Many of the supreme inventors and business people confess to having failed at some point in their careers, but Richard Christensen, entrepreneur and author of The Zig Zag Principle (McGraw-Hill, 2011) claims that while failure may be a normal part of business and life in general, most of us are ill-equipped to deal with it. [...]

In business, it can be difficult to maintain your focus. You may find that distractions are everywhere, waiting to pounce and reduce your productivity. Losing attention and getting hyperactive or impulsive can be frustrating at the end of the day. The key is to find a way to work with these qualities, rather than against [...]

Most people regard entrepreneurs as adrenaline junkie risk takers but in today’s difficult economic environment it may be that the entrepreneurial path is one of the lower risk strategies available. I’ve been involved in 14 startups in the past 20 years. Yes, some of them have vanished without trace. Some of them even crashed and [...]

A recent conversation with a young entrepreneur—followed by a closer look at some recent data—got me thinking. When it comes to starting a new business, who has the greater advantage? The 25-year-old upstart or the seasoned 52-year-old entrepreneur? Statistically, older entrepreneurs have the advantage. However there are unique advantages to starting a business at every [...]

New York: Around 70 percent of employees wish for more entrepreneurial experience at their jobs, according to a new US survey. In a survey by a financial services firm, 70 percent of workers said they wished their jobs provided them with experience that could be used if they wanted to start their own business. However, [...]

More and more, entrepreneurs are not satisfied with creating a business that delivers a great product, generates a profit and creates value (read wealth), but instead want their enterprise to directly impact a social problem from poverty to global warming. Some social entrepreneurs are running for-profit businesses with a clear and specific social mission integrated [...]

Every entrepreneur’s first priority should be the alignment of interests across the range of constituents required for success – partners, investors, customers, vendors, and employees. The best are ones quickest and most willing to do the realignment on a continuous basis these days, as the market changes, customer interests change, and you learn from experience. [...]

Choosing the right market opportunity will make or break a startup. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs choose to tackle markets that are over-saturated, not realizing their mistake until it’s too late. I’ve listened to thousands of pitches from thousands of startup founders. Most of the time, these pitches don’t stand up to my scrutiny for one reason [...]