyPillowÂŽ Inventor Offers Hope To Addicts In New Memoir – Southernminn.com

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Mike Lindell, Inventor and CEO of MyPillowÂŽ, is celebrating 11 years of sobriety today with the release of his new memoir, What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO. The book brings full circle a promise that Lindell had been making for years to friends and fellow addicts that one day, he would help them and others struggling with addiction.

In his memoir, Lindell recalls a defining moment when he had been awake for 14 days straight. His drug dealers intervened and put out the word that no one was allowed to sell to Lindell.

“You’ve been telling us for years that this pillow thing is some kind of ‘platform,’ and that you’re gonna come back here and help us get out of this drug life,” Lindell recalled his dealer saying.  “Well, we’re not gonna let you die on us. You’re going to bed. You ain’t got no choice.”
Continue reading “MyPillowÂŽ Inventor Offers Hope To Addicts In New Memoir – Southernminn.com”

One-Man Company Owner To One Of The World’s Richest: Journey Of Jeff Bezos – Entrepreneur

One-Man Company Owner To One Of The World’s Richest: Journey Of Jeff Bezos – Entrepreneur

“One success and one winner can pay for dozens and dozens of failure. And that’s why you should fail,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

January 16, 2020 4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You’re reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

A young man in 1994 had an idea to use the World Wide Web to sell books online. To pursue this idea he gave up a secure job despite his boss’ cautioned remark, “It actually sounds like a really good idea to me but I think it would be a better idea for somebody who didn’t already have a good job.” He packaged and delivered books himself at the start of his entrepreneurial journey before being named the “richest man in modern history” in 2018 by Forbes, an American business magazine. He made a net worth of $150 billion. The man is Jeff Bezos, founder of e-retail giant Amazon.

Bezos just asked one question to himself that was enough for him to give up his lucrative job before taking the plunge to start Amazon. “I pictured myself 80 years old and thinking back on my life, would I regret leaving this company in the middle of the year and walk away from my annual bonus and all those things,” said Bezos at an Amazon India event called Smbhav. He said that the answer to this question was “not really”. But he would definitely regret not trying the idea he had in his mind.

L to R: Amit Agarwal, Amazon India Head in conversation with Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon Inc at Smbhav (an Amazon India event held on January 15)
Continue reading “One-Man Company Owner To One Of The World’s Richest: Journey Of Jeff Bezos – Entrepreneur”

Guest Opinion: A modest proposal: Education as an equalizer – Brainerd Dispatch

Guest Opinion: A modest proposal: Education as an equalizer – Brainerd Dispatch

Education is an equalizer. Children, no matter their socio-economic status, race, or background, when educated, can leverage opportunities never imagined. Education is critical to reducing racial disparities, income gaps, fostering entrepreneurial endeavors, innovations, medical solutions, building a future workforce, and so much more. Achieving the American dream begins with an education, and all children should have the right to receive a quality education.

Yet, it is not very promising when only 55% of our third-graders can read at grade level, continuing a downward trend since at least 2015. Nor is it very promising when only 45% of our high school juniors are proficient in math, yet we graduate 83% of our high school seniors.

Some of our children in Minnesota are obtaining an average or even great education, but not all of our children. Many of our children are failing and thus almost ensuring a lifelong path of poverty, underachievement, and bouts with the criminal justice system. Now is the time for bold reform.
Continue reading “Guest Opinion: A modest proposal: Education as an equalizer – Brainerd Dispatch”

Challenges to women entrepreneurs – The Express Tribune

Challenges to women entrepreneurs – The Express Tribune

Pakist­an will also have to improv­e the system to achiev­e high female engage­ment in econom­ic activi­ties

PHOTO: AFP

The proportion of women entrepreneurs in Pakistan is dismally poor — barely a percentage of the country’s entrepreneurial community. Unless more women embrace business ventures, their economic participation and emancipation will remain meagre and a challenge. One of the major reasons for women to remain behind entrepreneurially is the lack of access to finances. The gender-wise distribution of gross loan portfolio of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) shows that only 3% of small-medium business loans go to women as compared to the 97% given to men. Similarly, only 19% of the microfinance loan is lent to women while 87% of the loan goes to men. Similarly, an inspiring female entrepreneur in Pakistan cannot open a bank account without mentioning her father or husband’s name in the presence of a witness. These impediments are not due to discrimination in the banks’ regulations. In fact, according to a study conducted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), this gap is the result of the banks’ preconceived notions that female clients lack creditworthiness, are dependent on men and that obtaining information about their reliability is difficult. In addition to these structural barriers, women, both in rural and urban centres, have been found unaware about the financial services available to them.
Continue reading “Challenges to women entrepreneurs – The Express Tribune”

Get clients, then work on products, budding entrepreneurs advised – Free Malaysia Today

Get clients, then work on products, budding entrepreneurs advised – Free Malaysia Today

Design thinking expert Tom Kelley (left) launching the Tools, Tips and Thoughts for Entrepreneurs book with Karthik Siva.

KUALA LUMPUR: Budding entrepreneurs have been advised to find customers, determine their needs and then develop the required products instead of the usual practice of coming up with a product and then looking for customers.

“Find out what their needs and problems are and then find a way to solve them by developing the right product that meets their needs. Right now, most entrepreneurs are doing it the other way around i.e developing the product first,” said Karthik Siva, chairman of the Global Entrepreneur Xchange (GEX), a global platform that offers content, coaching classes and networking opportunities to entrepreneurs.

Continue reading “Get clients, then work on products, budding entrepreneurs advised – Free Malaysia Today”

Learning From the First Failed Edtech Venture Ensured Success Of the Second For This Entrepreneur – Entrepreneur

Learning From the First Failed Edtech Venture Ensured Success Of the Second For This Entrepreneur – Entrepreneur

Along with Vibhu Bhushan and Sanjeev Kumar, Shobhit Bhatnagar started Gradeup in 2015, which now helps more than 18 million aspirants prepare for examinations such as JEE and UPSC, among others.

January 14, 2020 4 min read

You’re reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

Shobhit Bhatnagar was experimenting with ideas in the education sector when he came upon a realization. “We realized that the edtech space largely comprised of the same offline content just being uploaded online, which was not engaging, interactive or effective for aspirants preparing online,” he says.

By focusing on learning outcomes, he realized they could contribute a lot to the sector.

“And this realization was our eureka moment,” says 32-year-old Shobhit. Along with Vibhu Bhushan and Sanjeev Kumar, he started Gradeup in 2015, which now helps more than 18 million aspirants prepare for examinations such as JEE and UPSC, among others.
Continue reading “Learning From the First Failed Edtech Venture Ensured Success Of the Second For This Entrepreneur – Entrepreneur”

What every entrepreneur should keep in mind for 2020 – Bizcommunity.com

What every entrepreneur should keep in mind for 2020 – Bizcommunity.com

Keeping in mind the fundamentals of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur is a good way to get you on track of achieving what you desire in 2020. Here’s what to keep in mind.

Photo by Taylor Grote on Unsplash
Photo by Taylor Grote on Unsplash

Know what you want to offer

Everyone wants to start a business, yet many have no idea what it is that they actually want to offer – more specifically, where to start.

This mental fog prevents you from taking the first step to becoming a successful entrepreneur. So, how do you clear the fog and break down the door? It’s simple: draw up a plan and stick to simple wisdom.

Creating a comprehensive blueprint of your future business will help you get rid of the “ifs” and “buts” and it eradicates any unforeseen mishaps on your path.

Draw up a mind map to physically view your ideas; seeing your ideas jotted down on a page will help create a comparison of which idea is better than the other.

Conduct research on which services are lacking in your industry – do this if you really are really conflicted about what to offer.
Continue reading “What every entrepreneur should keep in mind for 2020 – Bizcommunity.com”

Why Europe’s startup ecosystem hasn’t escaped the US’ shadow – 150sec

Why Europe’s startup ecosystem hasn’t escaped the US’ shadow – 150sec


In 2019, the US was titled the most startup-friendly country in the world, with five European countries following in the top 10. Elsewhere, a report published in 2018 revealed that the US’ cumulative valuation for tech firms founded since 2000 was $1,370 billion, while Europe reached only $240 billion.

While both the US and Europe have experienced startup success on a global scale, the former has maintained the number one spot for most of the recent decade. No doubt, Silicon Valley’s fame and the emergence of giants like Instagram, Slack, and Vox Media from the US in the past decade have fuelled the country’s reputation for entrepreneurs. However, this discrepancy does not solely stem from the US having a significantly better startup ecosystem, but from Europe forgetting much-needed reforms. Apprehension and slow responses have been most detrimental to Europe’s chances of ever overtaking the US.

Continue reading “Why Europe’s startup ecosystem hasn’t escaped the US’ shadow – 150sec”

Passion and perseverance – the entrepreneurial journey – The South African

Passion and perseverance – the entrepreneurial journey – The South African


Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Building a successful company is incredibly tough. The odds are less likely to be in your favour or that not everyone in your life supports your venture. The long hours, the glaring risks, the massive sacrifice…

Your passion and perseverance drive you to overcome everything that life and business can throw at you. The success of an entrepreneur contributes to the economic growth which our country so desperately needs as opportunities such as job creation raise and therefore impact our communities.

Witnessing an entrepreneur’s success is extraordinary, especially in this climate because you know that companies that can grow in spite of difficult external circumstances will undoubtedly flourish when simpler times come around. We’re blessed to be seeing world class innovation and perseverance among our entrepreneurs:

  • With unemployment figures at all-time highs, our client base has posted a 58% increase in fixed employment figures for the year to date. And the year’s not over yet.
  • With economic growth hovering around the zero percent mark, our client base has posted annual revenue growth in excess of 100% for the year. And the year’s not over yet.
  • It’s incredibly tough to raise capital in a young entrepreneurial eco-system. We have helped raised more than R500 million in seed and growth finance for our clients over the past five years.

You don’t have to be an accountant to get excited about these figures. After many hours of studying the success of these companies, certain golden threads are noticeable across the majority of the most successful companies. Here are seven of the lessons that resonate:

Continue reading “Passion and perseverance – the entrepreneurial journey – The South African”

Start-ups: The Founding Team Is a Real Magic Bullet – INSEAD Knowledge

Start-ups: The Founding Team Is a Real Magic Bullet – INSEAD Knowledge

Studies show that the entrepreneurial team may impact a start-up’s long-term success more than its product.

When we consider great teams, the ties that bind them together are generally a blend of unique skills and shared experiences. Team members aren’t all necessarily from the same background, but at some moment in their lives, they are moulded by similar challenges. One forge for start-up talent is an elite unit of the Israeli Intelligence Corps, Unit 8200. Dubbed Israel’s secret start-up machine by Forbes, this group demands creativity from its members while they are under intense pressure.

One stellar output of Unit 8200 is Adallom, a cloud security start-up which was founded in 2011 by three former members of the unit, Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak and Roy Reznik. Serving together enabled these founders to build close ties plus establish the key skills and knowledge needed for later stages of their venture. All three founding members had a strong background in computer science, but they also brought complementary skills in strategy consulting, biomedical engineering research and entrepreneurial experience. A resounding success, it was sold to Microsoft in 2015 for US$320 million.

Not everyone can find their dream team in this manner, but before assembling their founding teams, entrepreneurs need to consider the right mix. In a recent article, “Entrepreneurial Team Formation”, we systematically reviewed the literature around the pre-start-up phase of team creation, with the understanding that this initial formation imprints on later phases of a new venture. Our dataset included 69 articles from 1975 to 2018. The article was published in the Academy of Management Annals and was co-authored with Miriam Erez (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology), Rajshree Agarwal, Gilad Chen and Brent Goldfarb (all University of Maryland).

Relationship problems may lead to failure

Continue reading “Start-ups: The Founding Team Is a Real Magic Bullet – INSEAD Knowledge”

How sharing doubles joys and halves sorrows: Robin Banerjee, author, ‘Who Blunders and How’ – YourStory

How sharing doubles joys and halves sorrows: Robin Banerjee, author, ‘Who Blunders and How’ – YourStory

Robin Banerjee is the author of Who Blunders and How: The Dumb Side of the Corporate World (see my book review here). Founders and business professionals can learn a lot about the failure landscape analysed in this book.

The author is MD of Caprihans India, and has 35 years of experience in MNCs in India and overseas. He was at Hindustan Unilever, Arcelor-Mittal, Thomas Cook, Essar Steel, and Suzlon India. He is also the author of Who Cheats and How: Scams, Frauds and the Dark Side of the Corporate World.

In a chat with YSWeekender, Robin talks about the importance of customer trust, business brand, and an open culture of discussing failure. Entrepreneurs in their scale-up journey should pay special heed to management issues, intercultural differences, and cash management.

Edited excerpts of the interview:

Continue reading “How sharing doubles joys and halves sorrows: Robin Banerjee, author, ‘Who Blunders and How’ – YourStory”

Pros Share the Worst Business Advice They’ve Ever Received – Small Business Trends

Pros Share the Worst Business Advice They’ve Ever Received – Small Business Trends

The biggest problem with receiving advice from peers or mentors is that you never know what will work and what won’t. While a lot of successful businesses are born out of the intelligence and ability of their owners, sometimes, people pass on advice they’ve heard — or misheard — without any personal experience to add perspective. As a result, the advice they offer is based on a gut feeling, which may or may not be a boon to your own business: In some cases, the advice they share can be downright terrible for a budding entrepreneur.

To help identify some of the bad advice out there, we asked 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

“What is the worst piece of business advice you’ve ever heard? Why is it so harmful?”

Bad Business Advice

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:



1. It’s All About the Money

“It’s unfortunate, but too many business people prioritize money over ethics, integrity and service. Business is first about serving others. Making money, while an integral part of any for-profit business, should take a back seat to the importance of serving others. The worst advice I’ve heard throughout my entrepreneurial career is that business success is all about money. I disagree.” ~ Kristopher Brian Jones, LSEO.com

2. Raise as Much Capital as You Can

“With venture capital money being everywhere, firms are giving up massive equity for short-term money. The glamorization of entrepreneurship has created impatient business owners looking to scale as fast as they can. Behind every successful business, you’ll find someone who put in years of work to get to where they are. Nothing amazing happens overnight. Keep your equity and bootstrap as long as possible.” ~ Frank B. Mengert, ebm
Continue reading “Pros Share the Worst Business Advice They’ve Ever Received – Small Business Trends”

The Importance of Entrepreneurial Mentorship – Thrive Global

The Importance of Entrepreneurial Mentorship – Thrive Global

Entrepreneurship is a journey which one should never walk alone. An aspiring entrepreneur should endeavor to identify and work with a seasoned mentor whose mentorship services would come in handy in nurturing the young entrepreneurial talent. Entrepreneurial mentorship is a highly encouraged practice as it renders various benefits to an entrepreneur.

Impartation of knowledge

Entrepreneurs are always encouraged to invest as much time and resources as possible in the acquisition of knowledge before and during the process of establishing their investments. In addition to reading published books and content, they can also seek the services of experienced entrepreneurial mentors who would be able to share valuable information.
Continue reading “The Importance of Entrepreneurial Mentorship – Thrive Global”

A Guide to Entrepreneurs for Starting Business Right after College – – VENTS Magazine

A Guide to Entrepreneurs for Starting Business Right after College – – VENTS Magazine

If you are an entrepreneurial graduate and have decide to start your work with a great idea in your mind and passion in your eyes, you can definitely do it. However, taking precautionary measures is what you should always do. Know your abilities and skills and where you are directed. The following are a guide to entrepreneurs who want to start their own idea right after graduation.

1. Identify your Passion

To be an entrepreneur, you must identify the work that brings in joy and fulfilment when you do it. Often it’s the founder’s passion that takes a business to its maximum height. You get to do what you think you would love to have as a career. Look for a job or career path that you are actually passionate about. Get into that, learn, and learn more about it. You are ready to make the difference.

Moreover, doing something that has some meaning to you is a kind of constant motivation for you. And you definitely need strong motivation throughout the evens and odds of your journey.

Continue reading “A Guide to Entrepreneurs for Starting Business Right after College – – VENTS Magazine”

Ways to Turn Your Life Around After Failure – Thrive Global

Ways to Turn Your Life Around After Failure – Thrive Global

Life will often mess you up by not turning out as you thought or even planned. This does not, however, mean that you should remain stuck at the point in which life has left you. You should instead male all effort to turn your life around and start afresh.

You should have as many fresh begins as your life requires until you get where you want to be. You may be feeling demoralized and lost and wondering if there is indeed a way that will work to give you better results. Cheer up because I am going to teach you guaranteed ways you can change your life after facing setbacks. Read below to learn how.

Read everyday

“Knowledge is power” is not just a meaningless saying but a reality. When you make a habit of reading useful material every day, you will accumulate knowledge in several fields. The knowledge you gain will then help you in propelling your life forward. Reading increases the power of your brain expanding your thinking. As you read, you will obtain valuable information and become focused, which will then transform your life.
Continue reading “Ways to Turn Your Life Around After Failure – Thrive Global”

Women Entrepreneurs—101 Women Entrepreneurs Share Their Top Tips – Parade

Women Entrepreneurs—101 Women Entrepreneurs Share Their Top Tips – Parade

best girlboss tips and quotes (Unsplash)

Working your way to the top takes a whole lot of hustle and an unshakable “can do” attitude. But in order to become an A+ girl boss, one of the smartest things you can do as a career-minded, entrepreneurial woman can do is learn from the fierce female role models who came before you.

So to help you conquer your dreams and follow in the footsteps of some of the smartest and most talented female entrepreneurs and CEOs out there, these 101 best women entrepreneur tips for career-focused women—which come straight from the pros themselves—can help you reach success.

iStock (iStock)

101 Best Women Entrepreneur Tips

1. “Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe.” — Oprah Winfrey

2. “Working out is a great way to network with current friends and meet new ones. It’s also the perfect way to get my endorphins up to take on the day.” — Jenny Fleiss, co-founder of Rent the Runway

3. “ […] I learned that with a company, if you’re not there every day, it’s never going to be done the way that you want.” — Sarah Michelle Gellar, co-founder of Foodstirs

4. “Show up in every single moment like you’re meant to be there.” – Marie Forleo, author of Everything is Figureoutable 

5. “‘Trust the process!’ Building a company is full of ups and downs and lots of mistakes. It’s important to not get discouraged from the downs, learn from mistakes and stay focused on that end goal.” — Nicole Gibbons, founder of Clare Paint

Continue reading “Women Entrepreneurs—101 Women Entrepreneurs Share Their Top Tips – Parade”

Resolutions to Make Businesses Better in 2020 – Entrepreneur

Resolutions to Make Businesses Better in 2020 – Entrepreneur

January 7, 2020 4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You’re reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

When I was 10, I set up my very first entrepreneurial venture in my village in Wayanad, Kerala. The candy shop was a huge hit, enabling me to save up to buy a goat for my second business endeavour—selling milk.

Soon enough, I bought a cow… the business ideas never really ceased, even after plush jobs with MNCs offered financial security that I didn’t dare to aspire for. As the son of a daily wage labourer, I was more than grateful for all the career opportunities, yet the entrepreneurial bug refused to die. In 2005, I finally succumbed and started iD Fresh Food with four of my cousins. It was the best decision of my life and the lessons learnt over these years have shaped us as well as the business.

As we step into 2020, I would like to share some of my key insights and big dreams for the coming year. It’s my 2020 charter for better business. I hope it inspires you to make your own.

Continue reading “Resolutions to Make Businesses Better in 2020 – Entrepreneur”

How Being a Mom Can Make You a Better Entrepreneur? – Bold Outline

How Being a Mom Can Make You a Better Entrepreneur? – Bold Outline

 

By: Karishmma V Mangal Director and Trustee Thakur International School – Cambridge

According to a 2017 entrepreneurship report published by Global Entrepreneurship Management (GEM), it was reported that 163 million women were running their business across 74 countries. Studies conducted by Kauffman Foundation and the Dow Jones company have found that venture-backed companies that are led by women produce 12% higher revenues on average. They also found that women-led ventures get launched with just two-thirds of the capital. Evidence also suggests that such ventures are more resilient when facing financial and market crises.

Unfortunately, the culture among startups, especially tech-based ones, has been hostile against working mothers. Although issues such as sexual harassment and pay discrimination are slowly getting addressed, women who return to work after embracing motherhood have to deal with their own set of challenges as well as biases.

Research conducted by UK psychologists revealed that women are adept at multitasking as compared to men. It is needless to state that when one starts up, multitasking cannot be avoided even if there are fixed roles assigned. Incidentally, when female start-up founders from Latin America were asked whether motherhood hindered their professional growth, they responded that by having children they had been able to acquire skills which translated exceedingly well into entrepreneurship. Let us look at some of these traits:

Continue reading “How Being a Mom Can Make You a Better Entrepreneur? – Bold Outline”

Entrepreneurial Mindset – Here is the Most Critical Characteristic – Business 2 Community

Entrepreneurial Mindset – Here is the Most Critical Characteristic – Business 2 Community

Ear of Corn

My wife is from eastern Nebraska also known as the cornhusker state. Traveling thru eastern Nebraska, just about all you can see is corn and more corn. The lack of visual diversity often causes abstract thoughts to dominate my self-talk as the miles click by. During a trip one summer, I realized that an ear of corn can teach us much about a critical characteristic of an entrepreneurial mindset.

If you were given an ear of corn today you would have a few options. You could:

  • Eat the ear of corn and receive nourishment today.
  • Forgo the nourishment from the corn today and save/hoard the ear for its seeds, which you could sell or plant at a later date.
  • Forgo the nourishment from the corn today and plant the seeds and have lots of corn plants with hundreds of ears of corn by this time next year.
  • Combine the options: eat some of the corn, save some of it, and wait and plant some.

The prevailing culture in American is one of instant gratification, which translates into our business culture. Most Americans if given the ear of corn would simply eat it. But how hard would it be to eat most of the corn today and save just a few kernels so you could plant them next year?

Continue reading “Entrepreneurial Mindset – Here is the Most Critical Characteristic – Business 2 Community”

Education for entrepreneurship – Ceylon Daily News

Education for entrepreneurship – Ceylon Daily News

Governments across the world have recognised the importance of state intervention to encourage private sector innovation towards strengthening entrepreneurship to capitalise on comparative and competitive advantages. The main pillar of entrepreneurship is innovation although most of the new products and unique services are eventually seen through brands.

The majority of the Sri Lankan population, that is around 75 percent, is still living in rural areas. Small industries are the primary players in these areas, and they are directly contributing to large industries that are catering to local and export markets. Therefore, it is important to encourage the entrepreneurs mostly in rural areas who could turn their innovative ideas into a real business from small-scale to medium or large enterprises.

As per the 2018 annual report of the Finance Ministry, there are 230,000 entrepreneurs, which is recorded as 2.8 percent of the total workforce operating in Sri Lanka. If we take examples from Vietnam and Thailand, the indexes are 19.6 percent and 27.5 percent respectively. Bangladesh records 11.6 percent and China 7.5 percent as countries with high densities. This shows the seriousness of the issue that needs to be addressed in Sri Lanka without further delay.

Continue reading “Education for entrepreneurship – Ceylon Daily News”

5 Things You Should Avoid to be Successful – Thrive Global

5 Things You Should Avoid to be Successful – Thrive Global

Mohab Ayoub, Algedra Interior Design Company‘s CEO says that ”The way to success is not easy, and even a person on the way to success may lose hope and motivation when facing obstacles.”

Even though it is never easy to accomplish things. There will be many people around you who don’t believe you and say you can not manage, accomplish that. All you have to do is not to give up and go after your dreams. Many people die with absence of the things they dream. Don’t be one of them!

Then let’s have a look at 5 things you should avoid to be successful:

1- Lack of Courage

To be successful, you need to have courage to bring your dream to reality in spite of obstacles.
Continue reading “5 Things You Should Avoid to be Successful – Thrive Global”

After Action Reviews: Learning From Our Painful Failures – The Epoch Times

After Action Reviews: Learning From Our Painful Failures – The Epoch Times

Commentary

On Sunday, Dec. 15, 2019, at approximately 8:50 a.m., I stepped off the starting line of the BMW Dallas Marathon and began my first official 26.2-mile race. One of my 2019 goals was coming to fruition, and as the race began, I felt cool, calm, and confident; I had no illusions about how difficult this was going to be.

I’m not one of those people who makes New Year’s Resolutions, but I do consider myself someone who performs best when they have clearly defined and measurable goals to work toward. So before 2019 started, I somewhat impulsively decided to run the BMW Dallas Marathon.

In the interest of full transparency, I need to state for the record that running brings me absolutely zero pleasure.

Prior to enlisting in the military, I did find some enjoyment in a nice, brisk run; however, the U.S. Army found a way to kill that tiny joy, as it’s known to do for so many things. Since then, running has held the position of a necessary evil in my life. So when I set out to accomplish this task, it was merely to identify a challenge in order to overcome it.

Continue reading “After Action Reviews: Learning From Our Painful Failures – The Epoch Times”

Patricia Bright – “Don’t be afraid to fail, just be a quick failure” – Mash Viral

Patricia Bright – “Don’t be afraid to fail, just be a quick failure” – Mash Viral

Patricia Bright -

Forget climbing the career ladder, professional success today is more likely to be on the “gap” – zigzag between different jobs and industries

Patricia Bright explains how an unconventional route can be the key to achieving your goals

In 2016, research on LinkedIn found that four job changes at the age of 32 were “normal.” In May 2018, an updated LinkedIn study found that for Generation Z – now the under 24s – these four jobs had already taken place. So how do you turn an unconventional start into a stable success? Here, Patricia Bright, a 31-year-old fashion and beauty vlogger with 2.6 million subscribers, reveals the best career advice she learned on the path from banker to influencer , and how to start with nothing fueled his drive to succeed.

Continue reading “Patricia Bright – “Don’t be afraid to fail, just be a quick failure” – Mash Viral”

Temasek Polytechnic boosts entrepreneurial dreams of its graduates – The Straits Times

Temasek Polytechnic boosts entrepreneurial dreams of its graduates – The Straits Times

Most chefs would say that they have always dreamt of opening their own cafe or restaurant — but not Mr Charles Tan. The 28-year-old behind the popular local ice cream parlour, Fatcat Ice Cream Bar, is what you might call an “accidental” entrepreneur.

After graduating from Temasek Polytechnic’s (TP) School of Business with a Diploma in Culinary & Catering Management in 2012, Mr Tan worked in the kitchen of the erstwhile two Michelin-starred Restaurant André for several months before deciding that it was not his cup of tea.

At around the same time, he discovered the joy of making ice cream from scratch. Together with his siblings, Mr Tan — who professes an interest in dessert-making and used to bake cheesecakes for class gatherings in his teens — devoted the next three years to honing his craft. Finally, in January 2015, Fatcat Ice Cream Bar opened its doors.

Continue reading “Temasek Polytechnic boosts entrepreneurial dreams of its graduates – The Straits Times”

Three Quotes That Inspire Great Leadership And Success – Forbes

Three Quotes That Inspire Great Leadership And Success – Forbes

business successGetty

I’m a fan of reading inspirational and motivational quotes. I often find a great quote and share it with my team at Shepard Presentations, and sometimes with the readers of this column as well.

That brings me to Dan Sullivan, creator of the Strategic Coach® program. Dan is a great coach who is full of great sayings. When I first met him, I asked why I should pay to be coached by him or one of his trainers. He gave me the same answer he’s given to thousands of others, which, in a way, makes it a quote. But instead, I’ll call it his brand promise. It’s simple. Dan said, “I want to help you grow your business 10 times and take off 150 days a year.”

I’ve been a part of the Strategic Coach® program for more than 20 years now. I’ve learned quite a bit. I’ve grown my business and I take more time off than ever, although some years I’m better at it than others. The point is, I’m experiencing his promise first-hand.

Dan is a content machine, producing new material every few months to share with the thousands of clients he coaches. He comes up with sayings and phrases that make great sense. At our last coaching session, we were given a book, The Best Of: The Always Quotable Dan Sullivan. And today I want to share with you three of my favorite Dan Sullivan quotes:

1.      “There are two kinds of people: Batteries Included and Batteries Not Included.”

Continue reading “Three Quotes That Inspire Great Leadership And Success – Forbes”

Opinion | We can’t all be entrepreneurs, and that’s ok – Qcity metro

Opinion | We can’t all be entrepreneurs, and that’s ok – Qcity metro

Shante-Williams-Black-Pearl-entrepreneurship
Dr. Shante Williams, entrepreneur and investor. Photo courtesy of Dr. Shante Williams

The new year has brought promises of resolutions and likely a wave of new businesses fueled by peer pressure and social media prodding.

Each year, 627,000 new businesses launch and 595,000 close by year’s end, according to the Small Business Administration. That means nearly 95% of the people who take “the leap” fall flat. There’s nothing wrong with failure, however, many entrepreneurs fail because they weren’t built for that life.

Yes, entrepreneurship is a lifestyle — not a hustle or a hobby.

Fact: Not everyone hates their 9-to-5 jobs. Some people are doing exactly what they want to be doing and excelling. They appreciate the stability of a set schedule, expectations and a paycheck. Having a W-2 is not a failure or the result of a lack of ambition.

Continue reading “Opinion | We can’t all be entrepreneurs, and that’s ok – Qcity metro”

Lack of sustained motivation prevents promising entrepreneurs from succeeding – ResponseSource

Lack of sustained motivation prevents promising entrepreneurs from succeeding – ResponseSource

 

Professor Christian Linder Professor Michael Nippa

Most people fail to turn a good idea into a successful business venture due to lack of consistent motivation, new research from Professor Christian Linder at ESCP Business School and Professor Michael Nippa at Free University of Bozen-Bolzano reveal.

Motivation is the force that initiates, and maintains entrepreneurial goals -it’s what causes us to take action. Entrepreneurial motivation is therefore a decisive factor for new venture creation, yet sometimes high motivation in the initial stages of a project does not translate into corresponding behaviour.

Continue reading “Lack of sustained motivation prevents promising entrepreneurs from succeeding – ResponseSource”

Striving for perfection can help athletes bounce back from failure—if they forgive themselves, research shows – Folio – University of Alberta

Striving for perfection can help athletes bounce back from failure—if they forgive themselves, research shows – Folio – University of Alberta

Elite athletes are more likely to rise to the occasion after a failure if they keep potential unhelpful consequences of striving for perfection in check, according to a University of Alberta study, the first of its kind to investigate perfectionism and performance following failure in competitive athletics.

“It can be helpful to seek perfection but it’s really important for athletes to be equipped with coping mechanisms and skills to handle inevitable failures and have an understanding that true perfection is rarely attainable in sport,” said Mick Lizmore, a recently graduated U of A sport psychology doctoral student who led the study under the supervision of John Dunn.

Lizmore explained perfectionism can be seen as a double-edged sword. One aspect of perfectionism, known as perfectionistic strivings, reflects the tendency to set and strive for extremely high standards of performance. It can provide a motivating impetus for effort and continued work toward goals. However, the high standards inherent to perfectionistic striving make it more likely that someone will also have heightened levels of what researchers have coined as perfectionistic concerns.

Continue reading “Striving for perfection can help athletes bounce back from failure—if they forgive themselves, research shows – Folio – University of Alberta”

A Pivot From Co-Working To Education: 5 Business Takeaways From General Assembly Cofounder And CEO Jake Schwartz – Forbes

A Pivot From Co-Working To Education: 5 Business Takeaways From General Assembly Cofounder And CEO Jake Schwartz – Forbes

Jake Schwartz

Ivan Clow for Forbes

Forbes sat down with General Assembly cofounder and CEO Jake Schwartz in the original General Assembly classroom in New York City’s Flatiron neighborhood.

Ten years ago Jake Schwartz cofounded a co-working space, General Assembly, in downtown Manhattan with three friends: Matt Brimer, Brad Hargreaves and Adam Pritzker. Today, that “space” has spread to 32 campuses around the world, and they traded the “office space for entrepreneurs” business model for entrepreneur-expert-taught classes on workplace skills that range from JavaScript coding to building a personal brand. With 80,000 General Assembly graduates (from full- or part-time courses), 900-plus instructors and 32 campuses from Providence, Rhode Island, to Shanghai—they’re at the top of their class in the $224 billion-plus higher education market. In 2018, the company was acquired by Swiss staffing giant Adecco for $412.5 million.

Forbes sat down with Schwartz, who continues to serve as General Assembly’s CEO, to learn his story—and identified five leadership qualities that have helped to enable Schwartz’s success.

Continue reading “A Pivot From Co-Working To Education: 5 Business Takeaways From General Assembly Cofounder And CEO Jake Schwartz – Forbes”

Understanding entrepreneurial orientation – Trinidad News

Understanding entrepreneurial orientation – Trinidad News

Entrepreneurship has been faced with an age-old debate…are entrepreneurs born or made? While there are limited academic studies that support the notion that successful entrepreneurs are born, there is far more research that suggest theories between the similarities that successful entrepreneurs share in their decision-making. One of the most robust theories in the academic literature that explains differences in performance between entrepreneurs is the Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) construct. Based on the decisions and actions of the strategy making process, the EO construct attempts to explain the how of entrepreneurial activity.

Continue reading “Understanding entrepreneurial orientation – Trinidad News”

The Report: Entrepreneurship and leadership skills – Education Technology

The Report: Entrepreneurship and leadership skills – Education Technology

What’s the issue?

SurreyIDEA has launched a new digital entrepreneurial workshop scheme for 15–17-year-olds that aims to boost participation in higher education.

There are a number of questions here. One – can we even teach people to be entrepreneurs? Two – do we really need more entrepreneurs? Three – should we be encouraging more young people to go to university, when there are questions around its efficacy, especially within the tech industry?


Continue reading “The Report: Entrepreneurship and leadership skills – Education Technology”

How to Activate Entrepreneurial Success in One Hour a Day – Thrive Global

How to Activate Entrepreneurial Success in One Hour a Day – Thrive Global

Loading up on goals and plans at the turn of the decade and the unveiling of a new year is typical for most of us, especially those of us in the entrepreneurial space. Let’s face it, there are a lot of wishes and prayers that go along with being a founder. Yet by mid-February 80% of us abandon our goals.

What can change that statistic?

YOU can!

One day and one action-step at a time!

Creating success strategies that speak your language empower your goals to not only take flight but to thrive. Only you can show up for your decisions! That is why the dawning of 2020 is the perfect time to reset, and to cultivate a new habit of choice that brings you closer to what you want every single day! When I founded my coaching practice, I initially let a lot of decisions slip by, often leaving success or failure up to which way the wind was blowing! I learned super quickly that no one else was going to take ownership of my choices. I had to do that for myself. I had to do that to run and grow my business.
Continue reading “How to Activate Entrepreneurial Success in One Hour a Day – Thrive Global”

Turning their misses into others’ hits – Livemint

Turning their misses into others’ hits – Livemint

When Bengaluru-based Naman Sarawagi, 32, established his first startup, FindYogi, in 2012, he wasn’t prepared for the emotional tumult that came with managing a team. “I struggled to build and keep a team for the first year,” says Sarawagi. His co-founder left in the eighth month, followed by the tech lead soon after. He managed with one engineer and was able to sell his startup to a short news app in 2016.

“My mistakes with team and market have helped me give better advice to other founders,” says Sarawagi, who currently advises eight startups on team building, product, and marketing, other than running a company himself.

Continue reading “Turning their misses into others’ hits – Livemint”

Fear of failure can freeze innovative ideas, progress – Times of India

Fear of failure can freeze innovative ideas, progress – Times of India

By Paul Dupuis

He was fired from the Kansas City Star with an editor’s scathing remark that he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas” as an animator. Unfazed, this young man bought an animation studio Laugh-O-Gram, but that had to fold up too.

Another young man faced the disappointment of being the only one of 24 applicants who failed to get a job at KFC. Neither could he get into Harvard in all the 10 times he applied. And his first two ventures met with failure. Do these stories spell failure? Seemingly so. But they were precursors to game-changing success — and both the young men went on to become iconic business leaders in their respective industries. The first was none other than Walt Disney, whose animation films and studios created and defined a genre. The second is Jack Ma, whose blockbuster e-commerce company Alibaba’s $150-billion IPO was the largest offering for a US-listed company in the history of the New York Stock Exchange.

Continue reading “Fear of failure can freeze innovative ideas, progress – Times of India”

Shaan Parvaga shares useful tips on how to lead your business – The Statesman

Shaan Parvaga shares useful tips on how to lead your business – The Statesman

Shaan Parvaga is a business owner who has plenty of experience in guiding businesses in the right direction. Therefore, it is worthy to partner along with such an industry professional and gets useful insights on how to take your business to the next level.

Here are a few prominent tips that Shaan Parvaga is sharing with business owners who wish to ensure success in the long run.

Prioritize your task

Upon business failure, you will have a lot of things to do. However, you need to be careful to prioritize the tasks that you have. Otherwise, the process of rebuilding your business can take a long time. If it is taking too long, there is a high possibility for you to end up with frustration. Therefore, you need to be careful to prioritize all the tasks that you have and work accordingly. Then you will be able to get your business back up and running within the shortest possible time.

Continue reading “Shaan Parvaga shares useful tips on how to lead your business – The Statesman”

10 things to keep in mind when organising your startup’s finances for 2020 – EU-Startups

10 things to keep in mind when organising your startup’s finances for 2020 – EU-Startups

startup finances

With every New Year comes the opportunity of a new beginning. The cyclical and symbolic nature of this event brings the perfect moment to get rid of what is not working, focus on improving what is working and setting new goals for your startup.

Here are ten points to keep in mind when organising your startup’s finances in 2020.

  1. Cash flow is almost everything: learn how to manage it more efficiently

Running out of funds is one of the most common drivers behind startup failure. You need to know where your money is flowing from and to, in order not to risk surprises that might kill your company.

Budgeting is possibly the most underestimated activity. Not just putting numbers on a spreadsheet or a sheet of paper. How many of you have periodically revisited the numbers your team forecasted at the end of last year?

Continue reading “10 things to keep in mind when organising your startup’s finances for 2020 – EU-Startups”

[Year in Review 2019] From setback to success – top quotes on failure and resilience – YourStory

[Year in Review 2019] From setback to success – top quotes on failure and resilience – YourStory

Drawn from our comprehensive coverage of India’s startup ecosystem, we present 85 quotes on how to accept and cope with the inevitable challenges in the entrepreneur’s roller-coaster journey.

1

Mistakes and errors are part of the startup journey, and show the path to success ahead. A mindset of resilience, reflection, and resolve are key to bounce back from challenges. Learning from the mistakes of others and asking for help when down and out are useful practices as well.

See also my reviews of the related books The Other ‘F’ Word, Adapt, The Up Side of Down, Who Blunders and How, The Wisdom of Failure, Fail Better, Fail Fast, and Failing to Succeed. Make it a habit to check out YourStory’s Daily Capsule, Weekly Founding Roundup, and quotes compilation StoryBites, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of each past week.

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).

YourStory wishes all founders, innovators and changemakers a Happy New Year ahead, and all the best for success and scale in 2020!

Continue reading “[Year in Review 2019] From setback to success – top quotes on failure and resilience – YourStory”

15 Great Books for Anyone Who Wants to Get Ahead in Life – Inc.

15 Great Books for Anyone Who Wants to Get Ahead in Life – Inc.

1. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull

“Culture trumps everything. What I love about this book is that it gives you a peek under the hood of one of the most innovative movie studios out there. Through numerous stories about Pixar, it becomes very clear how crucial culture is in creating a company that constantly pushes the boundaries. I also love the transparency the author brings to the stories to illustrate how challenging the creative process actually is. It’s so easy for us as a consumer to see the final product and just assume it’s the result of a spark of brilliance, but the reality is that the process of innovation is often very messy and full of missteps and detours towards the final output.”

–Matt Hornbuckle, cofounder and co-CEO of Stantt, a men’s apparel company which offers men’s clothing in over 99 sizes and is sold in over 400 retailers across the U.S., including Nordstrom, Rothmans, and Richards
Continue reading “15 Great Books for Anyone Who Wants to Get Ahead in Life – Inc.”

Understand Procrastination Before You Judge It (or Yourself). 4 Surprising Insights to Help Eliminate the Habit – Inc.

Understand Procrastination Before You Judge It (or Yourself). 4 Surprising Insights to Help Eliminate the Habit – Inc.

Procrastination is not a time management issue, as many believe it to be; it is a stress response. Nearly everyone has engaged in delay tactics to put something off, it’s natural. However, if you put things off to the point that it becomes detrimental to your business, it becomes a problem. Yet, procrastination is often confused with laziness and poor time management skills.

In my work with entrepreneurs, I encounter the procrastination issue frequently. Why? Because procrastination is a stress response. Whether you are under pressure to meet a deadline or you’re going through difficult times, there are plenty of opportunities for stress to seep in when you own a business. Of course, everyone responds differently to stress, but for those who develop the pattern of putting things off, there is the danger of falling into what’s called procrastination accumulation effect. The more that is left undone, the worse things get, and that leads to added pressure. This type of stress may include feelings of inadequacy, guilt about what is left undone, and fear of failure.
Continue reading “Understand Procrastination Before You Judge It (or Yourself). 4 Surprising Insights to Help Eliminate the Habit – Inc.”

Are New Year’s resolutions doomed to fail? – Yahoo Sports

Are New Year’s resolutions doomed to fail? – Yahoo Sports

“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories.

What’s happening

January is always the most optimistic time of the year, as millions of people make resolutions to improve themselves. Whether it’s better health, smarter spending, career progress or learning a new skill, changing the calendar provides a fresh start for a better future.

All that optimism fades quickly, however. Most people never achieve their New Year’s goals. One study found that 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned by February.

Why there’s debate

It’s clear that the typical way we go about making resolutions doesn’t work for most people. What’s less obvious is whether resolutions can still work with the right adjustments or if the entire concept is inherently doomed to fail.

Continue reading “Are New Year’s resolutions doomed to fail? – Yahoo Sports”

Jyoti Bansal’s Unusual Ventures takes an unusual route to invest in startups – YourStory

Jyoti Bansal’s Unusual Ventures takes an unusual route to invest in startups – YourStory

The failure rate of startups across the world is quite high, and there are many reasons as to why entrepreneurs fail to turn their budding ventures into sustainable organisations.

But here is a venture capital fund, which gets in very early into entrepreneurial orbit so that it can guide, mentor, and walk along with the founders to create a successful startup.

Unusual Ventures, a California-based venture capital firm founded by Jyoti Bansal and John Vrionis in 2018, has taken an unchartered territory into investing in startups at the seed and early stage. The VC firm closed its second fund at $400 million in November 2019, while its first one was $160 million, which was 18 months prior.

“The hardest problem for any entrepreneur is going from an idea to million dollars in revenue, which needs initial messaging, getting customers, etc. There is no structured platform available which can help entrepreneurs, and we wanted to change that,” Jyoti tells YourStory.

Continue reading “Jyoti Bansal’s Unusual Ventures takes an unusual route to invest in startups – YourStory”

Tomorrow is Good: why rationality doesn’t help prevent mistakes and failures – Innovation Origins

Tomorrow is Good: why rationality doesn’t help prevent mistakes and failures – Innovation Origins

More and more often colleges and universities invite me to give a guest lecture or a seminar on the themes of mistakes, the culture of failure and constructive management of failure in companies.

Apart from the fact that this somewhat unusual theme sparks considerable interest and that I invite my students to deal constructively with entrepreneurial and personal failure, the question of if and how failure can be avoided almost always arises. A simple answer would be just to do everything right. What exactly does doing everything right entail? How can it be accomplished? Some of my audience argue that we could prevent mistakes and failures by making rational or sensible decisions. Is this actually the case? The term rationality refers to a rational, goal-oriented way of thinking and acting, i.e. calculating, analytical, logical, reasoned. Hence rationality can be defined by the pertinence and justification of a decision. As it were, the antithesis of intuitive gut decisions. Yet does rationality really help us to avoid mistakes and failures?

Continue reading “Tomorrow is Good: why rationality doesn’t help prevent mistakes and failures – Innovation Origins”

A new year is coming: resolutions are on the way – The Commercial Dispatch

A new year is coming: resolutions are on the way – The Commercial Dispatch

It’s that time again, when people everywhere will be setting their annual New Year’s resolutions. Whether it’s making more money, losing weight or anything else, what can you do to actually make good on your New Year’s resolutions in 2020?

Alok Trivedi is a human behavior and psychological performance expert. He is the founder of the Aligned Performance Institute and author of the book “Chasing Success.” He has been featured on CBS, NBC, Fox News and CTV News Canada, among others.

He offers these tips when it comes to setting and keeping resolutions:
Continue reading “A new year is coming: resolutions are on the way – The Commercial Dispatch”

The land of milk, honey, and innovation – The Jerusalem Post

The land of milk, honey, and innovation – The Jerusalem Post

In the third chapter of Exodus, God speaks to Moses at the burning bush and promises that He will bring the Israelites to “a good and special land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Well, in modern-day Israel, it seems like this promise manifested as a land of innovation and startups.

Israel consistently ranks among the world’s most innovative countries and is considered one of the world’s top locations for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. These rankings put Israel on par with some of the world’s biggest hubs of entrepreneurship and innovation including Silicon Valley, Tokyo, Singapore, Boston, Shanghai, New York, London, and Toronto. Given its small size and young economy, it is a surprise that Israel is able to fit itself into this list and claim the “Start-up Nation” title.

Continue reading “The land of milk, honey, and innovation – The Jerusalem Post”

12 Quotes That Will Make You Rethink Your Personal Finances – The Motley Fool

12 Quotes That Will Make You Rethink Your Personal Finances – The Motley Fool

One of the best ways to learn vital lessons is the hard way — by making mistakes that we don’t forget. That’s not the preferred way to learn, though. It’s much better simply learning from others, who offer bits of wisdom, sometimes based on lessons they themselves learned the hard way.

Here are a dozen quotations that can make you far savvier about your money and how you manage it — which, in turn, can help you grow wealthier and more financially secure. See how many you can take to heart — or even commit to memory.

We see an illustration of a blank white speech bubble against a blue background.

Image source: Getty Images.

No. 1: A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work. — Colin Powell 

You might not think you’re basing your retirement plan on magic, but if you’re simply taking some actions here and there without a plan, you’re engaging in magical thinking, leaving a lot to chance and hoping for the best. Take some time to come up with a solid retirement plan that lays out how you’ll invest over time to reach your financial goals and have a secure future.

No. 2: A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. — Dave Ramsey 

It’s common for many people to get their paychecks, pay for this and that, and then, with insufficient funds to pay for something important, to wonder where the money went. Well, if you create a budget for yourself, the process of creating it can help you see exactly where your money is going — and it can help you spot areas where you can cut back in order to save more. Budgeting is a vital tool that can help you manage your money more effectively.

Continue reading “12 Quotes That Will Make You Rethink Your Personal Finances – The Motley Fool”

Saudi e-commerce platform gives regional artisans a global market – Arabnews

Saudi e-commerce platform gives regional artisans a global market – Arabnews

CAIRO: Saudi Arabia has a wealth of talented artisans, but lacks spaces for their wares to be displayed and sold.

This is a problem that Saudi entrepreneur Lulwa Alsoudairy witnessed first-hand when she watched her mother struggle to make a living from handcrafting souvenirs and gifts.

“My mother is the owner of Liyano, a local production house that produces Saudi handcrafted souvenirs and gifts,” Alsoudairy said.

“She wanted to focus on her designs but she was also preoccupied by working in sales, customer management and accounting. So her focus was spread thinly.”

Continue reading “Saudi e-commerce platform gives regional artisans a global market – Arabnews”

Thinking of Starting a Business in 2020? Here are the Most Common Bad Excuses to Overcome – Inc.

Thinking of Starting a Business in 2020? Here are the Most Common Bad Excuses to Overcome – Inc.

Excuses, excuses. That’s what some of us have come up with when we have thought about the reasons to not start a company. I’ve been there myself. Yet, as you read through these common excuses, think about which ones you can overcome.

You don’t like giving presentations

If standing up in front of a crowd is not your thing, that’s fine. Hire someone else to do it. You can lead by having the best ideas, the most encouragement to others, and the most extensive resources. Someone else can be the up-front presentation person.

You lack confidence

Having a major distrust of your own abilities is one roadblock to success. Guess what? Like anything else in life, you can remove that roadblock through educating yourself, seeking advice from others, and retooling your own mindset. Confidence can be nurtured.

Continue reading “Thinking of Starting a Business in 2020? Here are the Most Common Bad Excuses to Overcome – Inc.”

Avoiding Failure to Launch Into Financial Adulthood – The Good Men Project

Avoiding Failure to Launch Into Financial Adulthood – The Good Men Project

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Continue reading “Avoiding Failure to Launch Into Financial Adulthood – The Good Men Project”

An accountant’s guide to navigating mistakes in the new year – Accounting Today

An accountant’s guide to navigating mistakes in the new year – Accounting Today

It’s no surprise that accounting professionals tend to be exacting about their work. Balancing the books leaves no room for error, and accuracy is an essential component in a firm’s value. It’s also no surprise that people who spend their careers getting things just right apply that same logic to themselves. To put it another way, perfectionism is a common condition among accounting professionals. If you’re not a perfectionist, you probably work alongside a few.

To the perfectionists out there, don’t worry. I’m not about to tell you to stop striving to do your best work, but I do want to warn you about the dangers of applying perfectionism too strictly. When you are unrelentingly hard on yourself, when you can’t forgive even the slightest mistake, when you view every failure as the end of the world, you keep yourself from growing, which is what a healthier perfectionism should be about in the first place.

How perfect is too perfect?

Continue reading “An accountant’s guide to navigating mistakes in the new year – Accounting Today”

25 Books to Put on Your Reading List in 2020 – Thrive Global

25 Books to Put on Your Reading List in 2020 – Thrive Global

As the year nears completion I wanted to share some of the books I enjoyed reading this year. I would say this year has been one of the best in terms of terrific books. Please check out my favorite books of 2019 below. Most of them are business books which is my preferred genre and I have also reviewed some of them so if you are interested you can check it out by clicking the related links. At the end of the article you can also find my favorite books from 2015 till 2018 as well.

Trailblazer by Marc Benioff and Monica Langley – This was totally inspirational to me. Marc gives his back story which was interesting. He was always interested in technology from childhood. The main theme is that culture not only eats strategy for breakfast but everything else. Doing good and giving back is good for business. It does have an idealistic tone, but I think this book is a must read for all entrepreneurs and business leaders. He also talks about taking a stand on issues which Marc has done on numerous occasions. He also talks about setting a vision, knowing your values, having a method, overcoming your obstacles and finally measures for progress.

Good Habits Bad Habits by Wendy Wood – I thought do we really need another book on habits. There has been enough written on this subject. However, I found this to be quiet well researched. The main theme is the context is important. This means the way your environment is organized determines the habits you decide to stick to. So, if you don’t want to eat brownies don’t go to places where they are served. Second is repetition for a minimum of 66 days. Any habit for it to be automatic must be practiced several times. Finally reward yourself. This might help in getting habits in place rather than resolutions.
Continue reading “25 Books to Put on Your Reading List in 2020 – Thrive Global”

Lionesses must learn from their failures, insists Tracey Neville – Lancaster and Morecambe Citizen

Lionesses must learn from their failures, insists Tracey Neville – Lancaster and Morecambe Citizen

If you want to win gold then you need to accept your failures – that’s Tracey Neville’s message to Phil and the Lionesses.

Neville saw her twin brother come under heavy scrutiny for failing to arrest England’s poor post-World Cup form, the Lionesses only winning two of their seven matches since the semi-final defeat to the USA in July.

Fans aplenty called for the former Manchester United and Everton full-back to be sacked but the England boss is committed to leading his side to success at their home Euro 2021 event.

And if anyone knows what it’s like to be under pressure to achieve in the England hotseat, it’s his very own sister, with Tracey having stepped down from her role in charge of the Vitality Roses after falling short of a first World Cup final with a third-place finish in Liverpool in July.

With Phil’s Lionesses suffering a similar semi-final fate, Tracey is urging her brother to accept that failure could be their stepping stone to success – as long as they learn from it.

She said: “One of the morals and values of our family is that on the road to success, you’re always going to hit failure.

“If you think you can succeed without failing, you’re very naïve.

Continue reading “Lionesses must learn from their failures, insists Tracey Neville – Lancaster and Morecambe Citizen”

Failed first year of Varsity? Here’s what to do … – Randfontein Herald

Failed first year of Varsity? Here’s what to do … – Randfontein Herald

Although people generally dedicate the whole year to their studies, there are unfortunately those who do not make it.

According to the Independent Institute of Education, it is not a pleasant position to be in if you just finished your first year of study and you didn’t pass as well as you had hoped to, or as well as your family and friends have expected you to, or perhaps didn’t pass at all. Now is the time though to be courageous and honest with yourself and others by re-assessing the situation, and making the changes required to get back on track.

The Institute said it is very important for both students and parents to realise that not getting it right the first time doesn’t make one a failure. Instead, the situation should be regarded as a temporary – if inconvenient and costly – hurdle, and a wake-up call for thoughtful reflection.

Continue reading “Failed first year of Varsity? Here’s what to do … – Randfontein Herald”

Maintaining a unicorn: how to not crash and burn your startup – Harbour Times

Maintaining a unicorn: how to not crash and burn your startup – Harbour Times

Maintaining a unicorn: how to not crash and burn your startup

Having persevered through tough times to eventually succeed with her geographic information system (GIS) startup, Dr. Winnie Tang weighs in on the dos and don’ts of avoiding failure in your entrepreneurial ventures.

Dr. Winnie Tang

Adjunct Professor, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong

Tink Labs and WeWork: unicorns gone wrong

Governments all over the world have been promoting startup culture in recent years, and Hong Kong is no exception. Startups of innovative technologies are seen as drivers to the new economy. However, there were two unicorn (valued at US$10 billion or over HK$ 7.8 billion) failures this year; one originating in Hong Kong and the other in the United States. There are a number of lessons we can learn from these unsuccessful projects.

Hong Kong-based Tink Labs, which offered hotel guests smartphones to use for free, was considered a unicorn startup a year ago. By July this year, there was a report about its cessation of operations in most of its markets, and it also left employees and third-party suppliers unpaid. The once popular American common working space, WeWork, once had a valuation of US$47 billion (more than HK$366.6 billion), plunged to less than US$5 billion (about HK$39 billion), a decrease of nearly 90%.

These two companies share one thing in common: they chased the maximum possible valuation before their business model was proven.

Continue reading “Maintaining a unicorn: how to not crash and burn your startup – Harbour Times”

This study explains the trick to using hope in the wake of failure – Ladders

This study explains the trick to using hope in the wake of failure – Ladders

We know that failure more often than not excites one of two mindsets: perseverance or dejection. Sometimes a misfire can even inspire an imperfect solution of both.

But what are the mechanisms that see one trump the other venture to venture? According to a new paper published in the Strategic Management Journal, character isn’t the strongest impulsion concerning how we react to defeat. Executive function is unlocked by a steady combination of virtues.

From the report: “We examine the influence of two conflicting emotions—group fear and group hope—in entrepreneurial team decision‐making. We are interested in which emotion will be more strongly related to whether entrepreneurial teams escalate their commitment to a currently failing venture versus terminating that venture. Using a longitudinal start‐up simulation and based on data from 66 teams across 569 decision‐making rounds, we find that group “hope trumps fear.”

Continue reading “This study explains the trick to using hope in the wake of failure – Ladders”

I’m just saying … unconscious bias against women entrepreneurs endures – VentureBeat

I’m just saying … unconscious bias against women entrepreneurs endures – VentureBeat

The year is 1988, the decade that today’s millennials, myself included, were born. President Ronald Reagan signs the Women’s Business Ownership Act, a federal law paving the way for women entrepreneurs like me to take out business loans. Prior to this law, women generally needed the signature of a male in order to take out a loan, possibly that of a husband, a father, a brother or even a minor son.

Let that sink in.

Now, as women and entrepreneurs, we can dream up business ideas and gain access to capital and financial resources. Our products, services, and solutions are judged by their virtue in the marketplace — not by our failure to have a Y chromosome.

Or are they?

Continue reading “I’m just saying … unconscious bias against women entrepreneurs endures – VentureBeat”

MARY MIGLIARO: Give your child the gift of failure – Cherokee Tribune Ledger News

MARY MIGLIARO: Give your child the gift of failure – Cherokee Tribune Ledger News

There comes a realization in every parent that raising their children is one of the most difficult and important jobs they will ever have. To that end, parents often try to make life easier for their children than perhaps their own life was growing up. That creates a delicate balance between doing everything for your child and letting them do everything for themselves and learn by trial and error.

Modern parenting is defined by an unprecedented level of overprotectiveness: parents who rush to school at the whim of a phone call to deliver forgotten assignments, who challenge teachers on report card disappointments, mastermind children’s friendships and interfere on the playing field. Overparenting has the potential to ruin a child’s confidence and undermine their education.

Many parenting experts propose that parents allow their children to fail at tasks from time to time. The best time for this is during the critical early years when parents must learn to allow their children to experience the disappointment and frustration that occur from life’s inevitable problems so that they can grow up to be successful, resilient, and self-reliant adults.

Continue reading “MARY MIGLIARO: Give your child the gift of failure – Cherokee Tribune Ledger News”

10 top podcasts for founders to get inspired for 2020 – EU-Startups

10 top podcasts for founders to get inspired for 2020 – EU-Startups

Podcasts are an amazing source of information for founders that have the need to continuously be in the learning process. A while ago (2016) EU-Startups listed the podcasts every founder should listen to, and while many of them are still important, we decided to update the list in preparation for the downtime these festive holidays.

Here are 10 top startup podcasts for founders to get inspired with this Christmas time. Let us know if we missed any!

Planet Money 

Imagine you could call a friend and say: “Meet me at the bar and tell me what’s going on with the economy”, this is exactly as Planet Money is described. The podcast delivers amazing content about the economies in the world in a very fun and enjoyable way. They go the extra mile to find out the information about the economy, for example they made a t-shirt and traced the supply chain around the world from cotton field to factory, bought 100 barrels of crude oil and followed it from ground to gas tank, launched a satellite, and built a trading Twitter bot.

Here’s an amazing episode to start: Episode 416: Why The Price of Coke Didn’t Change For 70 years

 

Continue reading “10 top podcasts for founders to get inspired for 2020 – EU-Startups”

Imagined futures: Baltimore tech and biz leaders tell us what they envision for the next decade – Technical.ly Brooklyn

Imagined futures: Baltimore tech and biz leaders tell us what they envision for the next decade – Technical.ly Brooklyn

Updated 7:40 a.m., 12/21/19.

The year is winding down, which offers time to pause and look back at how we were moving, reading, hiring and exiting in 2019. But in this case, it’s not just about one year: The coming calendar turnover marks the end of the decade, and the beginning of a new one.

It’s something we’ve been especially attuned to this year, as Technical.ly celebrated its 10th anniversary of bringing news, events and jobs to Mid-Atlantic communities.

Considering that we looked back at Baltimore tech toward the beginning of the year, we thought it would only be fitting to close out the year by thinking ahead. So we put out a challenge to some of the folks who built the tech community over the last decade to envision how the next one will look.

The idea was to think big. Here are the questions we sent around: “What will Baltimore’s technologists and entrepreneurs achieve over the next decade, and what new roadblocks or opportunities will they confront?”

Continue reading “Imagined futures: Baltimore tech and biz leaders tell us what they envision for the next decade – Technical.ly Brooklyn”

| Entrepreneurs Of India Startup Stories – EO India

| Entrepreneurs Of India Startup Stories – EO India

Indian Startup Stories
Illustrake team

Entrepreneurs: Mihir Gadhvi, Satyansh Tiwari and Prakhar Shrivastava

Welcome to #eoindia Startup Stories episode 140

Design is crucial in branding today. Your business gets noticed by your design, no matter whether it’s a logo or an advertisement. As an aggressively competitive niche, finding your exclusive space is a Herculean task in the design and marketing industry.

For team Illustrake, which consists of three friends – Mihir, Satyansh, and Prakhar- it all started with their blog, 3nions. They landed their first paying client through this blog, which now primarily handles tech news.

When these youngsters came to know that people were ready to pay for their service, they took the essential next step, driven by their sheer passion for entrepreneurship. That’s how they founded Illustrake, a complete digital marketing agency that provides solutions to your business’ digital needs.

What does it take to run a digital marketing agency today? How do they keep the brand relevant amid fierce competition? Team Illustrake talks about their journey.

1) How did you get your idea for this business?

It all started with our sister concern – 3nions. It was an amateur blogging site (which now caters to technology) where we used to upload creative images made from scratch.

One fine day someone approached us to make more of it because the person liked it for some reason. It was technically our first paid assignment. It was something unexpected like we are stepping out of our comfort zone. You can say that it was our ‘viral’ moment and that 2-3 creatives gave birth to Illustrake.

Without much technical knowledge and help, we started sailing with just a few equipments and made it till here. Not to do a regular job was our escape mechanism, which we didn’t analyze carefully. It seemed scary but seeing the output now, we are glad did it.

Continue reading “| Entrepreneurs Of India Startup Stories – EO India”

My Most Important Realization as a Founder Is That I’m Replaceable – Marker

My Most Important Realization as a Founder Is That I’m Replaceable – Marker

I’m too busy.

Nobody else can do it as well as me.

I can’t trust anyone to do the job.

Proclaiming these statements on repeat, eventually, I couldn’t tell if they were complaints or if they had become my mantras. I developed these beliefs while working in corporate, and in a twisted way, they eventually became a part of my identity.

If I were to grow as an entrepreneur, I would need to evolve from my busy-making mindset and become more strategically focused instead.

During the first two years of starting my business, I did everything. Social media posts, admin, web updates, PR… no task was too small or too big.

I was bootstrapping my business and couldn’t fathom paying someone to do the things that I could, nor did I trust that someone could execute as well as I could. Neuroticism aside, there was also a sense of importance and superiority I felt by being busy all the time. Having worked in corporate for a decade, I picked up the habit of exclaiming how busy I was as if it were a badge of honor.

I thrived off the adrenaline and cortisol of a never-ending workload and maniacally checking things off my task list. I felt special by proving my value as an employee by taking on more than I could handle, and doing it faster and better than my peers. That mentality made me a great worker bee, but it kept me in the mindset of an independent contractor at best. If I were to grow as an entrepreneur, I would need to evolve from my busy-making mindset and become more strategically focused instead.

Continue reading “My Most Important Realization as a Founder Is That I’m Replaceable – Marker”

Egnyte CEO Vineet Jain on building a culture that puts employees first – Ladders

Egnyte CEO Vineet Jain on building a culture that puts employees first – Ladders

Vineet Jain founded Egnyte, the content intelligence platform, in 2007 and has been leading the company ever since. Although he has won awards for diversity and Egnyte has been recognized as a great company for work-life balance, Jain admits that he is not the type to come up with “cutsie” values and plaster them on the wall.

Ladders spoke with Jain to hear more about his management style, Egnyte’s work culture, and his thoughts on the importance of failure.

Do you believe being a founder changes your role of CEO at all?

“In the initial stages of a company, that founder title carries a lot more weight along with being the CEO, especially if you are a product or an engineering background CEO, which is true in my case. But as you progress beyond, let’s say $250 million of revenue and the company starts scaling, I don’t think that has the same level of impact as compared to the operational role of a CEO.”

Continue reading “Egnyte CEO Vineet Jain on building a culture that puts employees first – Ladders”

When Starting Companies, Experience Matters – Stanford Report

When Starting Companies, Experience Matters – Stanford Report

SpaceX’s Elon Musk gives an update on the company’s Mars rocket Starship. Credit: Reuters/Callaghan O’Hare
For serial entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, success begets success, a study reveals. | Reuters/Callaghan O’Hare

 

In February of 1999, Elon Musk received $22 million when Compaq acquired his first company. Certainly he could have taken his millions and retired, or cut back to volunteer work on weekday afternoons, but instead he went on to cofound X.com, which merged with PayPal and netted him $165 million when it was acquired three years later. Next up? He launched SpaceX and Tesla.

Musk and other Silicon Valley icons have established a kind of mythology around the serial entrepreneur. Venture capital firms now fund serial entrepreneurs at greater rates than novices. Are they right to do so?

“We wanted to test this story of whether serial entrepreneurs actually do better,” says Kathryn Shaw, the Ernest C. Arbuckle Professor of Economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “The literature on serial entrepreneurship really had no interesting papers asking this question, and it is a question that needs answering.”

With Anders Sørensen at Copenhagen Business School, Shaw compared the success of novice and serial entrepreneurs in Denmark between 2001 and 2013. She found that serial entrepreneurs do, in fact, outperform novices, and by substantial margins.

Continue reading “When Starting Companies, Experience Matters – Stanford Report”

How a bus driver’s son quit college and started a Rs 1 Cr turnover coworking space booking platform – YourStory

How a bus driver’s son quit college and started a Rs 1 Cr turnover coworking space booking platform – YourStory

Gurugram-based Sandeep Singh’s father drove buses and the financial situation did not permit Sandeep to get a professional degree.

He had to drop out of Kirorimal College in Delhi, but this didn’t stop the college dropout from pursuing his dreams of becoming an entrepreneur.

“I started watching videos on YouTube and picked up skills in website development. I started a web service agency, Guru Infosys, when I was just 23, and I later started education portal Edunuts” he tells SMBStory.

But things didn’t go as planned.

He says, “My last product failed to take-off as per expectations, and the failure took various shapes and negative experiences. It was not just product failure, but it was a failure of time, effort, capital, and most importantly, a stunning team which I built over four years of hard work,” he says.

Continue reading “How a bus driver’s son quit college and started a Rs 1 Cr turnover coworking space booking platform – YourStory”

The Real Trouble With Silicon Valley – The Atlantic

The Real Trouble With Silicon Valley – The Atlantic

Photo rendering: Patrick White

How should we tell the story of the digital century, now two decades old? We could focus, as journalists tend to do, on the depredations of the connected life. As Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have devoured the online world, they have undermined traditional media, empowered propagandists, and widened America’s political divides. The smartphone, for all its wonder and utility, has also proved to be a narcotizing agent.

But what if, instead of focusing on Big Tech’s sins of commission, we paid equal attention to its sins of omission—the failures, the busts, the promises unfulfilled? The past year has offered several lurid examples. WeWork, the office-sharing company that claimed it would reinvent the workplace, imploded on the brink of a public offering. Uber, once seen as an unstoppable force that would transform urban transit as radically as the subway had, has likewise seen its public valuation plummet. From January to October, the two firms together lost $10 billion.

While these companies might seem like outliers, their struggles hold a message, not just for investors but for all of us. Big Tech continues to find new and profitable ways to sell ads and cloud space, but it has failed, often spectacularly, to remake the world of flesh and steel.

Continue reading “The Real Trouble With Silicon Valley – The Atlantic”

Five common cognitive biases every entrepreneur must get over with – YourStory

Five common cognitive biases every entrepreneur must get over with – YourStory

Humans are not as wise as the word ‘sapiens’ suggests. We commit mistakes, and alas, in a very predictable manner. The study of systematic biases and errors that creep into everyday human behaviour has helped scores of economists and psychologists bag Nobel Prizes, and author several best-sellers for the popular audience.

The very domain of behavioural economics and the sub-fields of behavioural finance, behavioural marketing et al., have become mainstay disciplines in B-Schools and corporates alike. That’s how much our understanding of ourselves has moved from the days of Adam Smith and the invisible hand. The entrepreneur is no immune to such biases. If anything, such beings are far more susceptible to fall for such biases owing to the very pursuit of success against all odds.

Image: Shutterstock

This piece is aimed at calling out five of the most destructive of the biases that typically cripple the founders and early employees of enterprises and derail the organisational progress. As a bonus, a set of approaches are offered on how to overcome such cognitive errors before they entirely disable your pursuit. Continue reading “Five common cognitive biases every entrepreneur must get over with – YourStory”