business-ideas

Making a Difference with Social Entrepreneurship

by Paul Joseph February 10, 2012 Featured

Jumping into entrepreneurship at a young age is an exhilarating experience. You feel as though you can achieve anything you set your mind to. And for many determined young entrepreneurs, that’s precisely the case. However, is building a successful business enough? If you want to make a difference in the world, consider pursuing social entrepreneurship. How is this different from standard business, you might be wondering? And what kind of change can you bring to the world through business innovation? Keep reading to find out how you can take your first steps into social entrepreneurship and effect real-life change in your community. What Is Social Entrepreneurship? Social entrepreneurship shares many characteristics with regular entrepreneurship. After all, it incorporates all of the standard business practices. However, it’s the reasons behind why one enters into business where the real differences can be drawn. It is the practice of applying fundamental business ideas to the task of improving the world around you in some essential way. It’s about social responsibility and community service. Taking Money Out of the Equation Unlike standard entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship does not focus on building monetary gain. Of course, income must be generated, but that money is typically cycled right back into the business to serve the greater good. Personal profit or wealth creation is not a part of this practice. All profit is used to generate social programs and enrichment for people in your local or global community. The World Needs More Social Entrepreneurs Many people around the world are suffering now more than ever. With economic issues come bigger challenges, like poverty, unemployment, lack of access to healthcare and proper education, and more. If there was ever a time to invest in a socially conscious business venture, it would be now. Truly, the world needs social entrepreneurs to fill the gap between federal social safety nets and the experience of the average person down on his luck. Why Should I Invest? As a young entrepreneur, you’re probably wondering how you can make a difference. After all, isn’t it enough that you’ve built a business from the ground up? Do you really have to serve your community, too? Of course you don’t have to do anything. But a part of being a responsible business owner is being a responsible member of your community. And being a responsible member of your community means recognizing when you’re at a unique advantage to lend a hand to those who are less fortunate than you. It also means knowing there is more to life than just making a profit. If you know you can make a difference in the world, why not take that opportunity? Use your business savvy to identify and solve a problem in your community. It could be something as simple as hosting a beach cleanup to as complex as funding a family shelter. Move on an issue that means something to you and that you know could use assistance. Doesn’t knowing you can do something to affect change on people’s lives make you want to act? Matthew Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur, and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Adam. Matthew is co-author of the newly released book: Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs .

Tagged as: become an entrepreneur, business, business-ideas, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, social-entrepreneurship, starting a business

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The Golden Rule About Your Great Ideas

by Paul Joseph January 18, 2012 Featured

Every young entrepreneur has great ideas. They come all the time. In the shower, on the bus, while pouring milk into your cereal. When the idea arrives from somewhere in your soul, it is perfect. Your excitement rises as you realize it is exactly what the world needs – what the world has been waiting for. You start making a business plan. Nothing detailed, just main points. How you will make it, how you will package it, how you will market it, and of course, how much money you will make. As the idea expands and blossoms into a complete business plan you keep asking yourself – why didn’t I think of this before – it’s such a great idea. You picture yourself a few years in the future with your feet resting on an ancient oak desk and a cigar in your mouth – a reporter from Fortune magazine is listening attentively as you tell your success story. A few days pass and you are still high on the idea. It is all you think about, it keeps getting bigger and better. What started out as a little seed of plan has turned into a fully functional money making machine. Of course, it is still all in your head, but there is nothing going to stop you now. You are excited enough that one evening you decide to tell your best friend about it. Obviously such great ideas should be kept secret, if somebody else hears about it they might steal it, but this is your best friend. You ask him if he can keep a secret. He says yes. You barley control yourself. Talking fast and with grand hand gestures you explain every detail to your friend. He listens, nods and sips his tea as you explain how this is going to be bigger than diagonally sliced bread. You finish your speil, exhale and say, “so…what do you think?” Your friend looks at his shoes, and then at you, and then shakes his head, “It will never work”. Like a baseball hitting you in the head, the words make your knees weak. You try to explain again, maybe he missed an important detail. But it is no use, your friend will not change his mind and the damage is done – your great idea bursts. The next day you laugh at yourself for having such a dumb idea. Your Great Idea Will Not Work There is one thing that you can be absolutely certain will happen after you come up with a great idea, actually it is so certain you can call it the golden rule of great ideas. Golden Rule Of Great Ideas: people will tell you your great idea will not work. Unfortunately most young entrepreneurs are not aware of this rule. They have a great idea but it lasts only until somebody shakes their head and warns that it will not work. At first the young entrepreneur is surprised by the rejection, but then creates their own reasons why it will not work. Like a freshly planted seed the idea dies before it ever sees the sun. The golden rule has stillborn untold number of great ideas. Which is a shame because most of the best ideas of the past have come from people who ignored people that said, ‘it will never work’. Of Course It Will Not Work, It Is Something New The main characteristic of a great idea is that it is something nobody has thought of before. You discovered a new way to give people what they want. A way that even the people themselves do not know they want. Before Henry Ford mass produced cars did people want cars? Henry Ford said, “If I asked my customers what they want, they simply would have said a faster horse”. Henry had a great idea that nobody but him realized. Had he told his best friend about his great idea, the response would most likely be, ‘that will never work.’ It is the nature of a new idea to be seen as a bad idea. People know they want a faster horse, but they know nothing about cars. Car, what is that? That sounds like a bad idea, just make a faster horse. Don’t Throw Away Your Great Ideas Of course not all your great ideas are going to work. Some of them are bound to fail. But the only way to find out whether your great idea will work is to rely on your head and gut. You are a much better judge of your great idea than anybody else is. Try it. Do not quit just because somebody says it will not work. If history’s entrepreneurs listened to their friends we would be riding genetically modified fast horses. Roman Jelinek had his own business and then he sold it. Now he is hoping to start another successful business. He is putting all his efforts into his website How This Website Makes Money . Read more about Roman here .

Tagged as: become an entrepreneur, business, business-ideas, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, startup, success

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Making Business Sense of the Internet – Segmenting The Web

by Paul Joseph January 6, 2012 Featured

If you see a man walking on the road, what conclusions can you draw by observing him? He could be – A. In-transit to a pre-determined destination (passerby) B. Trying to look for something he hasn’t found yet (shoppers) C. Doing an activity walking/strolling/mugging D. Stochastic noise (drunk, aimless etc.) All these conclusions can be made by analyzing the person’s appearance, pace of walk, direction etc. – pretty simple even for a 10 year old. Now, if we were to extend this to the web world, what could you say about Internet users. Its not as intuitive now, is it? You can’t see the whole picture; people are invisible and even if they were visible, one wouldn’t be able to judge their characteristics to make sense out of them. Fig 1: This is how the Internet would look like in real life. Vehicles are users with T-1 lines What makes this even tougher? In the real world, the person walking could either be a 45/Male/shopper or a 30/Female/in-transit, but not both . In the Internet world, from the same browser, I can be a shopper one minute, checking email the next minute, and one hour later my sister can book a movie ticket online. Clearly, this requires an understanding of not the demography, geography etc., but the intention. Drawing on some ideas introduced by Andrei Border, a Chief Scientist at Yahoo Research, one can explain Internet pretty intuitively too. Internet users can be classified into 4 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive groups – Informational, Navigational, Transactional and Gray areas. i.e users can fall under one of the categories as follows: Informational – the intent is to acquire some information assumed to be present on one or more web pages.  Example: using the web to find tips to prevent swine flu Navigational – the intent is to reach a particular site.  Example: heading to cnn.com to check news Transactional – the intent is to perform some web-mediated activity.  Example: booking train tickets online, checking mail Gray areas – all other situations.  Example: Find a good hub, click on ads etc. The above cloak is a proven method to understand Internet users better, and hence also used by advertising search engines base to determine query intent. Utility to businesses Ok, so how is this useful for me? Let’s see how businesses can leverage user intention effectively. And once again selecting a random business, say, a merchant for baby-care products. Lets use the hypothesis tree to break down our user groups based on intention. A hypothesis tree is simply a way to insightfully breakdown a problem in a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive way to answer questions of “how” and “why”.  Sounds complex, but it’s pretty simple. Fig 2: Hypothesis tree for a baby-care products merchant targeting its customers In the Fig 2, the problem that directly relates to revenues for the baby care merchant is, how do I tap that user base that requires baby care products online? This problem statement can always be tweaked according to your business. We use our proposed classification as a starting point to breakdown one level, in order to identify users with intentions aligned with our services. Problem Solving for advertisers Navigational: These are people who know their websites. They can either come to your website, or to your competitor’s website. Remember, they are both mutually exclusive (no overlap). I’ve not shown the users who navigate to your website because there’s no value addition in acquiring already acquired customers. Looking at your competitors, a user can either go to a competitor site (say huggies.com), or a competitor service (huggies customer helpline). Together, they make up for the universe of users looking for competitors, and they are both venues that users may have an intention to buy your product. Again, this is only a hypothesis. You can choose advertising keywords specific to these ideas and see how many users click on them. Along with your own website, these users make up the universe of Navigational users (collectively exhaustive). Similarly, extrapolating this idea for the others … Informational users: These are users that everyone likes to target. They look for information on a product/service, and can be swayed towards your business. They can either look for educational info, or product info. Transactional: These are users looking for a particular service that can be offered by your business. If you were a subscription/service-based business, this would make a lot more sense. Gray areas: These are users with the least intent, but can still be swayed towards your product. For example, users looking at review sites on baby care products. Targeting these guys can be very lucrative. Finally, my Revenue Each of these has been broken further into end-targets, and these end-nodes will form different strategies to target your customers for your business. You can now head to Google/Bing/Yahoo and advertise with keywords specific to these intentions and figure out the strategies with the most clicks per dollar. Embed an API or use your site analytics and tie the clicks to revenue numbers – use a combination of the most profitable strategies. Good Luck! About The Author Sajid Shariff is currently a graduate student at Stanford University in California. Most recently, Sajid worked as a strategy consultant in New York and New Delhi with Fortune 100 clients in Financial Services and Information Technology sectors. Prior to that, he helped develop market predictive models at Allianz Global Investors in Munich, Germany. Sajid is also a passionate guitarist and an undergraduate from IIT Bombay, where he served as the General Secretary. While at Palo Alto, he advises a healthcare startup, HealthTap, on its customer acquisition strategy. You can contact him at  sajid.iitb@gmail.com

Tagged as: business-ideas, customers, Featured, internet, marketing, marketing & sales, sajid shariff

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What Made You Start A Business?

by Paul Joseph December 15, 2011 Featured

The morning I decided to write about this subject, I saw a post on one of the popular discussion forums. It was from someone who had invested quite a bit of time and effort into building his online business, was nearing the point where it could start being profitable, but was running short of energy and inspiration to keep… Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged as: business-ideas, entrepreneur passion, mindset, motivational advice, small-business, start-up advice, why start a business, young

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Getting Empowered with Network Marketing

by Paul Joseph December 12, 2011 Featured

At some point in our lives, most of us have had a long-lost friend get in touch, out of the blue, and invite us for coffee or a meeting with some ‘special’ opportunity. Within minutes of meeting the friend, we realize this is not going to be a touching reunion but a marketing pitch, and instead of looking forward to a wonderful evening, you’re actually looking for ways to skeedadle out of there.  It’s not that we don’t want to make money, have an independent working lifestyle or be associated with a global brand professionally; we just don’t want to turn into that friend! Network Marketing holds a world of opportunity for all of us. With a good social network, passion for helping people grow, interest in one’s own financial and personal growth and the support of good products, we can all build an independent career and lifestyle.  All we have to do is open our minds.  Indeed, a number of global companies have expanded sales based purely on network marketing; rather than by employing a sales force. Currently, there are at least 1000 companies that use Network Marketing to sell their products. What defines a good network marketing opportunity? Most of us understand what network marketing mean;, however, for the uninitiated, network marketing  is a form of direct selling, where independent sales persons use their existing social networks or word-of-mouth to sell products of a certain company. Direct Seller or Network Marketers can sell the products of any number of companies, although, typically, marketers tend to be happy with just one or at the most, two affiliations. Because, despite what is commonly believed, being a successful network marketer does take a fair bit of time and effort.  Indeed, network marketing is a good, honest, hard-working way of making a living. Then why does networking marketing seem to have earned a bad reputation? Why do most of us feel like fleeing the scene when we sense a network marketing pitch being made to us? In recent years, a lot of schemes have been floating around, making exaggerated claims and unfortunately, many get-rich-quick schemes use network marketing to manipulate people. Genuine, network marketing on the other hand, is quite different. In a good network marketing scheme, there is always a set of real, good and useful products to be sold. Unlike the former, which merely requires money to be invested for nothing tangible.  The use of good products is the key for a successful network marketing scheme. Let us take one of the most successful network marketing companies as an example – Herbalife International.  The company sells weight-loss protein shakes and skin care products and does it primarily through its independent distributors in over 70 countries.  In fact, Herbalife has been using this method of selling for over 30 years. In doing so, it address to major concerns of most people – to stay fit and make money!  Currently, Herbalife has some 2.3 million Independent Distributors and also had an IPO a few years ago, with each share selling at $14. So, the question is, is network marketing for you? Given the economic downturn in recent years, job losses have been at the highest.  An independent working opportunity is a boon in such a scenario. Although, perhaps, the market condition is also an important reason to consider carefully any decision that requires an investment of your money and will require others from your social circle to invest in too.  Most network marketing opportunities need you to invest some amount of money to purchase the products that you will sell. For instance, if you sign up to become an Avon network marketer, which is a top beauty company that uses network marketers to sell their products, you will have to make an initial investment in an Avon product kit. If you look at network marketing as a business opportunity, then the initial investment costs are far lower than that you would have to invest in a regular business, like a store or a distributorship.  In fact, a distributor buys exclusive rights, whereas, a direct seller benefits from NOT selling a product exclusively. Often, in addition to getting the product to be purchased and used by one’s friends and family, a direct marketer also benefits when the people in his network sign up to become a seller too. For the direct seller who inducts new people into the fold of the marketing network, earns a commission on every one of his inductees! Getting the inspiration for network marketing Although jobs are hard to come by these days, the independent lifestyle has always been an appealing idea, downturn or no downturn. By being affiliated to a company, rather than being employed, you are your own boss. You set your own targets and you push yourself to fulfill them.  Being a good network marketer requires that you be organized and motivated. Perhaps, that’s why top motivational gurus like Robert Allen are network marketers.  Allen has written and co-written bestseller books on finance and making money, like Creating Wealth, Multiple Streams of Income, and Cracking the Millionaire Code. Another network marketing proponent and motivational guru is Robert Kiyosaki. He’s the creator of the popular ‘Cashflow’ board and software games. Because network marketing requires that the individual be motivated to succeed, and since individual motivation is so important, many companies offer fabulous rewards for those who succeed. For instance, Avon offers its winners all-expenses paid trips to exotic European locations like Barcelona, gala dinners and opportunity to drive dream cars like Mercedes and BMW. If you are careful about the product you choose to endorse, invest a small sum and work hard a few hours every day, you could become a successful network marketer. However, the most important factor for you to consider is your network marketing skills. How good are you with people? Can you sell to your family and friends, for there are many people who wish to keep their personal and professional lives separate?  And, can you motivate yourself routinely and structure your day for work without supervision? If you wish to do this alongside a regular job, will you have enough time? By making the right choice and factoring these important points, you might just be the next big network marketing whiz! Preetam Kaushik is a freelance writer/independent columnist and an avid blogger. He is a web 2.0 expert and writing consultant serving a wide array of clients. He blogs at Dictum-is-Digital.blogspot.com . Read more about Preetam here .

Tagged as: become an entrepreneur, business, business-ideas, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, network marketing, small-business

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It’s All About the Benjamins: How to Make Money with an eBook

by Paul Joseph December 5, 2011 Featured

You have dreams.  Dreams of fame, a publishing career, and a Bill Gates-sized bank account.  You’re convinced that writing an eBook will earn you the big bucks. Publishing an eBook is just as much about marketing yourself as it is about writing.  (And you, Donald Trump wannabe, have no problems chatting yourself up.  This will be a piece of cake!) An eBook is an easy way to gain an audience and establish yourself as an expert; it can also be a moneymaker for the entrepreneur-in-training.  How do you make the leap from eBook author to bestseller? Writing Your eBook Your first focus should be the work itself.  You’ve no doubt picked a topic you know well, one which you could talk about in depth with other people.  (If you didn’t, count on being poor for a while!)  Your eBook needs to do three things for you: 1. Explain ideas clearly to your audience; 2. Add something new to the discussion; and 3. Be edited well. Your eBook should capture people’s attention with its subject matter, but the ideas contained within its pages are meaningless if your readers cannot understand what you’re saying, or have no idea how to apply your theories in real life.  Examples, brevity, and language free of jargon will go a long way toward this. You also want to ensure that you add something new to the topic being discussed, whether that’s a new way of viewing the subject or a new use for the information.  For example, if you are a niche expert on organic fabrics and most items on the subject revolve around how to make fashionable clothing from it, you may opt to write about how sustainability and fashion interact, or how organic fabrics can be used to make upholstery. Before you publish your eBook, ensure that your piece has been thoroughly proofed.  This means covering basics like grammar, punctuation, and spelling – your audience needs to take you seriously – but it also refers to getting feedback from secondary readers.  Ask friends, family, or colleagues you trust to read your eBook.  Select readers who will be honest and tell you that your book is loaded with run-on sentences, or that your second chapter seems a little skimpy.  You want your name to be associated with quality content.  (Don’t mention the ice chalet you plan to buy in the Alps with your earnings.) Marketing Your eBook Once you have self-published your eBook, you will need to get the word out.  Your work will be available online, so take advantage of this outlet.  There are many online communities out there with people who will help, or offer advice, for free.  Search for forums, blogs, and other websites that focus on your eBook’s subject – these people will be interested in helping you, and they’ll have great suggestions on ways to get the word out.  Schmoozing helps you here as much as it helps you anywhere! Build a reputation for yourself as an expert.  You can do this in many ways, from posting on the aforementioned websites (high-traffic sites will serve you best) to working with a company that will help you establish yourself as a specialist.  Many, like Digital Talent Agents, will utilize your expertise to find footholds across many media outlets. You can, of course, do some media marketing yourself.  (Let’s pretend you’re not doing this all day as it is, Richie Rich.)  Social media marketing and press releases are two things you can do on your own, and these are also two methods that allow you to use your current list of contacts to spread the viral word with simple links and documents.  Adding a link to your email signature is another efficient way to let your network know you’ve published a book – and you never know how many times your signature may get forwarded. You can go a step further and create excerpts of your eBook as marketing tools.  Writing an article or creating a short video that touches on the content of your eBook is essentially giving your customers a preview of your eBook; whetting their appetite is a great way to encourage a purchase.  The best commercials convince you to go see a new movie; think of your free articles and videos the same way. These are all very cost-efficient methods of selling your product, but this means nothing if your eBook isn’t readily available.  Try to post your book on as many sites as possible; good options include Amazon, iBookstore, Smashwords, and Us.  Remember your rights and responsibilities as an author – you own a copyright to your work, and so do others.  Some sites, like Amazon, spot-check books to ensure copyrights aren’t being violated.  Read up on Digital Rights Management to educate yourself on your rights. Success is Possible While these methods may seem simple, they work.  One well-known example of a successful eBook author is Amanda Hocking, a twenty-something who couldn’t find a publisher for her paranormal series for young adults.  She self-published her novels as eBooks and sold 450,000 copies of the books in one month. John Locke is another notable example; he sold one million dollars’ worth of eBooks in a 5-month period and landed himself on the New York Times Best Sellers List.  Why can’t that be you? As a self-publisher, putting your book together will not cost very much; however, completing the book doesn’t get you past the finish line.  As an unknown author, marketing yourself takes time and effort, but there’s a big payoff at the end.  And don’t forget – once you’re a success, you can count your money in that ice chalet while you write your next eBook. Nicolas Gremion is the founder of Paradise Publishers Inc. He started online in 2006 with a single website, www.Free-eBooks.net . His newest venture is Foboko.com to serve the popular desire people have to be published. Read more about Nicolas here .

Tagged as: business, business-ideas, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, internet marketing, marketing tip

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Can You Charge What You’re Worth?

by Paul Joseph October 27, 2011 Featured

Sometimes when you see those big checks independent consultants get, it may seem tempting to leave an office position and strike out on your own. Before considering such a move, it pays to take a look at the real money issues involved. This may also help you understand those seemingly amazing hourly rates. Switching to consulting may bring real money surprises, and you want to discover them before starting your own business. Here are some tips to help ensure your budget and revenue match your expectations. Do you want to replace your salary? Use this simple formula to determine your current hourly income. Take your annual salary and add the benefits you’re walking away from, such as health care, disability insurance, and seven-plus percent for your employer’s share of social security (yes, you do pay for that when you’re on your own). Do you have a 401k with matching contributions? Include that too. Check your paycheck info to see if there’s anything else you forgot. The final number will generally be 35-40% of your salary. For example, if your salary is about $70,000 annually, you’re actually earning about $100,000 per year. To get your hourly rate, divide $100,000 by 2,000. That’s the number of hours a salaried person works in a year based on 40 hours a week and two weeks’ vacation. The final number is your real hourly rate in your current position. Now double that. Why? Because for every billable hour as a consultant, you will have at least another hour used in selling, administration, meetings you can’t charge for, and travel. So if you’re earning $70,000 a year you need to charge a minimum of $100 an hour to replace your current real income. Some consultants spend two extra hours for every billable one. And don’t forget the time you spend checking your personal email and socializing on the job – no one’s paying you for those anymore. Also there’s no pay for sick leave. If you don’t feel you can charge clients that final hourly rate, you may want to think twice about going out on your own. When you’re determining that rate, take a good look at the market. Are there pricing standards in your field? If so, unless you have something original enough to make customers want to pay a premium, as a starting consultant you cannot expect to command more than low average at best. This doesn’t hold true if your work experience is exceptional. (By exceptional I mean VP of Marketing for Apple or Human Resources for Disney.) Be sure to factor in the costs for equipment and supplies. No more walking down to the copy room for extra paper for your printer. No more printers, for that matter. Expect to replace computer equipment every three years. Get estimates for the design and printing of professional business cards, letterhead and marketing materials. You can’t skimp on them – those pieces of paper represent you when you’re not there. Favorite pens? Cell phone? Internet access? Website? All these come out of your pocket before you have your first client. Be realistic about your initial potential as a consultant. How long will it take until your available hours are filled with paying clients? Will you ever reach your “consulting capacity?” Like a hotel that only has so many rooms per night, you have only so many hours in every day. There’s nothing you can do to retrieve those unsold hours later. Have you thought about all of these issues? If not, do so before moving into consulting. When you do decide to make the move, jump in with both eyes open and you’ll give yourself the best chance of success. Matthew Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur, and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Adam. Matthew is co-author of the newly released book: Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs

Tagged as: become an entrepreneur, business, business planning, business-ideas, consulting, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, fees, management

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Sharing too much of your Business Plan?

by Paul Joseph October 3, 2011 Featured

Yesterday, I attended an event organized by StartX, Stanford’s accelerator program for startups by Stanford founders and came away much impressed by the quality of engineering talent and innovation concentrated on one campus. When I was researching some of these enterprises-of-tomorrow, I was struck by how secure their ideas and strategic information was, despite just having shared it with an auditorium full of people. This is certainly a culture and skill that will help Indian entrepreneurs and student startups share and learn to accelerate their growth. In a world where ideas and brands are increasing in importance (ref: Google acquires Motorola: http://tcrn.ch/niFYRE and Paying for domain names : http://bit.ly/fDTm0B ), no matter what your scale, it’s worthwhile to think about how you are protecting your enterprise. 1. Who else is out there? Depending on the nature of your business, find out who else is similar to you using any combination of the many tools available to you. If you are a product company (or planning to become one), work with a lawyer or legal service-outsourcing firm towards a global Intellectual Property search to identify what’s already out there and the implications on your own business. If you are building brands, look for trademarks and copyrights within your stated industry and first ensure you are not in violation while filing for protection yourself. For web-based companies, best practice would be to have consistent and unique names across key domains (like .in and .com) – this has proven to be more valuable in the long run than owning a more preferred name on a less common domain. 2. Document *everything*. And store securely If you are in the startup stage or working on setting up R&D to expand your product suite, this applies to you. Firstly, build end-to-end prototypes instead of pieces of a solution. This will not only help you roll out solutions at scale but also protect your idea better since it’s complete. Secondly, document the prototype process extensively with as much rigor as possible – actual steps, results, observations, diagrams, people involved, and all of these with timestamps. Store the information securely and you can potentially use it as insurance in a future when our glorious country injects some efficiencies in its judicial system. Till then, this will at least enhance your design through iterative learning! 3. Ask for non-disclosure There are many levels to non-disclosure. It could be as simple as agreeing with your colleagues before hand on how to present your idea without revealing core IP, or asking for a signed NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement). If you are meeting a VC or any kind of active investor, ask for an NDA. (Also get references on the people you are meeting if you are planning to share a ot of information with them!) Investors trade in information and networks, so they will use the knowledge you share with them in whatever context it is useful. Make it clear beforehand what your expectations are – do not assume it is understood. 4. Share, but Smartly Look at your pitch again. There are three parts to it –1.context 2.solution 3.impact. You should share as much of the context and impact as you need to convince your audience that your solution is very very important. Most entrepreneurs spend large amounts of time describing the solution which not only is less important in that first pitch to a stranger, but also gets you onto the dangerous territory of perhaps sharing too much of the mechanics. You do not have to get into the details of how the solution till work other than in very select situations – for e.g. when you are meeting a client/investor. In those cases, you must convince the audience of the feasibility of your solution without sharing its process in entirety. Make it difficult for your pitch to propagate – ask for non-disclosure, don’t email easily shareable documents and try to answer as many critical questions in person or over the phone as possible. Always lay down the boundary of what information you strongly feel is sacred and must be inviolate. It’s important that this information not be necessary to visualize the impact. Last but not the least, get some advice from lawyers and mentors on your specific situation. And next time you share your plans, you will leave an impressed audience dying to know more about HOW you are planning to execute and greatly interested in that second meeting you wanted.   About the Author Sandhya Hegde is currently studying at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in California. Before this, she worked with Sequoia Capital, as a part of their investment team in India and US, covering businesses in consumer, financial services, technology, media, mobile, education and healthcare. An engineer at heart, she is an IIT Bombay graduate with a degree in Electronics and is a financial advisor on the board of two tech start-ups. You may also like to read: How to Pitch a Business Idea “Validating your business plan is vital” – Roundtable with Sramana Mitra at NASSCOM Product Conclave and Expo 2010 Genesis2010 : Social Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition : March 31

Tagged as: business ideas/plan, business pitch, business-ideas, business-plan, Featured, resources, sandhya hegde

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Young Entrepreneur Interview: Ben Lang of MySchoolHelp.com

by Paul Joseph August 30, 2011 Featured

Find a need and fill it. We hear that mantra over and over as advice on how to start a business. And that’s exactly what Ben Lang of MySchoolHelp.com has done. Much like a lot of household name companies of today, such as eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook, Ben’s company started out as an idea that wasn’t intended to become big. He just wanted to help out his fellow students and himself with note sharing for their high school classes. At just 17, this young entrepreneur’s vision and insight into what it takes to make it as a young business owner is an inspiration, and we know you’ll get a lot out of his story and his advice. Enjoy the interview, and remember to leave your thoughts in the comments below. MySchoolHelp.com is a great concept to help high school students with home study. For those of our readers who aren’t familiar with the company, can you give us a quick overview? Sure, MySchoolHelp is a note sharing site for high schoolers. Once a student arrives on the site he or she can search for their school, if it’s not there they can easily submit it. Afterwards they can access their school page and can find the notes they’re looking for and see a leader-board with the top contributors. Once they find the notes they’re looking for there are plenty of features to make it more engaging, in particular the ability to interact with other students via Facebook comments. How did the idea for the MySchoolHelp come about? Two years ago I started a note sharing site with my friend, just for our school. It immediately took off, and at this point about 70% of the school uses it regularly. A few months ago I decided to make a similar site for all high schools to use. Without the original site, I never would have passed high school, so I want other students to have the same opportunity that I had. What is your future vision for the business, and how will you make it happen? The vision for MySchoolHelp is to impact as many high schools as possible. Eventually our goal is to expand to other age groups. To get the word out we’re reaching out to high school teachers, administrators, education technology blogs, student governments and influential students. It’s been very effective so far and we’re looking to grow. As a teenage entrepreneur, have you faced any age-related challenges? How do you get more seasoned business people to take you seriously? Fortunately, with the internet, age doesn’t affect business much. Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to build up my brand name which has helped tremendously. The only frustrating aspect is that I’ve been unable to legally sign documents until September when I turn 18. What has been the biggest business challenge you’ve had to face, and how did you overcome it? One of the biggest business challenges is building a team. It’s always difficult to find the right people, and I’ve learned how crucial it is to be absolutely certain that everyone is a good match. One of the greatest pieces of advice I’ve ever received was in this domain. I was told that you should trust everyone you hire enough that you’d be willing to let them hire ten more people without consulting you. What three pieces of advice do you have for young entrepreneurs interested in starting their first business? Patience and persistence: I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve failed and made mistakes. It’s certainly a long learning process but it’s important to keep trying. Team: Again I can’t stress enough how important it is to build the perfect team. Networking: In my opinion it’s all about the people you know. Start building your network as early as possible and it’ll pay off tenfold in the future. Even if you meet someone who can’t help you now, one day they may very well be in a position to assist you, so it’s important to stay in touch. How do you personally define success? I set goals ahead of time, and if I reach them I consider it a success. There are many different ways to define success; what’s most important is your own definition and that you always strive for it.

Tagged as: become an entrepreneur, business, business-ideas, entrepreneur, entrepreneur interview, entrepreneurship, starting a business, startup

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The 2 Hidden Attributes Of Self-Made Billionaires

by Paul Joseph August 15, 2011 Featured

If you are following my blog postings or any of my content on YouTube or on my blog, you know that I have an addiction to analyze stuff that works. I do not have any scientific formula to this, or at least I am not consciously aware of any such formula. The things I analyze are mega successful companies, individuals, web businesses or anything that I have a keen interest in. As you have already read the title of this blog, this blog post is my analysis on self-made billionaires . The majority of my findings come from my personal observations, but in this case a significant portion of the facts come from an audio-book I recently re-listened to called The Outsider’s Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires . Markets Self-Made Billionaires Like Interestingly enough self-made billionaires are made in all sorts of markets. From computing to investing, from sports to education, from airline to talkshow host, from retailing to film production, you will find self-made billionaires. No matter what market you find them in, they all follow one rule, that is to not follow conventional wisdom (if they find it unhelpful). When Facebook goes public, I am sure Warren Buffet will not invest in it since he does not understand tech companies fully. Conventional wisdom would encourage one to invest in it correct? Conventional wisdom also suggested Steve Jobs stay away from raging a war against pirated music. Still Jobs launched iTunes , which is now the leader in online music. Twelve publishing houses also rejected Harry Potter’s manuscript, but as we all know Joanne Rowling , author of the “Harry Potter” novels, is a billionaire. Hidden Emotional Challenges Interesting facts: Bill Gates had a domineering mother. Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs were adopted and illegitimate. Steve Jobs even hired a private investigator to find his real parents. Warren Buffett had a mother who reacted unpredictably. Oprah Winfrey was born to a teenage mother who traveled north while Winfrey lived with her grandmother for the first six years of her life. Carl Icahn is a son of dominating parents. Yes, you noticed it right, a few of the billionaires had emotional instability when it came to their relationship with their mothers. This topic did not have a lot of details, but it was a pattern that I noticed while listening to the audiobook. The above bullets are only the stuff that was noticed. Potentially there could be more and more billionaires that had challenging relationships with their parents. Warren would spend minimum time at home and more time with his dad at work because he could not predict how his mother would react any hour of the day. Larry Ellison’s adoptive father was insulting, and this fueled Larry to over perform in other areas. Generally billionaires find business as their mode of performance when they did not find satisfaction in other parts of their lives. In many cases this was their relationship with their parents. People Skills Most billionaires are generally poor managers. Bill Gates has set a culture of shouting at his employees. Steve Jobs had a similar disrespectful reaction with his employees before he was fired from Apple in 1985. Carl Icahn made his fortune mostly by intimidating corporate leaders, forcing them to buying Icahn’s equity-shares at ridiculously high values just to make him go away. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Carl Icahn, John Sperling , and Bernie Ecclestone were known to be social misfits while growing up. Their exceptional intelligence often made them standout. Some intentionally dummed down with the intent to fit in. Many billionaires seem uninterested in team sports. Maybe that’s just a side-effect of being antisocial. There is always an exception: Richard Branson has above average people skills and he has used them wisely to build his fortunes. Not to forget Oprah, who has built her fortune on the back of her amazing skill of connecting with people. Perseverance Another universal quality of a billionaire, besides their unacceptance of conventional wisdom, is that they are single focused workaholics. I do not mean workaholic in a negative sense, but in a sense that they will not give up easily . IKEA originated from a mail order business that Ingvar Kamprad founded. When the mail order market industry was at its decline and the cost of mail was becoming unaffordable for the consumers, IKEA started a new concept of shipping unassembled furniture. Many competitors started to hate IKEA’s success and threatened and forced suppliers to stop supplies to IKEA. Many suppliers did stop their supplies. Google and Microsoft , like many other corporations, have many lawsuits against them. Oprah was raped at age nine, Buffett sufferred a 77% drop in earning during Q3 2008 and many of his deals seem to be in a loss. Mega losses/challenges come hand-in-hand with mega successes. Opportunities & Leverage Steve Ballmer , now the CEO of Microsoft , has a net worth of 14 billion . Ballmer started working with the company as a manager in 1980, and was the first business manager Gates hired. Lucky for him, he was offered shares of Microsoft (approx 8% then). Some early programmers of Facebook were offered shares of the company that equate to millions of dollars today. Indeed those programmers, Steve Ballmer and many other such people are smart. But I know most of you would agree that there are smarter people around with far less net worth, just because they did not embark on the opportunity to leverage their skill with a massive successful entity. There is a right time for everything, or maybe for most things. If you tried to compete (starting today) in the smart-phone, operating system, database software, or film production industries, you would only need a miracle to succeed. But Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, David Geffen (founder of DreamWorks SKG ), Steven Spielberg , John Sperling (founder of University of Phoenix – popular for online education for the working class) and Ingvar Kamprad (founder of IKEA) started the right business at the right time. There are always exceptions: Richard Branson launched Virgin Atlantic in an unfavourable period in the airline industry and still made it profitable while others were suffering. Warren Buffet (among the top three richest people) made his fortunes from investing in select companies, while watching his share values grow. If Warren starts today, he will still do very well because of his exceptional ability to read and analyze financial statements. Conclusion Am I suggesting that if you embark on the right opportunity that you will become a billionaire? Am I saying that if you have an unstable relationship with your mother that you are on a divine path to riches? Heck No. Billionaires come in all shapes and sizes. If I were to summarize the entire post in two words. I would say: Hate Conventional Wisdom and Perseverance . Sorry, that was four words, but there were two points. I honestly believe I had to write those 1000+ words to convey to you these two points. Tell me if I have done a good job conveying the message in the comments below. Aziz signing out. Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: aziz ali, billionaires, business opportunity, business strategy, business-ideas, hate conventional wisdom, perseverance, small-business, young

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