Catch up with part 1: Fate And Fortune (part 1) Much of modern support, conversation, and literature about entrepreneurship focuses on innovation, market-shaping, or newer/shinier/fancier business models. It is easy for a new or prospective entrepreneur to feel overwhelmed if not downright frightened by the constant implied demand for Excellence in the capitalized italics and [...]

Breaking from the normal schedule here at Start-Ups, Monday and Tuesday’s columns shall be dedicated to an essay on real world business models and real world goals. Traditionally, enterprise has been dominated by a handful of well-defined business models. At the center stands the manufacturer/wholesaler/retailer axis, supplemented by transportation companies (land, sea, and air) and [...]

Keep up with Elise and her story of becoming a successful entrepreneur: What do you Know? Education Just Notes Golden Numbers How Much? Neither Borrower nor Lender Be Walking Many Paths Horse Trading Weeks of research behind her, Elise crouches over three disheveled packets of glossy real estate information sheets. She has to choose between [...]

As the gig band became a reality down here on Roatan, we faced the challenge of moving both the kids and the steel pans to and from our various performances. The Geo Tracker we owned for personal use, though a gem for us, was simply insufficient for the task. Steel pans are large and relatively [...]

My siblings and I share a running in-joke to effect that we are doomed forever to dislike our careers and that this gloomy predisposition for vocational discontent is firmly and specifically our mother’s fault. Why? Because every morning, five days a week, for 38 years she got up and went off to a job she [...]

I am too young to remember the first time a computer vendor promised the birth of a paperless office. I am however, not so young as to believe it is going to happen any time soon. There is a vast flurry if paperwork involved in opening even the simplest of small businesses. Fortunately, there is [...]

I caught a late night comedy skit a few weeks ago. Rare for its breed, this skit actually had me in stitches. I laughed so hard I rolled onto my side in actual pain. The premise of the skit was as follows: a married couple sits in their kitchen going over their bills and bemoaning [...]

Keep up with Elise and her story of becoming a successful entrepreneur: What do you Know? Education Just Notes Golden Numbers How Much? Neither Borrower nor Lender Be Walking Many Paths Elise has been sewing, dawn to dusk, for a week. If she never sees another dart, pleat, or zipper again, it will be too [...]

One thing my game store had was space. If fact, we used to boast that we were the largest game store in New Mexico…and we were…by square footage. The site we chose had two main rooms, a cement-floored forward retail space and a vast, polished hardwood back room, not suitable for display cases and the [...]