As an Entrepreneur, a Detailed Understanding of Your Cost Structure is Key
One of the most common afflictions I’ve seen in companies that get themselves into trouble, is that they do not understand their cost structure. In…
As a Small Business Keep Fixed Costs Low, Especially Initially
It is important to keep fixed costs low at the beginning of your venture! It is hard to over-emphasize the importance of this one. Almost…
Target Your Market: What’s the Difference between Prospect Profiling and Neuromarketing?
This is a Guest Post from Rosey Dow. Scientists call the fight-or-flight portion of our brains the “old brain” or the “lizard brain” because it…
Don’t Create an Impressive Financial Model That Gives the Wrong Answer
You can make most financial models, especially complex ones, say whatever you want them to say. It’s usually just an issue of tweaking one or…
Very Few Deals Get Venture Capital (VC) Funding
I’ve always been quite surprised by the percentage of entrepreneurs who think the way they will grow their businesses will be through raising money from…
Cash is King, But Credit Can Be a Savior as an Entrepreneur
Cash is king – this was our mantra in teaching the basic business start-up course at my group in Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs. There’s no arguing…
Some Businesses Are Just Ridiculously Profitable
I guess this is basically the inverse of the point about most businesses never making any money. There are businesses that make money hand over…
How do I Screen My Business Ideas?
If you have a bunch of business ideas, but are having a hard time screening them and deciding which one(s) to choose, you are not…
Make Sure Your Success Measures Make Sense in Your Small Business
In recent years we’ve learned many lessons about the importance of earnings to the sustainability of a company. The shell game that was played on…
Ethics as an Entrepreneur – Draw the Line in the Sand Now
This is an extremely important point – throughout the course of building your company, you will be presented with many decisions, some of which will…