Search: fundamentals

Infographic: Degrees and Money

March 4, 2013

This Infographic from Mint is hard to read at this size, so you probably want to click on the image to go to the source. On the left you have unemployment broken down according to the degrees held, from PhD at the top to just high school on the bottom. On the right you have [...]

Read the full article →

The Difference Between a Journalist and a Blogger

January 4, 2013

What’s the difference between a journalist and a blogger? I see this from both sides because I was mainstream journalist for 10 years in the 1970s, then entrepreneur and consultant, software guy, and lately I blog a lot.  A real journalist tries to tell the objective truth, reports facts fairly, strives for balance, and discloses bias. [...]

Read the full article →

Business Plans are Always Wrong, But Still Vital

September 10, 2012

(Note: It feels like business planning season to me. Fall, or almost fall, time to think about next year. So I’m reviewing business planning fundamentals, this week and next, refreshing some of my older posts.)  Business plans are always wrong. That’s because we’re human. Business plans predict the future. We humans suck at predicting the future. [...]

Read the full article →

Q&A: Are There Business Classes That Busy Smallbiz Owners Can’t Afford Not to Take?

August 13, 2012

Over this weekend I was in email with a college student who asked me to answer some questions about business education, as part of a class project. I found this one interesting, and one that comes up a lot, so I decided to post the question and my answer here today.  The question:  On your [...]

Read the full article →

Big Mistake: Meaning Mismatch in Marketing

July 25, 2012

Yesterday I discovered, to my surprise, that a good friend who does licensed massage therapy said she doesn’t think of herself as an entrepreneur.  In her mind, entrepreneurs want to get outside investment, hire employees, and grow their businesses fast. People like her think of themselves as self employed, sole proprietor maybe, small business owners [...]

Read the full article →

Valuable ‘Lessons from the Recession’

April 12, 2012

I was happy to see in this morning’s email that James Barrod and Brian Moran’s Lessons from the Recession is out now and being promoted on an innovative crowd funding site IndieGo.com. I like the title because that’s exactly what this book is: lessons learned. Remember 2008? Particularly the end of 2008, September and October? [...]

Read the full article →

Paul Graham: A Company is Defined by the Schleps It Undertakes

January 19, 2012

Paul Graham has posted a(nother) brilliant essay, this one called Schlep Blindness, which is about hackers and startups and “tedious unpleasant tasks” (which he calls schleps, from the Yiddish, and of course popular culture).  Here’s what he says: No one likes schleps, but hackers especially dislike them. Most hackers who start startups wish they could do [...]

Read the full article →

How Building a Business Is Like Building Good Habits

January 4, 2012

I really like Leo Babauta’s work on his blog Zen Habits. Zen appeals to me personally and Zen Habits strikes me as full of real-world wisdom for dealing with actual life. And sometimes it strikes me that what Leo is saying about personal life applies just as well to business. For example, here is the [...]

Read the full article →

Ask Yourself These 3 Questions About Your New Year’s Resolutions

December 29, 2011

I posted most of this just about a year ago. It was during that delightfully quiet last week before the new year begins. I was sipping a really good cup of coffee, listening to some of my favorite music, and thinking about New Year’s resolutions. Business or personal, it’s no coincidence that a lot of [...]

Read the full article →

3 Business Planning Posts in Different Places

July 14, 2011

I’ve been busy this week, with posts about business planning appearing on my column at entrepreneur.com, my post on Industry Word, and a post on Amex OPEN Forum. Meanwhile, I had one of those travel disasters — boring, you know the drill — getting out of San Francisco. Well, not getting out of San Francisco, [...]

Read the full article →