Entrepreneurship

The Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster - Vinod Khosla

What Makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial, vinod khosla

Acquiring a Supplier Entrepreneur Tom Amoruso is used to working with suppliers as the founder of Shelving Concepts, a Houston company that sells storage shelving and had $1.7 million in 2005 sales. But as Amoruso is learning, buying one of your suppliers is another matter altogether. Last July, Amoruso, 46, acquired the assets of manufacturer Dixie Shelving along with another former supplier,...

Going Overboard on Outsourcing Outsourcing was a good option when Jeff Cohn started his full-service marketing agency, Cohn Marketing, in 2000. Before long, he found himself outsourcing everything from media buying to accounting to copywriting. "We've been able to grow as a company and take on bigger pieces of work over time because I've been able to outsource," says Cohn, 46. Revenue at the 1...

Keeping Your Business Model Flexible Denver-based Thought Equity Management Inc. started in 2002 with a straightforward premise: The company would gather speculative print work from various ad agencies and sell it online to newspapers and businesses for use in their creative campaigns. Along the way, Thought Equity would make access to creative print work fast and affordable for smaller end-us...

Buying a Suppliers' Company Entrepreneur Tom Amoruso is used to working with suppliers as the founder of Shelving Concepts, a Houston company that sells storage shelving and had $1.7 million in 2005 sales. But as Amoruso is learning, buying one of your suppliers is another matter altogether. Last July, Amoruso, 46, acquired the assets of manufacturer Dixie Shelving along with another former su...

Finding New Ways to Generate Revenue Have you ever heard the term "nontraditional revenue"? If you’re not immersed in radio and TV ad sales, you’re most likely not familiar with that industry buzz phrase, more commonly referred to as NTR. But the concept, when applied to your business, can add bottom-line income to your existing revenue streams. A little history first: A number of years ago, w...

Fulfillment Through Outsourcing Renee Boulet-Mazer had shopped all around the Denver area for a fulfillment house to warehouse and ship her Healthy Shelf Inc. products. Founded in 2004, the company manufactures a multifunctional shelf that dispenses disposable towels and wipes. The shelves are sold to suppliers in the hospitality, restaurant, medical and homeimprovement industries. Leery of th...

Selecting the Best CEO for Your Company Q: We hired a CEO for a previous company we started, and after about five months noticed that this individual was a micromanager who wanted to control everything. We will be hiring a CEO for another startup company and would like to know how to choose the right CEO for the type of culture we are developing. Are there preemployment tests or specific quest...

Employee or Independent Contractor Whether a person working for you is your employee or an independent contractor has one very important legal consequence: liability. Say you hire a company to paint your real estate office. During the work, a painter falls off a ladder breaks his arm. Falling paint damages computers that weren't properly covered. Are you liable for the damages? The general rul...

Get used to saying goodbye to good hires By Gladys Edmunds, Special for USA TODAY Dear Gladys, I'm finding that it is becoming cost prohibitive to hire and hold on to good employees. Over the last few years I have lost good people to larger companies because they were offered better benefits or more money than I could offer. What is a small business to do regarding finding and holding on to em...

Achieve Growth Without Borrowing Funds Q: I would like to grow my business; however, I would rather not borrow anymore money for now. Is there any way I can increase my business' sales and profitability without having to invest additional dollars? A: Yes. One of the most powerful ways to facilitate business growth is through the application of strategic alliances. These alliances, or virtual ...

SMALL & MID-SIZ ED I N S I D E I NSIDER SERIES S M A L L B U S I N E S SBUSINESS R S E R I E S Driving Success: The Incredible Power of Company-Wide Goal Alignment. SMALL & MID-SIZ ED BUSINESS INSIDER SERIES If your company is like many other small and mid-sized businesses, your employees represent both your organization’s biggest line item expense, and your most valuable asset. This means ...

The Venture Capital Perspective Know your audience! A venture capital firm focused on building seed and early-stage technology companies Review of the Basics Review of the Basics Only three ways to finance growth Equity Debt Profits While there is a vast array of “innovative instruments”, they will fall into one of those categories A private company will likely see Subordinated Debt Common...

Finding Resources presentation for AV Committee

Skill vs. Luck in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital: Evidence from Serial Entrepreneurs Paul Gompers, Anna Kovner, Josh Lerner, and David Scharfstein* July 2006 Abstract This paper argues that a large component of success in entrepreneurship and venture capital can be attributed to skill. We show that entrepreneurs with a track record of success are more likely to succeed than first time e...