Blog Archives
Vision (48)
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
...About once a month I get a Google alert notifying me that someone is looking for a Web developer who can copy the functionality of my Web site.
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009
...Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, when asked how he was always on the puck before anyone else, pointed out that he was by no means the fastest skater on the ice. Instead he explained that he always just focused on skating toward where the puck was going to be.
[more]
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
...If you asked me to point to the heart and soul of a startup company, I would not say it’s the people, the culture, or even the product.
[more]
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
...About once a month I get a Google alert notifying me that someone is looking for a Web developer who can copy the functionality of my Web site.
[more]
Monday, October 13, 2008
...Anyone who’s survived the last down market knows that there are diamonds in the rubble of a broken economy.
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Wednesday, July 23, 2008
...There's an old adage that says "Entrepreneurs do what other people won't in order to do what other people can't."
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Wednesday, July 9, 2008
...Like everything else in this life, the plan for your new startup company will almost certainly change beyond anything you could have contemplated.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008
...After you listen to about a hundred startup company pitches you start to notice that they all sink or swim on just a few basic points.
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
...Contrary to popular belief, great companies are not borne from great ideas alone.
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Thursday, May 1, 2008
...In this episode, Wil discusses with Jim of MyPersonalBrilliance.com his formula to create an innovate company. Wil also explains how questioning your
[more]
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
...Wil Schroter discusses with Jim Canterucci of MyPersonalBrilliance.com his definition of success and the difficulties of evaluating the market for
[more]
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
...In the movie Liar Liar, Jim Carrey plays attorney Fletcher Reede, who’s been cursed with the inability to lie. Every attempt Fletcher makes to lie results in him blurting out the God’s honest truth instead.
[more]
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
...A question many have tried to answer through a series of books. A question that many have assumed to which they know the answer.
[more]
Thursday, February 14, 2008
...Had a great visit a few weeks ago to the Vator.tv offices and shot a quick interview with Bambi Francisco. You can View My Interview here. Vator is g
[more]
Thursday, February 7, 2008
...Interview with Colin Campbell, CEO of Hostopia.com Inc on how to make it as a public company in the U.S. north of the border.
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Wednesday, February 6, 2008
...Leading a startup company is nothing like leading a big, established company. Startups are focused foremost on survival, while big companies direct
[more]
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
...People want to be firemen, policewomen, and teachers. They don’t ever say they want to be an entrepreneur. Why is this? My take is you either are or you aren’t.
[more]
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
...With the SuperBowl coming up – it’s only natural for everyone to be thinking about football. I’m not a huge football fan, but I enjoy watching the games regularly.
[more]
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
... Most people start their new business or company for themselves. This is fine, our free-market economy is structured so that self-interest rewards
[more]
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
...Thomas Edison’s famous quote, “Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration” is the embodiment of a startup. There is often a lot said about the
[more]
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
...Customers are obviously the only reason your business exists, or will exist, or will continue to exist. I mentioned before in What’s In It for Them
[more]
Monday, November 19, 2007
...How many of you talk to your close friends and family about your startup ideas? And how many times have you gotten solid, honest, and constructive
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Monday, October 29, 2007
...I’ve been pondering the pros and cons of starting up based on an unoriginal idea. It sounds bad when you hear it, as I think the startup culture has wrapped entrepreneurship in this bubble that expects new and entirely innovative solutions.
[more]
Monday, October 22, 2007
...Have you ever wondered what makes some startups successful and leaves others selling off their furniture? As an entrepreneur, I’ve always wondered how it happens.
[more]
Monday, October 15, 2007
...Once again moving sleep down my priority list, we've rallied and launched a new company - GotCast.com! (its company #10 for me) The concept is
[more]
Thursday, October 4, 2007
...The equity in your startup company, often distributed in the form of stock options, is the most valuable asset you will ever part with.
[more]
Thursday, August 9, 2007
...Aspiring entrepreneurs are often faced with a tough question – would you rather own 100% of your own company or own a percentage of someone else's?
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Friday, July 20, 2007
...Remember Day One of your new startup? You jumped out of bed, kissed your wife on your way to work, and ran into the office ready to conquer the world.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2007
...I'm out in Palo Alto today, spreading the Go BIG gospel far and wide, listening to entrepreneurs tell their startup stories. I even ra
[more]
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
...Every month I make a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley to visit my startup brethren and soak in the startup vibe. And every month I return home to Co
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Friday, May 18, 2007
...Last night you woke up at 3 a.m. with the best new business idea you've ever had. You ran to your computer, started Googling similar terms, ran throug
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Wednesday, April 4, 2007
... People often ask me how I knew a company that I started was going to be successful. They equate the concept of being successful to finding a white li
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Wednesday, March 21, 2007
... Recently I had a forum discussion with a group of really smart MBA students where we talked about starting companies. The students were armed with a
[more]
Friday, February 23, 2007
...People talk about turning a dream into a reality. It's often just a tired euphemism, but in the case of starting a company that's exactly what y
[more]
Monday, January 29, 2007
...There is truly a right way and a wrong way to pitch your company via e-mail.
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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
...Introduction to my new blog.
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Friday, January 5, 2007
If you spend enough time listening to venture capitalists and industry pundits talk about the next big opportunities in on-line commerce, you would think there are only a dozen companies that will ever be successful. Companies in huge mar
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Friday, January 5, 2007
Your new startup idea already has the potential to be worth millions today. The problem is you may not know how to spend the type of money your vision creates. Startup companies can manufacture their own wondrous currency called opportunity. They
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Friday, January 5, 2007
If you’re thinking about starting a company, please don’t write a business plan. Stop, put the keyboard down, and step back. You’re wasting valuable time.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that you run aimlessly into the s
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Friday, January 5, 2007
Let me ask you something – is reading this column the most important thing you could be doing right now? If you’re 35,000 feet in the sky flying to your next sales call, then maybe it is.
But if you’re sitting at your desk in the midd
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Friday, January 5, 2007
Selling the vision of your new product to customers and investors is a lot like selling fire to cavemen – it may look wondrous and new, but chances are they have no idea what they’re looking at.
That’s because most entrepreneu
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Friday, January 5, 2007
So there you are on day one of your new venture. You’ve thought long and hard about your new idea and you’re ready to build a great company that is going to change the world. Now it’s time to attract customers, employees, and investors. N
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Friday, January 5, 2007
Are you an entrepreneur with a business idea that just can’t seem to get the support you deserve? Maybe you’ve completed a business plan but no one seems to want to read it. Or you’ve created a fantastic product that no one seems to want
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Friday, January 5, 2007
These days the companies that are blowing the doors off everyone else – the Googles, PayPals, and eBays of the world – have shown us that the path to getting big fast is all about scaling, not just growing. They’ve learned how to create s
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Friday, January 5, 2007
The smartest entrepreneurs aren’t the ones who figure out the solutions to big problems, they are the ones who actually understand the value of those big problems. Smart entrepreneurs focus on the very essence of why the problem exists an
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Friday, January 5, 2007
If you asked me to point to the heart and soul of a startup company, I would not say it’s the people, the culture, or even the product. I would say it’s the pitch. The pitch is that one message that, when delivered, makes people say “wow,
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Friday, January 5, 2007
The "Great One" said it best
Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, when asked how he was always on the puck before anyone else, pointed out that he was by no means the fastest skater on the ice. Instead he explained that he always just
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Friday, January 5, 2007
When I was a kid I thought I had it all figured out. All of the big decisions in life -- what I wanted to do for a living, who I was going to marry, and where I was going to live -- were easy to make. I was going to become a fireman, marr
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Growth (49)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
...You need to learn how to “draft” your competition to take advantage of their lead until you are ready to pull ahead.
[more]
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
...In “The Incredible Hulk”, mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner discovered that when he was exposed to “gamma rays” he was transformed into a massive beast that could ferociously muscle his way to victory in any situation. Other than being disfigured, green, and in nothing but his boxer shorts, the Hulk discovered that a single growth factor could drastically change his ability to handle his problems.
[more]
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
...In the popular 1980’s movie “Dune,” man learned that by “folding space” the distance between two points shortened and he could cover those distances faster. Around 1995, we found a substance that could bend time in the business community -- it was called Venture Capital. With enough of it, we could compress the evolution of a startup company from a few decades to a few years. Companies like Amazon, eBay and most recently Google showed us that billion dollar companies could be built in years, not decades.
What was more interesting is that these companies began growing faster even as the venture capital markets dried up completely. They found a better approach to growing at a dizzying rate – by compressing time.
Compression in Action
Compressing time in a business means reducing the time between two salient points of development. For example, reducing the amount of time it takes to acquire a customer. Or reducing the amount of time it takes to service that same customer. Or even better, reducing the amount of time it takes to get paid by that customer!
The bane of most business plans is that they quickly fall into the rut of doing what seems obvious, creating a sequential and time-intensive approach to growth. Amazon could have started out with one small store and then built that store out over time. Instead, they conceived (and built) the world’s largest book store from the get-go, and then spent the rest of their time keeping that store in business. They essentially built their company backwards.
Google and eBay took a different approach. They realized that in order to grow fast they would have to acquire customers at an alarming rate. They also realized that they would need to acquire millions of free customers in order to get hundreds of paying customers. Their models essentially gave the services away for free in order to compress the timelines of customer acquisition. With a huge network of customers in hand, they can now spend their
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Thursday, January 22, 2009
...If you’re thinking about starting a company, please don’t write a business plan. Stop, put the keyboard down, and step back. You’re wasting valuable time.
[more]
Thursday, May 1, 2008
...In this episode, Wil discusses with Jim of MyPersonalBrilliance.com his formula to create an innovate company. Wil also explains how questioning your
[more]
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
...Wil Schroter discusses with Jim Canterucci of MyPersonalBrilliance.com his definition of success and the difficulties of evaluating the market for
[more]
Monday, April 7, 2008
... Sooner or later, no matter how sweet your new startup company is, someone is going to hand in their resignation. It could be the gal you’ve been working with since the day you founded the company, or the person you hired last week.
[more]
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
...I’m not proud to admit it, but I’ve made some dumb business purchases during my career and now I’m ready to come clean.
[more]
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
...In the movie Liar Liar, Jim Carrey plays attorney Fletcher Reede, who’s been cursed with the inability to lie. Every attempt Fletcher makes to lie results in him blurting out the God’s honest truth instead.
[more]
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
...There is a great book authored by a friend of mine, Keith Ferrazzi, called “Never Eat Alone”. In it, he talks about the power of relationships to get where you want in life. He also talks about the power of gratitude.
[more]
Thursday, February 7, 2008
...Interview with Colin Campbell, CEO of Hostopia.com Inc on how to make it as a public company in the U.S. north of the border.
[more]
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
...Leading a startup company is nothing like leading a big, established company. Startups are focused foremost on survival, while big companies direct
[more]
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
...People want to be firemen, policewomen, and teachers. They don’t ever say they want to be an entrepreneur. Why is this? My take is you either are or you aren’t.
[more]
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
...Recently I was asked to define the one thing that’s most important to a business. My answer is two words: competitive advantage.
[more]
Thursday, December 27, 2007
...Recently I wrote a piece about how to get The First Five Customers, which are so critical for a B2B business. One of the main issues addressed in
[more]
Monday, December 17, 2007
...There’s a lot of advice out there that goes against the grain when it comes to what you’re good at. Most people will tell you
[more]
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
...Thomas Edison’s famous quote, “Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration” is the embodiment of a startup. There is often a lot said about the
[more]
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
...While starting a company is hard, starting a company when you’re married with children is even more difficult. After having started and run five
[more]
Monday, December 10, 2007
...Back in my high school days, I did a lot of sales work at Verizon, Sprint, Sears, Radioshack, Target, and my own service-driven startups. I’ve held th
[more]
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
...Customers are obviously the only reason your business exists, or will exist, or will continue to exist. I mentioned before in What’s In It for Them
[more]
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
...Business to Business (B2B) startups can have an easier time getting funded than other types of businesses, most notably Business to Consumer (B2C) on
[more]
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
...We speak to a lot of entrepreneurs like you every day. One of the questions we like to ask is – “What’s keeping you up at night?”
[more]
Monday, October 22, 2007
...Have you ever wondered what makes some startups successful and leaves others selling off their furniture? As an entrepreneur, I’ve always wondered how it happens.
[more]
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
...Introduction to your new guest bloggers on the Go BIG Network.
[more]
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
...The formative years of a startup company are like an aspiring sports rookie about to go pro. All of their potential is still ahead of them, and they
[more]
Thursday, July 26, 2007
...If you’re an entrepreneur currently considering selling or merging your company into a larger entity, you’ve invariably heard the phrase, “It’s better
[more]
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
...OK, so no one has written you a check to fund your startup. What are you doing while you're waiting for that check? If the answer is "nothing" a
[more]
Friday, June 1, 2007
...In the last post I discussed how making $1 million in net income on a company with $3 million in revenues would make life pretty amazing. I'm ho
[more]
Monday, May 21, 2007
...Isn't it strange that no matter what industry you are in, from selling photo copiers to selling pharmaceuticals, to selling kid's toys, there's always
[more]
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
...Ten years from now when we reminisce about the 00's and laugh about Web 2.0 companies, one of the lamest company pitches we are going to remember is t
[more]
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
...Most of us bust our asses so that when we can finally get over the hump of not getting paid, not seeing our friends/family, and not sleeping for more
[more]
Thursday, May 3, 2007
...Alright, enough of this "I have ten idea I'm working on" crap. You'll be lucky if you can get one idea to work successfully, why in the world would yo
[more]
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
... There are countless examples of highly successful business partnerships. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple Computer. Bill Gates and Paul All
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Tuesday, April 10, 2007
...After tearing through Jessica Livingston's new book, Founders at Work, I was happy to see that of the 30+ companies that were profiled, just about all
[more]
Thursday, March 29, 2007
...WANTED: Young, smart, ambitious talent willing to put in 16-hour days, utilize untapped skills in programming, marketing, and/or grunt work, and get e
[more]
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
... Are you trying to figure out how to make your startup company experience a little less painful? Do you think you can avoid some of the stresses and t
[more]
Thursday, February 8, 2007
...They say every great solution is the response to a greater problem. So how do you know your solution has a real problem?
[more]
Friday, February 2, 2007
...Aside from the obvious wealth, what separates Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and those Google Guys from the rest of us? I would say "better timing."
[more]
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
...Let's face it, if you're at work right now and you're reading this, it's probably because your job sucks.
[more]
Friday, January 19, 2007
...HOTorNOT.com is hiring it's 7th employee. Take a look at how incredible this opportunity is.
[more]
Friday, January 5, 2007
The question: "When should a growing company slow down its sales function and focus solely on delivery?"
The answer: “Never!”
When fast growth is the focus of your company, the only constant is that you will always,
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Friday, January 5, 2007
One of hardest things a young company can do is say the word “no” to a paying opportunity, even if it’s a crappy one. Saying no to a crappy gig during tough times is like saying no to glass of spoiled milk while stranded in the desert. You know it’s
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Friday, January 5, 2007
In “The Incredible Hulk”, mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner discovered that when he was exposed to “gamma rays” he was transformed into a massive beast that could ferociously muscle his way to victory in any situation. Other than being
(more...)
Friday, January 5, 2007
It’s funny that no matter how many times you go into startup mode, it always feels like doing it again for the first time. There’s the wild-eyed enthusiasm of the brilliant new idea, quickly followed up by the sleep-deprived anxiety of ha
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Friday, January 5, 2007
In the popular 1980’s movie “Dune,” man learned that by “folding space” the distance between two points shortened and he could cover those distances faster. Around 1995, we found a substance that could bend time in the business community
(more...)
Friday, January 5, 2007
If you want to learn how to race with the big boys, watch NASCAR.
In NASCAR racing, each car leading another is the first to encounter and break through air resistance. As they do this, they create a pocket of air to the sides
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Tuesday, January 2, 2007
...The Go BIG Network, the world’s largest community of startup companies and entrepreneurs, estimates an as expected decrease for funding in December.
[more]
Monday, December 18, 2006
I was spending some time with a few friends from the first company that I started back in 1994. We started reminiscing about how great our “glory years” of being a startup were. It got me thinking about what those days were actually like (versus how
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Wednesday, December 13, 2006
I hear endless pitches from entrepreneurs about their next BIG Web site idea. They take a look at all of the sites that are out there and decide that they have the one feature on their site that no one else has thought of. They think that the market
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Marketing (37)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
...If you’re going to be a leading company in any industry, you need to start acting like #1, even if you are #151.
[more]
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
...If you’ve ever received a service today and paid for it in 30 days you’ve experienced the concept of “float”.
[more]
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
...Any Entrepreneur that’s ever tried to bring a new product to market has had to deal with one frustrating fact – no one knows what to charge for it! No matter how well you think you can predict the market or how much research you’ve done, until people start paying for your product you’re still just guessing.
[more]
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
...What’s the fastest way to get your Web startup launched without having to raise capital and hire programmers?
[more]
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
...In the movie Liar Liar, Jim Carrey plays attorney Fletcher Reede, who’s been cursed with the inability to lie. Every attempt Fletcher makes to lie results in him blurting out the God’s honest truth instead.
[more]
Monday, March 3, 2008
...The year is 1957. James Vicary has the entire advertising world convinced that he has successfully demonstrated a technique that would enable advertisers to allow them to control anything consumers do.
[more]
Thursday, February 21, 2008
...Ahh, the old "Chicken and Egg" sales conundrum. An entrepreneur cries about not having capital to build their product, and thus having no idea w
[more]
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
...There is a great book authored by a friend of mine, Keith Ferrazzi, called “Never Eat Alone”. In it, he talks about the power of relationships to get where you want in life. He also talks about the power of gratitude.
[more]
Monday, January 28, 2008
...Some people say you should build a product that you would use yourself, making you the target market. I’ve also heard the flip side that you shouldn’t build products for yourself because you’re probably smarter than, or different from most people outside of either Silicon Valley, or wherever you’re at. In either case, knowing who your audience is should be on your list of top priorities.
[more]
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
... Most people start their new business or company for themselves. This is fine, our free-market economy is structured so that self-interest rewards
[more]
Thursday, December 27, 2007
...Recently I wrote a piece about how to get The First Five Customers, which are so critical for a B2B business. One of the main issues addressed in
[more]
Monday, December 3, 2007
...A lot of entrepreneurs wonder why MySpace does so well considering the poor design. MySpace does, after all, get more traffic according to
[more]
Friday, November 30, 2007
...In Part One we talked about choosing the right marketing strategies for your business based on your strengths, but we left you hangin’ on how to turn
[more]
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
...Ten years ago, launching a Web site meant pouring money into banner ads, print campaigns and broadcast spots. These days all three tactics have been r
[more]
Friday, November 9, 2007
...Quick review: When we arrived on this blog, we established how we feel about marketing without a plan (that it’s pretty much like planning to fail)
[more]
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
...Business to Business (B2B) startups can have an easier time getting funded than other types of businesses, most notably Business to Consumer (B2C) on
[more]
Friday, November 2, 2007
...As I have mentioned before, the key word in marketing is strategy and where does a good marketing strategy go after the objective is set?
[more]
Friday, October 26, 2007
...Let’s face it, small business owners sometimes don’t even have time to go to the bathroom, let alone market their company, service or product.
[more]
Monday, October 22, 2007
...Have you ever wondered what makes some startups successful and leaves others selling off their furniture? As an entrepreneur, I’ve always wondered how it happens.
[more]
Thursday, September 6, 2007
...Many businesses face the challenge of how to start off their marketing launch. Should you run quarter page ads in your local paper? Should
[more]
Thursday, August 16, 2007
...In the book Chasing Cool, Noah Kerner and Gene Pressman talk about the intrinsic value of authenticity. They point out that brands like Apple, G
[more]
Monday, August 6, 2007
...Entrepreneurs are often asked who their competitors are, to which they reply "we really don't have any competition." They aren't exactly lying for the
[more]
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
...Don't take the title of this post wrong. I hope you survive as an Independent Consultant... I really do. Yet before you jump ship for the
[more]
Friday, May 4, 2007
...Interested in learning how to grow your marketing campaign month over month without any additional capital? Search Engine Watch Columbus - May 9th I'm
[more]
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
... As you may have read, James Hong of HOTorNOT fame has taken the site from a paid subscription model to a free model. I'm not real away of a lot
[more]
Friday, March 23, 2007
...I'm not exactly sure where some of my fellow entrepreneurs get their pitch skills, but some of them are pretty funny. As you might imagine, we see a t
[more]
Monday, February 26, 2007
...The idea of a "partnership" is one of the most mis-understood concepts in business. On paper it makes sense - "let's partner to be more successf
[more]
Monday, February 19, 2007
...How much would you pay to bring someone to your store that didn’t buy anything
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