When you’re just starting your business, there are a lot of benefits to being small. You’re nimble, fluid, you can adapt quickly to new situations. But for every advantage, there’s a challenge. It’s hard to stand out, hard to land important meetings, hard to get people to deliver things when you need them. It’s even hard to...
Most of us hate dealing with salespeople. I'm not talking about the folks who help you find the right size shirt, I'm talking about the smarmy guy trying to unload the 1986 Subaru. And yet, if you're an entrepreneur, you are a salesperson. Whether you're dealing with employees, potential partners, or investors, you're trying to...
Ten years of changing the way we do business, for better and for worse.
What do you call these last 10 years: Were they the two-thousands? The ohs? Maybe the aughts? Regardless, it was, I think, the Decade of Good Business—the one where corporations suddenly cared about social responsibility—or some did. It’s also the Decade Where You Got...
As you might have noticed, I’ve been thinking a lot about money recently. It sort of goes with the territory of trying to start a social venture. But as much as we’re all focused on finding the next big check, it’s also important to make sure you’re taking the right money. To get to the heart of this, I spoke with Robbie Vitrano.
I’ve...
Like many entrepreneurs, I spend a lot of my time looking for money. I'm not talking about digging under couch cushions (unless of course you have a really, really big couch); I'm talking about serious cash. And, if you're starting a business, you can expect to spend a lot of your time looking for it, too. Last time around, we talked about one...
So, you’ve got your big, world-changing idea. You’re up and running, it’s going well, and now you’re looking to take things to the next level. Whether that means hiring staff, boosting your technological capabilities, or expanding geographically, you’re going to need money. One way to get it is through social venture...
Here’s a riddle: What do a techie, a Grammy-nominated recording artist, an innovative Danish edcuator, and a 24-year-old athletic director from New Orleans have in common? Honestly, probably nothing. But a few weeks ago, they all gathered to speak at the Feast conference here in New York, and they were all inspiring as...
Last time around, we talked about the importance of design and branding. In that article, I put out the call for suggestions. I wanted to know who you thought was doing a fantastic job with innovative design and branding, and I got a lot of great responses.
A number of readers were impressed by the efforts of charity: water. I...
The face of the philanthropist is changing. The people making a difference aren’t just the stereotypical elderly benefactors. They’re creative people, business people, Apple people, Obama people, working-class people—change is coming from all over.
And as the identity of the humanitarian changes, so, too, must the...
There's an old expression: "Good writers borrow from other writers. Great ones steal outright." It's the same with business. It’s always helpful to pick up tips and tricks from people who have done it before. You can learn from their mistakes and glean powerful insight from their successes. And thanks to the internet, it’s never been easier...
