I Told You We Were in a Startup Boom

fireworks

And it seems to be raging even more. Thank you, Great Resignation. You’ve started something big. A new survey from Digital.com has found 43% of Americans plan to start a business in 2022. Whoa, that would be a big number! With findings like this, it certainly appears entrepreneurship is continuing to gain ground as a…

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Brad Feld On ‘When to Quit Your Day Job’

(This post first appeared at MinneInno.com, “Your Source for Local Innovation in Minnesota: Innovation, Startups, and Tech.”) Few VCs have the success record of Brad Feld of Foundry Group in Boulder, Colorado, and even fewer as many writing credits. That includes several best-selling books. Well, now he’s uncorked another title, this time with coauthor Sean…

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What Is Positioning?

If there’s a marketing term that gets thrown around more than any other, it’s “positioning.” I can’t imagine a marketing plan out there that doesn’t contain the word, multiple times. But it’s been used and abused so widely, by so many, for so long that it’s likely many people can’t really articulate what it means or why…

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What Is a Brand?

glass of beer with Brand logo

In my continuing theme of talking about the basics of marketing, I’m moving on to a favorite topic: branding. Again, I’m harking back to some notes I made several years ago after studying the writings of many smart people on the topic of what branding (in the corporate and product sense) is all about. These notes…

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Naming Your Startup: 7 Tips for Success

metal type - letters

Once you’ve made the decision to launch a new business and have at least the basic resources in place to get started, undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges you’ll face is deciding what to name it. For a task that seems so simple on the surface, most experienced entrepreneurs will admit that they spend an…

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There’s Something You Need to Know About Startup Marketing

man pushing boulder uphill

Here’s a bulletin: it’s damn hard! Okay, that may not be news to you if you’ve done at least one startup. But what’s not well known is that many inexperienced founders — and investors, too — think it bears little resemblance to traditional brand marketing, and that it can be done with, um, little or no money. I’m…

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Bootstrapping: Why Do Entrepreneurs Do It, and How?

guy wearing boots on dock

The word “bootstrapping” actually has several meanings according to Wikipedia. But in a business context, it means “to start a business without external help (capital).” You can read more about that specific meaning, also called “bootstrap funding,” here on Wikipedia — lots of helpful information there. Okay, now that I’m sure you know what it means……

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Why a Coach?

a helping hand

As I launch this new Entrepreneur Coaching site of mine, I thought it would be helpful to step back and talk a bit about “The Why.”  Specifically, why would I want to start doing this, what motivated me, and how does coaching benefit you, the entrepreneur? First of all, I don’t want this to be…

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