The Venture Edge

You’ve launched your new Internet business. Exciting times. Customers like what you’ve done; they’re actually paying you! And then one day you receive a letter asking you to cease and desist because you’re infringing on someone’s patent. You contact the offended party to offer to license their technology, but they refuse. They want to shut you down. 

My colleague and friend Andrea Belz forwarded a link to an article in the LA Times written by Andrea Chang called “Female Tech Entrepreneurs Flourish in L.A.” I thought it was a fitting counterpoint toInc. magazine’s total focus on our male counterparts (see Peter’s post); and for those of you who don’t read the LA Times (which is nearly everyone these days), it may encourage you to give that newspaper another look. 

I just ran across an interesting video interview with the founder of live video broadcast site Livestream. In this interview, founder and CEO Max Haot discusses when he realized that the name he selected for his startup -- Mogulus -- was not a good one, and then what he did to select a new and then acquire the URL for his site (spoiler alert: it wasn't cheap!). 

Have you heard of Startup Weekend? Until a few days ago, I hadn't. But, based on just how big this thing is, I'm surprised that this is the case. 

You had to know it was going to happen because we’ve seen this story a thousand times before. An entrepreneur comes up with a product and makes a business out of it; it’s easily copied so lots more businesses like it start popping up, and eventually it loses its charm, causing profits to drop like a stone.  The Wall Street Journal just reported that the gourmet cupcake market is crashing. To those who invested in these one trick ponies I say, “I’m not feeling your pain.” 

One word I’m definitely getting tired of is pivot.  For those very few of you who have not drunk the Kool-Aid on this term, to pivot means that based on market information you gain from “getting out of the building,” you make a change in direction for your startup—sometimes a radical change in direction, like completely changing your business concept. Given that the term pivot is most commonly associated with basketball, it does seem that we’ve distorted the original meaning of the word a bit. 

Crowdfunding through sites like Kickstarter.com and Indiegogo.com has been all the rage lately, but I have long suspected that the excitement (and the hype) has overtaken the reality. If you poke around these sites, you'll see some remarkable examples of companies doing extremely well pursuing their crowdfunding dreams. But look past those few examples which tend to be prominently displayed for all to see, and you'll find that the vast majority of these crowdfunding efforts don't do much at all. 

I once had the pleasure of hanging out with Brad Feld for a bit in Boulder, Colorado when I was doing some work on one of start-up biz growth expert Jana Matthews' books. Brad is a very successful early stage technology investor and entrepreneur. I just noticed that Brad is running an interesting competition where he will select up to five entrepreneurs with innovative startups to live rent-free in his Kansas City house, which comes complete with the remarkable new Google Fiber Internet connection (which runs at a modem-melting 1 Gigabit per second -- about 100 times faster than what most Americans are able to conjure up on a good day. 

I just returned from an interesting industry forum at Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles, one of the premiere pediatric and neonatal intensive care facilities in the U.S. I work with the Center forTechnology and Innovation in Pediatrics and, believe me, it's a labor of love. It was exciting to hear from some CEOs, including Tom Thornbury from Neotech, about what they’re doing to solve the problem of using adult devices on babies and children, which, by the way, does not work so well. One of the issues that came up was the new tax on medical devices and the impact it might have on small businesses and on innovation. And it’s a killer.

One of the most successful medical device companies ever, Intuitive Surgical, is THE pioneer in robotic surgery and certainly the most popular machine with surgeons. In fact, the Journal for Healthcare Qualityreports that about 41 percent of hospital websites advertise robotic surgery and the most popular is definitely the da Vinci from Intuitive Surgical. But every pioneer has to face some arrows and Intuitive Surgical (IS) is no exception.

One of the things I most enjoyed when I taught my class in Creativity and Innovation at San Diego State University a year ago was an assignment I gave to my students to invent some creative and innovative ideas for new products and services. Some of the resulting ideas were really great, and if my aspiring entrepreneurs put some time and money into them, I have no doubt that they could successfully take them to market. 

Can you believe it’s been nearly a year since the President signed the American Jobs Act designed to jumpstart startups by giving entrepreneurs access to money from average citizens in exchange for equity in their companies? Meanwhile, because of the inaction of the SEC, nothing has happened.

After my book Home-Based Business For Dummies was published a few years back, one of the most common questions I would get asked is this: "What business should I start?" While the question is a simple one, the answer is not so much. Why? Because it depends on a variety of things, including your own skills and passions, the amount of time (and money) you have available to devote to your new business, and the nature of the business itself. Some businesses by nature have the possibility of greater success than others. 

Last night was the last session of the start-up class I teach with Scott Lenet and Jon Bassett, DFJ Frontier Fund VCs. It was at once exciting and celebratory, but at the same time sad because we’ll never have this same group of entrepreneurs in the same place at the same time.

 We’re getting to that time of year when students who want to become entrepreneurs are preparing to pitch their businesses for feedback, grades, or maybe even funding. If they’ve done the really hard work it takes to get a start-up in shape, the payoff is exciting. Unfortunately, too many students have done just enough to get by, hoping that their charisma at pitch time will push them over the line. Good luck with that!

If there is a list of the Top-5 Rules of Entrepreneurship somewhere, you'd think this one would be in there somewhere: Don't try to take on the BIG guys. The history of business is replete, after all, with stories of big businesses that have eaten the lunch of much smaller businesses. For example, when Microsoft finally decided to get in on that thing called the Internet, and built a browser to compete against the one offered by Netscape. While it didn't hurt that Microsoft gave away its browser for free, people turned away from Netscape's browser in droves, leaving the relatively small company in its dust. 

A lot of people (including me) like to tell prospective entrepreneurs that, when it comes to starting up a new business, the sky is the limit. Just come up with a good idea, add a dash of hard work and sticktoitiveness, and -- presto! -- you'll have a successful business on your hands before you know it. 

I’m not a lawyer, but I can't count how many times I’ve urged entrepreneurs to settle the ownership issues for their start-ups before the venture starts looking like there might be something there. “No worries,” I’mtold. “We’ve worked together on teams at the university, and we really trust each other.” What a joke! “Get the legal stuff settled early,” I warn them, because it’s more difficult when you’re facing the possibility of funding. Do they listen? Not as often as I’d like. 

 As an entrepreneur I thought it might be fun to watch the video that Peter recently posted and see if I fit the mold.  I’m sure many of you have done that by now. As someone who has spent her career in entrepreneurship, I have to say that I don’t agree with some of what the Minute MBA had to say, although the way they said it was pretty clever.

A while back, like many others, I wrote about the explosion of accelerators in Southern California and, in fact, around the globe. Accelerators have gone from a cottage industry to a feeding frenzy.  But some interesting stats have come out that paint a pretty sobering picture for the entrepreneurs who pin their hopes on them and for the investors who invest in them.  

 I’m always exploring the small business section of the Wall Street Journal because it’s interesting to see how these little engines of growth are doing in these very slow-growth times.  According to Anjali Athavaley’srecent article “Into Working Outside,” many businesses are giving up trying to support expensive overhead in New York and are moving outside to free public space and setting up shop, especially startups.  All kinds of businesses from Web developers to designers, and even service providers, can now be found at picnic tables near the Manhattan Bridge (the intersection of Water and Pearl for those who know the city) taking advantage of free Wi-Fi and decent summer weather.

For some reason, I'm on the e-mailing list of an outfit by the name of OnlineMBA.com. Every once in a while, these folks send me a cool infographic that encapsulates a lot of interesting and useful information in an easily understandable way. Such is the case with the infographic Failing Gracefully: The Secret to Startup Success posted below. 

Can paradise and productivity exist in the same place?  I'm not so sure, but then maybe it's not a good idea anyway.   I have been vacationing on the Big Island (Hawaii) for over a week now, barely checking email and not working on any of the projects I'm involved in.  As much as is humanly possible, I've been off the grid.

Don’t you just love hype cycles, aka bubbles?  I do because they’re so predictable and yet we all go along for the ride.  What's funny is that you can see them coming, but they’re hard to resist because the excitement that surrounds them is so palpable.  Even if we realize that  all bubbles eventually pop, we still seem taken by surprise when they do.  The dot com boom, energy, and the rise in housing prices (I’ll admit that one lasted a long time) to name a few recent ones that made a lot of people rich and then took it all away.

I thought it might be nice to follow up on Peter’s last two posts about entrepreneurship in the Philippines with a global view of startup activity based on the wonderful work of my friends and colleagues at GEM, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor.  We often think of the United States as the entrepreneurship leader, but like anyone who takes a leadership position for granted, we need to pay attention to who’s nipping at our heels and challenging that position. America’s leadership position is definitely not what it used to be.  

You would have to be a hermit not to have noticed one of the fastest growing industries around – the business accelerator.  If you Google “business accelerator,” you’ll get about 16 million results.  16 million!!!  It seems that every city worth its salt is launching an accelerator in hopes of generating new businesses and job growth in their community.  So does it work and should you find an accelerator for your new venture?  

I love entrepreneurs who do big things, who want to change the world, who know that if they fail, they’ll fail big---but if they win, they will have made a difference.  I’ve written about Elon Musk (“SpaceX: A big win for an emerging industry”) who, with SpaceX and Tesla Motors, is definitely taking on monumental, but exciting challenges.  Today I want to tell you about a unique entrepreneur who also has a big vision that will giveyou faith that real innovation—the hard stuff—is alive and well.  

As someone who sees dozens of new businesses in the conception stage each week, I’m struck by how many never address the risk inherent in relying on a dominant player’s platform for the heart of their business.  I’m speaking specifically of Google and Facebook.  Whether you’re relying on Google search for customer acquisition or AdWords for revenue, or on Facebook for customer acquisition and marketing, you have put your business at the mercy of the competitive whims of these companies, most often without a backup plan.

 I hear lots of ideas for new businesses; most of them are simply me-too’s or not compelling enough to get serious about.  So I’m wondering what I would have said if an entrepreneur had called me to discuss hisplan to mine for metals and minerals on asteroids.  My first question would have been “and you’re doing this with whom?”

I have been a fan of the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform for some time -- it seems to me to be a great way for entrepreneurs with good product ideas to raise the funding they need to get their ideas off the ground. However, while crowdfunding holds great potential for entrepreneurs, the appeal to date is I'm sure limited by the amount of money that platforms such as Kickstarter have actually generated for their clients. A quick look at the Kickstarter "Discover Projects" page, for example, shows several projects hovering at just a few thousand dollars, with some under $1,000. 

 You may be surprised to learn that the world’s 4 billion poor are the largest untapped consumer market on the planet with more buying power than any other group.  Would you also be surprised to learn that of the $1.1 billion people who live on less than $1 a day, more than 70% are small farmers on rural, often unproductive land in Sub Saharan Africa?  But here’s the shocker.  The cost to get one family out of poverty forever is only $300!  For one person, only $60!  And here’s the best part of all, none of them are looking for a handout; they simply want the opportunity to make money.

After another week of hearing budding entrepreneurs claim that they either have no competition or that their competition is essentially irrelevant, I felt compelled to speak out.  Whether you’re a scientist with the temporary monopoly of patents you want to commercialize or the latest Internet startup in a niche that no one else has targeted, let me say this loud and clear—you DO have competition.

 Imagine having thousands of workers available on demand to do the work you don’t have time or employees to do.  Crowdsourcing has been around for a number of years and comes in many different forms: seeking solutions to problems, carrying out digital tasks, or hiring freelance workers, to name a few.  Several years ago, my business partner and I used a crowdsourcing site to design and build the look and feel for our nonprofit’s website.  It actually worked quite well, and we were happy with the result.  Best of all, we saved a lot of money and got it done within the budget we had.  Today, crowdsourcing has grown to include all sorts of business tasks that can be accomplished and delivered in digital form.  But is crowdsourcing all that it’s touted to be?

 I have the good fortune to work with very talented engineers who have lots of cool ideas and the ability to solve really tough problems.  My job is to help them turn those terrific solutions into products that have commercial value, and that’s not easy.  Why?  Because a lot of these highly trained engineers are better at solutions than they are at problems, which is a problem in itself because entrepreneurship and new product development are all about having a deep understanding of problems.

 Recently I wrote about how tired I was of everyone bashing private equity firms. The bashing was accelerated by the fact that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had been a principal in Bain Capital, a private equity firm.  Now that the media and Mr. Romney’s opponents have moved on to greener pastures, for the moment, I’m reading about states that are removing the tax credits for angel investors in qualified investments because startups don’t create enough jobs.  Is there anyone out there in government who understands how startups work?

It really is a small world. As I was getting ready to post a link to the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES) 150k Challenge -- which will award a total of $150,000 to winners of three different entrepreneurship competitions -- I ran across an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal. According to the article, the age-old tradition of business plan competitions is increasingly being seen by the business schools that sponsor them as an ineffective way to spark the entrepreneurial spirit. Instead of resulting in new businesses, these competitions are in most cases simply resulting in some very well-written business plans. And that's not the outcome that the schools that sponsor business plan competitions are hoping for. 

Last week I saw one of the best pitches for funding I’ve ever seen.  Irene Rhodes is the founder/CEO of Consumer Fire Products, which provides proprietary wildfire protection systems that are, quite simply, amazing.  I’ve known her for some time.  She’s a USC alum, and I’ve had the pleasure of giving her advice along the way as she developed the business.  So what did she do last week to hit it out of the park?  

Start your engines all those of you who have hopes of becoming top-level domain name registrars, which seems to be the opportunity du jour. On Thursday this week ICANN, the non-profit organization that oversees the Internet domain name world so that it’s not completely chaotic, will begin accepting applications to manage a whole new set of top-level domains that could include just about any word.  Think dot-electronics or dot-snowboardingsafaris.   Opening up a vast array of potential top-level domains will no doubt have the domain-name speculators out in force.

Many entrepreneurs launch their businesses with a board of directors that consists of the founding team and perhaps the first investor while they rely heavily on board of advisors for everyday guidance and to open doors. There's a good reason for this approach: it's easier and less costly to find people willing to be on an advisory board because advisors don't have the legal liability associated with being on a board of directors. Most potential directors will not serve unless you carry directors' and officers' (D&O) liability insurance to indemnify them, and the expense of this insurance is often prohibitive for a startup. However, I would argue that establishing corporate governance early in the life of a startup will often enhance the quality of the company as it grows.   

As you may know, I have been teaching MGT453 -- Creativity and Innovation -- at San Diego State University this semester. It's been a lot of fun, and I suspect I am learning as much about the topic as are my 51 students, most of whom are seniors who will be graduating in the summer of 2012. 

Ready for some good news on the entrepreneurship front? According to a report released last Thursday by the Kauffman Foundation and Young Invincibles, 54 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 -- the generation commonly known as the millennials -- want to start their own businesses. Okay, there's just one thing. Of this 54 percent, only 8 percent of them own businesses now, and only 11 percent intend to start businesses within the next year. And what about those other 38 percent -- the potential young entrepreneurs who want to start their own businesses but who don't plan to do so anytime soon? Why have they delayed their dreams of entrepreneurship? 

I am convinced that there is almost always a guaranteed market opportunity for a new product that fulfills the needs or desires of a large group of people, is reasonably priced, and that is reliable and works well. Such is the case with a new product that I just found out about: the Mailstop Envelope offered by Berkeley, California-based CatalogChoice.org. The Mailstop Envelope promises to do something that I personally am very interested in: shutting down the flood of grocery store circulars, catalogs, phone books, credit-card offers, and other junk that fills my mailbox every day. All you do is buy a Mailstop Envelope for the quite reasonable price of $6.75, fill it with up to 15 address labels clipped from your offending junk mail, and then drop the Mailstop Envelope into the mail. That's it -- CatalogChoice.org takes care of the rest. Before long, that flood of junk mail will slow to just a trickle.

I’m working with a fresh crop of aspiring entrepreneurs who are pie-in-the-sky optimistic about their ventures becoming the “next big thing.” I love their optimism because today it seems thatoptimism is in short supply in the general public, but not among these can-do entrepreneurs. They’re absolutely certain that they can compete successfully in a very crowded marketplace. And they absolutely can, but only if they adopt a contrarian point of view.

From time to time I’ve been talking about some of the critical skills that entrepreneurs must have to be successful no matter what industry you’re in or what the state of the economy is. Last week I talked about decision making and your emotional intelligence. Today I want to talk about storytelling. First off, let me assure you that I’m not referring to tall tales or big fish stories when I say storytelling.No, absolutely not! In this case, storytelling is your ability to convey a compelling narrative about yourself, your business, your product, and your customer.

One of the important skills that entrepreneurs must develop is effective decision making. This is true not only because some of the decisions they are called upon to make could affect their business insignificant ways, but also because entrepreneurs make hundreds of decisions throughout any given day and usually those decisions are made quickly, almost instinctively. Any one of those decisions could negatively affect the business.

Although entrepreneurship in its essence is about startup—creating an opportunity and gathering the resources to make that opportunity a successful enterprise—it really is also a way of life. Once you’ve been bitten by the excitement of discovering an opportunity and creating and designing a new business, it’s hard not to see opportunity everywhere you look. But despite the fact that I’ve clearly drunk the entrepreneurial Kool-aid, I do recognize that this lifestyle is not for everyone. 

It’s very hard to get the business model right at startup. Even if you’ve done all the things we’ve talked about in previous posts, there are no guarantees that things won’t change once you have an operating business. The business environment is fluid (and that’s being kind) so chances are you’ll be operating a few months and something will shift

Now there’s a negative way to start a post! But I believe in facing the facts; let me explain. Today on the news shows, people were talking about how the government has to incentivize entrepreneurs tostart businesses and businesses in general to hire more people. Some talking head on CNN actually proposed that if the government would simply subsidize one new job for every small business and that business had to keep the person for 5 years, we could get rid of unemployment. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

Although it appears that I did two posts in the last two weeks (less than I normally do), I will admit now that I set those up in advance to post while I have been off the grid in French Polynesia.  This was a well-earned vacation (and much needed), but if you're like me 

One of the great moments in education for those of us who teach comes long after the student leaves the classroom, sometimes years later when out of the blue the student contacts you to thank you for what he learned in your class and how he used it to further his career.

 I’m beginning to think that everyone believes that incubators hold the secret to entrepreneurial success. When you look at all the incubators that have launched in the past few years, you wouldcertainly get that impression. Some highly respected people have launched such programs as yCombinator, TechStars, Plug and Play, and IdeaLab, to name just a few. Their goal? To claim the next great startup, whether it be an Internet company, an energy company, or a retail play.

 On May 18, I posted a blog about the Mobile News Incubator program at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. In short, 17 students in teams were dropped into four news organizations—The Associated Press, Variety, KCRW-FM, and La Opinión, the largest Spanish newspaper in the U.S. Their mission? To develop new mobile app products that would revolutionize journalism. I’m happy to say that every team succeeded beyond all expectations.

I recently received an email from a high school student with strong entrepreneurial interests who asked me whether I thought it was worthwhile to go to college to study entrepreneurship. Sam even sent me a list of about three dozen books he had read related to entrepreneurship (several of them were mine, so he already knows how to get someone’s attentionJ) As a professor at a university known for entrepreneurship, you would think this would be an easy question for me to answer. Well, it’s not, because in a world where pretty much all the information you might need is readily available online, and since many universities have been successful with online courses, students are questioning how they should spend their time, not to mention their money.

Today I’ll meet 17 students who hope to invent the future of news in just 9 days. Sound impossible? Maybe, but then considering how fast we've seen change come to the global journalismbusiness--it's now powered by millions of citizen journalists through blogs, Facebook, and YouTube-- 9 days is almost an eternity! 

According to the Small Business Administration, 70 percent of Americans dream of one day starting their own businesses. And one of the most popular ways that people become entrepreneurs is by turning a hobby into a business.  

Ever since the cartoon series “The Jetsons” became a household world in the 1980s, we’ve fantasized about owning a car that could fly. And, if you live in a megalopolis like Southern California, you dream about rising above it all. Former UC Davis professor Paul Moller, who designed his first helicopter at the age of 15, went beyond the dream stage and has spent his life developing a flying car. After more than 20 years of development, his company, Moller International, has produced “the first and only feasible, personally affordable, personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle the world has ever seen.” On his website, Moller has the following anonymous quote about new technology:

 Part III of the Facebook Trilogy.  Now that yet another Facebook “founder” wannabe has come out of the woodwork to claim his riches, it’s time to take stock of the lessons that entrepreneurs should learn from the evolving story of the founding of Facebook. First-time entrepreneurs make a lot of mistakes, and Mark Zuckerberg is no exception, so let’s see what we can take away from the ongoing claims against Facebook.

 Back in February Peter wrote about the new program, Startup America [“Ready. Set. Startup America!], that promises to support a variety of entrepreneurship programs and kick start more new businesses. Looks likethe UK is getting on board with their own version—Startup Britain. 

It's no secret that the U.S. National Laboratories -- fabled places like Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and 15 others -- have been at the forefront of technology innovation for decades. Collectively, the nation's 17 National Laboratories hold some 15,000 patents for a variety of innovations. However, only about 10 percent of these patents have been licensed for commercial use.

Coming to you from Washington DC where I was speaking at the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) annual conference.  Tonight was the highlightofthe conference, March Madness for the Mind.  Oops, can't call it that any more because the NCAA decided they didn't like the juxtaposition with their annual collegiate basketball tournament.  So this year, it's actually called Open Minds, a characteristic the NCAA can't claim.

I often get asked about how to quickly assess a new venture idea so you don't waste time and money on something that has little or no chance of succeeding.  To be sure, some ideas don't immediately suggest a problem; in fact, they may look like real winners until you dig a bit deeper and uncover the fatal flaw.   

Sometimes an entrepreneur-to-be knows exactly what kind of business he or she wants to start -- it may have been a closely held dream for many years, or it may be an irresistable opportunity that recently popped up on the horizon. However, in many cases, new entrepreneurs don't really know exactly what kind of business to start -- they just know that they want to start their own business.

We sometimes have this impression that anything worth paying attention to when it comes to technology is taking place in the U.S. and maybe the Pacific Rim.  But this past week a huge event took place in Barcelona—Mobile World Live, and it featured a stellar list of keynotes including Google’s Chairman/CEO Eric Schmidt, Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, and Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, to name just a few. 

Got a big plan, but just can't seem to find the time and resources to actually do something about it? Well, if that's the case, then Levi Strauss -- and its Dockers brand pants -- have got an offer for you. According to a Dockers press release, "The Dockers brand is challenging men to love what they do or get busy doing what they love by presenting one lucky winner with $100,000 (post tax!) in the “Wear the Pants Project” contest. The Dockers brand is also giving away an additional 43 “Man Grants” (total value: over $75,000 in services, tools, resources, or cash) each week through the end of November 2011. The contests are about encouraging men to take action – whether it’s that small project that never got done or a bigger life’s passion. To enter the contests, men must submit a plan for actualizing their dreams, whether professional or personal, on the Dockers Facebook page."

On Monday the White House, in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation and the Case Foundation, announced a new entrepreneurial initiative: the Startup America Partnership. Just in case you didn't get the memo, Startup America has secured the commitment of a number of very big companies and foundations to support a variety of different entrepreneurship programs.

I just LOVE top-10 lists. There's just something about them that get my attention every time. So today I'm going to double the fun by offering up Springwise's top-20 list of new business opportunities for 2011. If you've been feeling stuck in a rut in your current business, or if you've been looking for a business opportunity that offers a lot of upside potential, then this might be just the list for you.  

I have to admit that when I saw the promotional material for How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America, I thought, “OK, another book about entrepreneurs and lessons learned. Fortunately, I didn’t simply dismiss this book with all the other promotions that hit my inbox and instead decided to call the author. 

Maybe you've always wanted to invest in a startup (what could be more exciting!) but never had the ability to risk a large chunk of cash.  Well, Santa Claus has just found an opportunity for you.  Joel Shulman, (aka Santa) an entrepreneurship professor at Babson College in Massachusetts (a great school, by the way), is about to officially launch a mutual fund of publicly traded companies that have entrepreneurial characteristics. It's called the EntrepreneurShares Global Fund and it's comprised of more than 200 companies, 60% of which are U.S. companies and the remaining are from China, Canada, the U.K. and Hong Kong. Shulman soft launched the fund November 11, attracting about $10 million in institutional investors as well as a number of his most loyal students. 

Inventors are interesting people. I know a few and what I can say for sure is they’re definitely not normal. I don’t mean that in a bad way—if they were normal, they wouldn’t have the vision to connect things that don’t generally go together to come up with something new. Let’s face it, they see the world very differently from most of us, and it’s for that reason that not all the inventions they come up with are practical. In fact, the vast majority of inventions that receive patents never make it to the market at all.  

 I'm going to deviate from our small business economy posts for one post because I think it will help many of you focus your pitch about your business, whether that's a new business you're designing or one you have up and running.  Last night in my graduate tech feasibility course at USC, my VC in residence, Scott Lenet (DFJ Frontier Fund), brought his partner David Cremin to give the students a lesson in pitching to the needs of the investor.  Needless to say, it was eye-opening for many.

With only a few weeks until a very important mid-term election, Peter and I decided to focus our next several posts on critical political and regulatory issues impacting entrepreneurs and small businesses for the foreseeable future. We’re not going to take political sides but rather deal with the truth—just the facts, folks. Let me start by saying that uncertainty is clearly the word of the day and the entrepreneurs and business owners I talk to around the country are all singing the same tune—no major commitments until we know where things are going. 

There are plenty of articles out there on the biggest mistakes you don't want to make when you start a business.  In fact, I've probably written one or two of them, but at least I can proudly say I actually committed a few of those mistakes so I know for a fact they're mistakes you shouldn't make.  What disappoints me is when a consultant ( an entrepreneur wannabe and professional service provider) who does business plans and financial projections for startups claims to be an expert on the subject and completely misses perhaps two of the biggest reasons new businesses fail.

No one ever said that starting a business was easy, right? Well, starting a business is actually the easy part. It's the keeping it going and growing part that is difficult.

Now before you dismiss the title of this blog as a joke, or worse, the ravings of an idiot, hear me out. It’s an unfortunate fact that many universities and for-profit businesses are perpetuating the myth that entrepreneurs have to create business plans before they start businesses. Potential entrepreneurs are spending up to 200 hours of their valuable time in pursuit of the perfect plan to present at a competition (don’t get me started on business plan competitions – I’ll save that for another post) or pitch to an investor, only to discover that investors are more impressed by a founding team that has gotten the business up and running, even in a minimal way, to prove the concept than they are by a nicely bound document.

Several years ago I wrote about a trend for retail businesses--the kiosk approach to testing a business concept or product. What this entailed was setting up a small shop in the form of a kiosk, generally in mall space, with relatively low overhead, but the ability to directly reach consumers. I also wrote that some landlords found that, rather than sitting on an empty space until a new tenant is found, they could rent the space on a temporary basis so that their cash flow is not interrupted. Well, guess what? In these uncertain and depressed economic times, we’ve seen a real resurgence in these “pop-up” businesses.

My father was a career Air Force officer who fought in World War II and the Korean War, and then ran top secret spy plane programs for one of those 3-letter government agencies. I was always proud to be an Air Force brat, and I have a deep-abiding respect for the men and women who put their lives on the line for our country. I was therefore very pleased to find out that the Entrepreneurship Program for Veterans with Disabilities exists, and that it is making a big difference in the lives of many disabled veterans -- and their families and loved ones.

 Don't ask for investor money unless you're in business in a serious way. If you're going to ask investors  to risk their hard-earned money, you'd better be worth the risk. 

Given the frequency with which entrepreneurs are discussed in the media,, it's not surprising that stereotypes have developed around them. Not all of these stereotypes are flattering, however,  and mostare simply false. I want to dispel three myths surrounding entrepreneurs so that you can begin your entrepreneurial journey based on facts.

I'm posting this blog from beautiful Sioux Falls, South Dakota where, with my N2TEC Institute co-founder Tim Stearns,  I'm helping 9 entrepreneurial teams launch their new technology businesses. I can hear the response from all of you--South Dakota, do people actually live there?  Well, yes they do and unlike most of the rest of you, they have stubbornly refused to participate in the recession.  In fact, South Dakota was recently named in "the most entrepreneur friendly state in the Small Business Survival Index put out by the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (California ranked 49 and New York 48 - so much for the notion that nothing happens in flyover country).  This organization ranks the policy environment of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

 If there is one common theme among all the stories I've heard entrepreneurs tell about their ventures (and my own experiences as well), it's that you have to get the team right or you'll struggle--or worse--fail. I could talk all day about teams but I want to focus on a major issue that leads to big problems: an incomplete or mismatched team DNA.

 You've just been hired as a project manager at ABC Start-up, a new media company. Because it's a start-up, you're given a relatively low salary in addition to stock options (the right to purchase stock at an agreed-upon price at some future date) that look promising because the founder says she's expecting to complete an IPO in the next 3 years on a valuation of at least $500 million. That's exciting!   Before you get too excited, however, (Wow, that means my 1% of the company will be worth $5 million in three years and I can retire at the ripe old age of 26), you might want to consider some red flags and a little item called "dilution."

This week I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Scott Lenet, co-founder and managing partner of DFJFrontier, an early-stage venture capital fund with offices in Los Angeles, Portland OR, Sacramento, and Santa Barbara.  To be quite honest, until now I did not have a very favorable impression of venture capitalists--hence the term vulture capitalist, which is often applied to disparage them.  Venture capital funds are professionally managed investment funds that typically invest in companies at the rapid growth stage or just prior to an IPO (initial public offering) or M&A (merger or acquisition).  If you've ever been in a room with a bunch of venture capitalists, you know that the arrogance is palpable.  And you've no doubt heard the horror stories of the nasty VCs who wanted to steal a company from its hard-working entrepreneur.  In some cases, the stories are true...but not always.

After several posts on this issue of employee ownership, I have come to the conclusion that Peter and I don't really disagree on the importance of employees having a vested interest in the companies for which they work - we're just coming at this from two different perspectives. 

We're comparing apples and oranges.

A couple weeks ago I ran a guest post -- 8 Tips for Finding Angel Investors -- written by Arnie Koss who, with his twin brother Ron, started the country's first organic baby food manufacturer: Earth's Best Baby Food. The post was a big hit on the Internet, being tweeted and re-tweeted to more than 30,000 people in less than a week's time. This time I've got a guest post written by Ron Koss on the topic of How to Overcome Start-Up Fears. This is something that every entrepreneur has gone through at one time or another in their careers, and it can be a serious roadblock to your success. You'll find a lot more great advice to entrepreneurs -- including obtaining start-up and growth funding, and dealing with angel investors -- in his new book: The Earth's Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution (Chelsea Green Publishing, March 2010).

As you may have noticed, I have been following serial entrepreneur Kevin Daum's quest to attain New York Times bestseller status for his upcoming book Roar! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle. The book is a sales book (specifically, a parable) based on the Passover passage about the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son unable to ask. Coincidentally, Passover starts in a week.

Peter and I seem to be on a funding streak lately with our recent posts, probably because so many people are asking for advice on how to fund their businesses in these difficult times. In the past week alone, I've been contacted by four entrepreneurs looking for money from me or my network.  To a person, they all approached the issue in the wrong way.

Continuing with our recent discussions about angel investors and FFF (friends, family, and fools) money, I just heard about an interesting new way to raise funds for new ventures: Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com). According to the website, Kickstarter is "...a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, and explorers." Kickstarter leverages the power of online crowdsourcing to gather together potential investors for new creative and business ventures. Current projects include someone building a Bussard fusion reactor ($3,099 pledged from 71 backers), a cinematic exploration of Calvin and Hobbes ($21,369 pledged from 302 backers),  a new video game by the name of Glorkian Warrior ($10,417 pledged from 109 backers), and 8-Bit NYC, a map of the city rendered to look like something out of Zelda ($3,374 pledged from 54 backers -- pictured at right).

 I want to follow up Peter's great post about angel investors with my two cents from the perspective of an angel investor.  In addition to all the great advice in that post, it's important to note that angels are generally bypassing companies that don't have customers yet.  They might get involved to mentor the team to prepare them for money, but they won't risk their money in this economy until the business is revenue generating.  

Tuesday I had the pleasure of meeting the producer of the documentary film The Triumph of the Dream, Norman Seeff, a medical doctor turned photographer.  In a a visually intimate and compelling style, Seeff explores the human and emotional side of the Mars Exploration mission during which engineers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) successfully landed two Mars Rovers on the surface of the planet. It turns out that the technical achievements of the mission served merely as the context or backdrop for the very real inner journey experienced by the team members as they struggled to overcome the inertia of previous failures with the Mars Polar Lander mission in 2000.

Today I ran across an article by Malcolm Gladwell in the January 18, 2010 New Yorker magazine. The title is "The Sure Thing: How Entrepreneurs Really Succeed." Whether or not you are a fan of Gladwell's work, he definitely has a way with words. He has a real knack for digging up interesting facts and weaving them into compelling stories. The main point of the article was that -- despite the popular myth -- successful entrepreneurs are NOT risk takers. Instead, they constantly strive to take the least risk possible.

It's no secret that some of today's largest and most successful businesses started out of small businesses, often in someone's home. In 1950, for example, Ewing Marion Kauffman started pharmaceutical maker Marion Laboratories in his basement with an investment of $5,000. In 1989, 39% of the company was sold to Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals for $2.2 billion. And both Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer started in garages -- the former in a Palo Alto, California garage rented by Bill Hewlett and David Packard, and the latter in Steve Jobs' parents' suburban Los Altos, California garage.

When you work with someone for a long time, you begin to get in synch on things you're thinking about.  Don't know how that happens, but once again Peter has posted a topic that I've been thinking about recently.  In his recent post A great big leap of fath, he talks about the importance of not losing your belief in what you're doing when you start to hit the obstacles that are sure to block your path.  One of the biggest obstacles I see in people who have decided on a quest to achieve something big like The New York Times bestseller list is the problem of getting traction.

As you may recall from a previous post or two, my serial entrepreneur friend and colleague Kevin Daum is on a quest to turn his next book -- Roar! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle -- into a New York Times bestseller. To help keep him motivated, he has gone so far as to tattoo "New York Times Best Seller" on his chest -- backwards, of course, so he can read it in the mirror when he shaves each morning. Kevin is clearly enthusiastic about achieving his goal -- just as he is whenever he dives into some new entrepreneurial venture -- and he's pulling out all the stops to publicize his quest (which he has dubbed the Quest for the Jewish Superbowl Ring). However, based on his most recent blog post, its seems he has come down with a common entrepreneurial affliction: the in-between flu.

Okay. Let's say you're an entrepreneur who's looking for the NEXT BIG THING -- where will you focus your time, money, and energy? Consider following the lead of Chinese business, which is going green in a very big way. You see, regardless of whether or not you believe in global warming -- much less the reasons that it may or may not actually exist -- Chinese entrepreneurs have seen the future of business, and it's a very green future indeed.

The big buzz in the start-up world is mobile communication, whether it's to find things, opt in to special deals from marketers, or conduct your buy/sell transactions from your iPhone.  In the last few months alone I have seen a number of these businesses--it's the wild West out there--but the jury is still out on which ones will stick and which will simply disappear. With a global mobile payments market expected to reach nearly 2 Trillion in the next decade, it's no wonder that entrepreneurs and investors are scrambling to find the platform that will become the standard.

Last month Kathy posted on the topic of where to start your business, citing a recent Fortune Small Business and Kauffman Foundation report titled "Best Places to Launch." While Kathy (and Fortune and Kauffman) certainly have a point -- that some areas of the country may be better than others to start and grow a business -- I think there's more to it than that.

At least two to three times a week I hear from an entrepreneur seeking money to start or grow their business. Usually they need the money yesterday.  Sometimes the request comes from people I know, but, more often than not, I've never heard of the person or they've found me through six degrees of separation on Linked In.  Believe me, cold calling people who know nothing about you or your business is not an effective strategy for raising money.  How to search for money will be the subject of my next post, but today I want to focus on whether you're even ready for investor money.

You know the old saying about the three most important factors in real estate--"location, location, location."   Could the same be said for where you start your business?  Fortune Small Business and the Kauffman Foundation certainly think so.  This month they once again brought out their "Best Places to Launch" report and the findings just might surprise you.  It did me because California, where Peter and I are, is nowhere to be found on any of the lists that include the top 50 cities in small, medium, and large categores. 

If you're one of the thousands of potential entrepreneurs who want to make their mark on the Internet, you need to understand where things are going and there's no place better to do that than at the annual Web 2.0 Summit, which took place last week in San Francisco.  Unless, like my grad students last night, you get the chance to have a conversation with CEO/founder Richard Rosenblatt of Demand Media, arguably the person who knows more about how to deliver unique content to users in a way that is meaningful to them than almost anyone today.  That's because his company in just 3 short years has not only become the leading producer of unique content on the Web through its network of freelance creators, it is also the undisputed leader in distributed social media, powering the conversations of 3 billion users on sites such as USA Today, Fox News, and CNN.

It's no secret that social networking websites and media -- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. -- are all the rage today. People are making connections with one another in ways that were unimaginable just a few short years ago. However, some people are going beyond updating their friends on what they had for dinner or their big plans for the weekend. They are using social networks to start new businesses. Rodney Rumford and his business partner Sean Callahan -- cofounders of TweetPhoto -- are two such people.

It's not often that I disagree with Peter, and actually I'm not really disagreeing with Peter.  I'm disagreeing with one of the entrepreneurs he cited in his most recent post.  The entrepreneur, Justin Kan of Justin TV, claimed that "90 percent of start-ups fail because the founders get bored, discouraged, or something else, and they move on to other things, not because of some catastrophe."  Well, I don't know where he got his statistics but let me give you the top five reasons new businesses fail.

The INC. magazine website recently ran a feature by the title Start-up Secrets: Tips from America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs. Tips include such things as Stick with It ("Start-ups don't die, they commit suicide. In other words, 90 percent of start-ups fail because the founders get bored, discouraged, or something else, and they move on to other things, not because of some catastrophe. No matter how dark it is today, things will always better tomorrow." -- Justin Kan, Justin.TV), Exceed Expectations ("We knew we only had one shot at this, so there was nothing throughout our start-up that we didn't purposely over-deliver on -- from the way we pitched our distributors and investors to the way we rolled out in the market. If you always over-deliver, it is going to draw attention and you will likely be successful." -- Jeff Avallon, IdeaPaint), and Do Your Homework ("Be really clear about the assumptions you're making about the business you're going into, and check those assumptions as quickly as you can -- whether it's building a prototype and testing it with people, or just talking to other people in the industry." -- Can Sar, Apture). Check out the feature to view all the tips.

In the past week I have been frustrated by entrepreneur wannabes who are enjoying the planning phase just a little bit too much.  They figure that they can feel like they're real entrepreneurs by simply talking about their yet-to-be business without ever actually getting down to starting the business and making it real.  In fact, I know at least several of these wannabes who have been talking about their business for at least two years with nothing to show for it except a business plan.   Some of them have entered (and in some cases won) one or more of the ubiquitous business plan competitions that seem to be a mainstay of every university or college on the planet.  Still, they don't have a business.

I wonder how many entrepreneurs really think about all the possible markets for their products and services and devise a roadmap for rolling them out over a period of years.  I suspect very few.  Why? because,  to use a quaint phrase, too many entrepreneurs start businesses that are one-trick ponies.  They have nowhere to go from where they started. 

Remember Famous Amos the cookie guy?  He's known for the now way-overused phrase "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade."  It's his mantra for entrepreneurs to take charge of their lives when things get tough.  Well, if you plan to cater to the luxury market with your new business, you may have bought a lemon and will have to figure out how to make lemonade in this weak economy.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  The surest path to a healthy economy is through innovation and entrepreneurship.  Apparently Sramana Mitra, technology entrepreneur and columnist for Forbes, agrees with me.  In her latest book, Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction, which, by the way, is self-published, she showcases 12 successful entrepreneurs who made it to the top by bootstrapping at the start.

We all love a good story--a great plot, compelling characters, a challenge that the protagonist has to overcome, and an ending that makes us feel satisfied.  Stories serve many purposes--to explain, to entertain, to inspire--but for entrepreneurs stories help to craft an identity that gives the new venture legitimacy in the eyes of investors, competitors, partners, and customers.  What I mean by this is that for entrepreneurs to secure the resources they need to launch and successfully operate their businesses, they have to be viewed as legitimate members of the business community and that doesn't happen easily. 

As often happens when the economy goes sour and unemployment is on the rise, many people get serious about putting their back-burner dreams of starting a business into motion. It's no surprise, therefore, that the number of articles in the press about this latest wave of "accidental" entrepreneurs is on the rise.

Some years ago, I cowrote (with venture capital expert Joe Bartlett) the book Raising Capital For Dummies. Although entrepreneurs often raise money to start up their new ventures -- or grow their current ventures -- from a variety of outside sources (angel investors, friends and family, private equity offerings, commercial banks, venture capital firms, and more), about 20 percent turn to a readily available source of cash: themselves.

I just returned from Sioux Falls, South Dakota where the non-profit institute that I co-founded with Tim Stearns has been running a Technology Accelerator Program over the past 8 weeks.  The goal is to get 7 new technology companies through the last mile of development and launched. This week we held a deal -dating event where the entrepreneurs pitched their businesses to a series of investors. 

Despite my concern that I might end up feeling like a big sardine jammed into a little can, I decided to brave the Sunday crowds at Comic-Con. Arriving with my kids in tow at 9:30am -- right as the doors opened to the public -- I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Sunday crowds were much less intense than what I have experienced onother days during previous shows. I suspect the reason was some combination of typical last-day trade show blues, and burnout on the part of the 4-day passholders who decided to sleep in on Sunday and arrive fashionably late.

Starting a business is not for the faint of heart and, unfortunately, many would-be entrepreneurs don't stop to question themselves before they make the leap.  If things go well, the successful entrepreneur will often blindly dive into the next deal feeling like he or she is golden.  That's what one billionaire entrepreneur I know did; in fact, after a huge sale of his very well-known company, he dove into three very diverse high-risk ventures believing that he couldn't lose--he had the Midas touch. 

Have you recently tried to get a domain name for your new company?  If you haven't, let me fill you in on the facts.  The chances of your getting the name you want is zero and zip.  Sorry, that's the truth. Unless you're going for something a bit nonsensical such as Zooomr, or Oooooc, you going to find a veritable wasteland of possibilities. 

I hear too many people complaining that it's tough to make money with the economy in a deep slump.  Well, some very ingenious people. with what could only be described as wacko ideas, have managed to make money, in some cases A LOT of money.  I guess it's true that there's a sucker born every minute, because whatever you want to sell, there does seem to be someone in the world crazy enough to buy it.  Take a look at some unlikely businesses that have made money for the people who founded them.  Then ask yourself---why didn't I think of that?

This afternoon I was monitoring NASA TV for what was to be the launch of the space shuttle Endeavor.  Ultimately, once again, the mission was aborted for weather, but as I listened to the rocess leading up to the scrubbing of the launch, I couldn't help but see the parallels with the kinds of things entrepreneurs go through at the run-up to the launch of their ventures, or the challenges that thwart a company attempting to secure an investment or complete an IPO.  As with a shuttle launch, it's all about timing and polling all the relevant stakeholders for a go/no-go decision before the final committment is made.

Peter's post on signs of a turnaround was certainly welcome to most of us, but those of us who decided not to participate in the recession in the first place did not wait for recovery signs before starting or growing our businesses. Nevertheless, it seems we may not be in the majority .  Today during an interview, a reporter told me that my view of California's competitiveness going forward and the ability of entrepreneurs to be successful in a down economy was quite contrarian compared to some of the entrepreneurs he had interviewed. 

This summer I’m working with five new technology companies that are in the process of going from bench to business. What is common with all these entrepreneurs is the belief that once you have a product, all you have to do is find a customer to buy it and you’ve got a business. (Remember I talked about going from idea to prototype in my previous post) Yes, Peter and I are famous for saying that without a customer you don’t have a business, but that’s just a clever saying. It completely overlooks the fact that a business has a lot of moving parts and the entrepreneur, the product, and the customer are just three of them.

If you saw my previous post, "With Apologies to Mr. Richter," you know that every technology business experiences the valley of death.  But, no matter what type of business you're trying to start, you need to do a proof of concept before you go all out and launch the business and to do that you need a prototype, which is simply a working model of the business--the product or service being offered.  Why? Because you can't get good feedback from customers if you don't have something they can see, touch, and interact with. 

New entrepreneurs often think that they don't have a chance if they enter a market that has some big-name players in it.  Really, would you want to go head-to-head with Microsoft or GE or Google?  Only if you have a death wish.  But there are ways to enter a market with major players and still be successful.  Why?  Because the big boys (also known as the "incumbents" in research lingo) have some serious things going against them.

When you think of technology businesses, it's not likely that South Dakota is the first place that comes to mind.  After all, for most of you, the entire center of the US is simply "fly-over" country.  But I have had the good fortune to discover untapped opportunity there through the work I've been doing with the institute I co-founded, N2TEC Institute.

The other day I received an email from someone I've known a long time who is definitely a promoter type - big on hype and talk about how what they're doing is the greatest idea on the planet.  You may know someone like this - they surface every couple years touting the next big thing they're working on.  After a while you think - yada, yada, I hear the talk, but where's the result?

We all talk about friends and family money as an important source of startup capital, but before you grab that cash from mom and dad, you might want to consider why it may not be a good idea.  Here are the top five reasons why you shouldn't take money from relatives.

1. My parents believe in me and want to do this.  Of course, they believe in you - what they believe is that you're a good person so you would do nothing less than take their small investment and turn it into a fortune that will take care of them for the rest of their lives, right?  Remember, to your parents you're always a kid--even if you're 45!  So, if you have their money, they're going to watch it and you like a hawk.  That sounds like fun, doesn't it?
    

Although I have a background in music and have done my share of performing (in my previous career), I would never be confused with a hip-hop artist.  But that's OK because if I want to I can become one and actually get my original work showcased on MyCypher.com, all courtesy of entrepreneur Curtis Jewell. 

Today Stonyfield Farm -- a subsidiary of Groupe Danone -- is the leading producer of organic yogurt in the world, with more than $300 million in annual sales.However, the path the company traveled to get to this place was frought with uncertainty and near-disaster. Stonyfield Farm -- which originated with an organic farming school in New Hampshire -- opened for business in 1983 with CEO Gary Hirshberg's vision for the future and a $35,000 loan from the Institute for Community Economics. The business started with seven Jersey cows and by the end of the year was steadily producing 150 cases of yogurt a week.

Last fall creative writer Jaime Case found herself out of a job when the Internet start-up she had been working for ran out of cash and shut its doors. Is that a familiar story?  After about three months of searching for a job that would let her use her talents and not finding anything that would pay her enough to keep her in the style to which she had grown accustomed (eating, roof over her head, etc), she decided to take matters into her own hands and begin the life of a freelancer. Today, she has several contracts, is in control of her days, and is finding new ways to leverage her skills. In short, she has become one of the thousands of freelance entrepreneurs who are discovering that while all sorts of jobs are in decline, contract work has actually increased.

There is a huge cultural change going on all around us--you would have to be in a coma not to see the evidence--and it has ramifications for innovation on a global scale that we don't yet understand.  I'm talking about the cultural shift to short-term thinking and instant gratification.  We see it in every facet of life, from short selling in the stock market, to investors opting out of really early-stage ventures because the time to exit is too long, to students leaving PhD programs in science and engineering for lucrative business jobs right out of college, to communication tools like Twitter.  We want what we want right now--we have no patience for long-term thinking.

I'm not really a follower of American Idol and it's mean-spirited producer/judge Simon Cowell.  And I've never seen the British counterpart "Britain's Got Talent" until this morning when a colleague sent out a YouTube link that I would like to pass along because it speaks so well to the idea of persistence and to the power of talent to win out in the end. 

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.

Teach him how to fish and he will feed every day.

Loan him money for a boat and he will have a fishing business.

                                  -- Olivier Ozoux

Like my blog co-conspirator Kathy Allen, I too am a BIG fan of person-to-person microlending site Kiva.org. Over the past couple of years that I have been a member, I have made nine different loans to entrepreneurs around the world, including men and women in Senegal, Peru, Cambodia, Mexico, Tajikistan, Samoa, and Azerbaijan.I have been paid back in full on five of my loans, and the others are on their way. To date, Kiva has loaned more than $67 million by way of almost 100,000 individual loans. I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kiva.org cofounder Matt Flannery (he and his wife Jessica came up with the idea for Kiva.org while they were working in Uganda for the Village Enterprise Fund) for my book Giving Back: Connecting You, Business, and Community. I thought it might be interesting to include here some excerpts from the interview pertaining to Matt's own entrepreneurial journey...

One of the really great things about teaching budding entrepreneurs is that sometimes they come back to tell you how much they've used what they learned or what an impact you had on their lives.  I think that's why a lot of people have found so much joy in teaching.  I don't know about you but the days when someone takes the time to tell me how much they appreciate what I did are the best days of all.  Some of them thank you in a way that just keeps on giving.

I was chatting with a friend last week about a new website she was about to get off the ground. She was particularly excited about the name of the website -- a name that I noticed was VERY close to a concept made popular several years ago in a book by business author Jim Collins. Now, my friend was not familiar with Jim Collins' work, so she had no idea that the name of her website was dangerously close to his concept. And even if she had known, that might not have made a difference anyway, since she was so excited about it. But, as I pointed out to her, if Collins had trademarked the term, then she might not be able to use it.

If you want a push to get that business started and you need a little seed capital, you will find both in an innovative program in South Dakota.  Yes, I did say South Dakota.  I realize that many people don't know that part of the country even exists- those of you who fly from one coast to the other without ever stopping in the middle - but some very entrepreneurial things are going on in the northern plains states.  One of those things is the N2TEC Technology Accelerator program, which is providing $15,000 grants to entrepreneurs to spend 8 weeks in South Dakota and get their businesses ready for launch.

Last week Mark Cuban -- the billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team -- announced an interesting new approach to stimulating the U.S. economy: an open source funding environment that he would fund with his own money. Says Cuban, "Rather than trying to be a Venture Capitalist, I  was looking for an idea that hopefully could inspire people to create businesses that could quickly become self funding. Businesses that just needed a jump start to get the ball rolling and create jobs. I'm a big believer that entrepreneurs will lead us out of this mess. I just needed a way to help." Here's how it works: Simply post your business plan on Cuban's blog, and he will personally consider it for funding. There is no minimum and no maximum funding limit, and with a couple billion dollars in the bank, Mark can clearly afford some serious funding.

I can't begin to tell you how many requests I get from people who are looking for someone to write their business plan.  The request usually starts with something like "I've got this fantastic widget I've created that is going to change the world, but I need a business plan so I can pitch to venture capital, and i don't know anything about business." 

One of the best things about what I do is that I get to meet some really interesting people.  So when an entrepreneur with an apple pie business left me a message on my phone, I was intrigued. (I LOVE apple pie).  But little did I know that the Mary Beth Schwartz who contacted me is better known to her millions of fans as Mary Beth Evans  who plays Kayla on NBC's hit soap "Days of Our Lives." 

The good thing about ideas is that we never run out of them.  If you're an opportunistic person, you will find that your biggest challenge is figuring out which of your many ideas are worthy of some investment in time and maybe money.  I've found that answering three quick questions will help you make that decision.

Opportunity is out there for the taking.  That's an indisputable fact, even in this economy.  Would it surprise you to learn that innovation actually goes up in recessionary times?  Well, it's true.  For example, during the 1982 recession, the PC was born and the 1990 recession produced a record 174,711 patent applications.  What's going on here?  A lot... 

A while back Peter blogged about the importance of  focus,  specifically, focusing on what your business does well.and not getting pulled in a lot of different directions.  I agree with that, and especially if you're a rocket scientist, brain surgeon, or race car driver ,you definitely need to focus or you're in big trouble.  But if you're facing the unknown--uncertainty--the LAST thing you want to do is focus... 

Many prospective business owners today have tested the economic winds of change to decide whether or not to start their enterprises, felt a chilly downdraft, and retreated to the warm comfort of their existing jobs. This is unfortunate, because even in the most turbulent economic times, there are plenty of opportunities to be had -- you just have to take the time necessary to find these opportunities and work up the courage to pursue them. Imagine, however, that on top of a severe economic downturn, that your country had just emerged from a brutal, years-long civil war -- one that had literally torn your nation apart. This was the case when Hanan Saab decided to start her Beirut, Lebanon-based business, Pharmamed.

When it comes to business ideas, bigger is definitely better. Why? Let’s face it, starting any business is a risky proposition at best—the main risk being that you might fail. So, if you’re facing the possibility of failing, why not fail big so you learn a lot more!

A recent Business Week magazine article described an approach to business lending that is gaining in popularity. The article discusses the case of Michael Amstein, a Denver ambulance company executive who decided to quit his corporate job to open a Nestle Toll House Cafe in a local mall. Amstein's loan requests were rejected by local banks because he didn't have sufficient collateral, but he was able to pull $100,000 out of his401k without the standard 10 percent tax penalty.

Before you spend a lot of time and maybe money doing due diligence on your great business idea, I strongly recommend that you do a quick vetting of potential fatal flaws and big payoffs. Why? Remember when I talked about the Black Swan effect in a previous post, fatal flaws and big payoffs are less likely to occur than other types of events; but, when they do occur, they generally carry a huge impact on your business concept. Fatal flaws are those events or business design issues that will kill your business

I don’t know about you but I’m a glass-half-full kind of person, so I find it troubling that everywhere you look today, the news seems to be negative—layoffs, tight credit, foreclosures – you name it, it’s there.  I would never deny the reality of these problems, but as an entrepreneur, I tend to see opportunity in any situation.