The Venture Edge

This morning one of my clients sent me a really interesting open letter-to-the-editor-in-chief of Inc. magazine, Eric Schurenberg. Long story short, the writer of the letter -- Liza Kindred, founder and CEO of fashion consultancy Third Wave Fashion -- called Inc. magazine to task for its lack of women in the editorial pages of the magazine (everything but advertisements). According to Liza's assessment of the May 2013 issue: 

In case you didn't get the memo, Daylight Savings Time is returning this weekend, and we're going to lose an hour from our already jam-packed lives. To help offset this loss, I was asked to come up with some ideas for ways to save an hour. These ideas were posted on the Inc. magazine online site this morning. Here are the first 11 -- to see the complete list of 24, you'll need to check out the article: 

I love how entrepreneurs tick. Case in point: Kevin Daum. Kevin is a serial entrepreneur who has found both great success and its not-so-great counterpart. Throughout it all, his radar is always scanning the horizon for the next opportunity. And here's a great example.

My friend and serial entrepreneur Kevin Daum recently kicked off a promotional campaign for his new book Video Marketing For Dummies, using a funny video that he put together with some of the book's coauthors to draw attention in the social media space. Kevin is an Inc. 500 entrepreneur has chalked up more than $1 billion in sales and two Amazon #1 best sellers. As I watched the video, I was reminded that this is about the fourth or fifth time that Kevin has reinvented himself -- and his brand -- since I first met him 10 years ago. At that time, Kevin was the founder and CEO of a thriving mortgage brokerage in the San Francisco area. Soon after we met, we decided to write a book together -- Building Your Own Home For Dummies. However, soon after the book was published, the housing market began to tank, and Kevin found himself out of the mortgage business.

Today Inc. magazine published some interesting survey data on the current state of small business today versus 2009 -- the depths of the U.S. financial crisis -- and, occasionally, prior years. In some cases the trend is positive, while in others it is decidedly negative. What's your opinion?