Mind Petals Magazine September 2007 Issue Released
Mind Petals Magazine August 2007 Issue
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Come Drink with Jason Calicanis and Me Tonight in NYC @ 6:30
If you’ll be in the NYC area tonight, stop by The Magician to celebrate Jason Calicanis’ birthday and for being jobless after recently leaving AOL. I’ll be attending so I hope to meet some awesome entrepreneurs.
See you then!
The “Young” vs. “New” Entrepreneur
Last week I gave a presentation on Mind Petals and Entrepreneurship to over 500 people at NYU University in Manhattan. It was an amazing experience for me and the largest audience that I have even spoken in front of.
I had roughly 5 minutes to effectively tell the story of Mind Petals and my visions for the future of our network. I had a blast painting the picture of Mind Petals to a room filled with people who had never heard of the network prior to the event.
Yup, I was a bit nervous as I usually am when giving a presentation. But, after the first 30 seconds or so, I lost all fear and jumped into it head-on. Giving a presentation about something you’re really, really passionate about is truly the best feeling in the world – it’s absolutely amazing.
After the presentation there was a Q/A session that allowed a few people to ask each presenter about their respective companies. The questions that I received motivated me to write this article.
The majority of the questions revolved around the network being focused on “Young Entrepreneurs.” Many people felt that it wasn’t in the network’s best interest to focus on the niche of “young” entrepreneurs.
One question went something like this:
“Well I’m 50 years-old and you are telling me that your network is focused on entrepreneurs in the 18 – 30 year-old demographics, so what would be the incentive for someone such as myself to visit your site?”
This was a good question. I responded by telling this person that “Yes, Mind Petals is focused on following the journeys of young entrepreneurs but that doesn’t mean that all entrepreneurs can’t learn from their experiences and insights. The network isn’t focused on talking about how to become rich or take over the world… its focus is on following journeys and taking part in the lives of people in the process of running or building a business.”
Another person told me that I was confused about whether I wanted to focus the network on “Young” or “New” entrepreneurs. He stated that a “New” entrepreneur can be any age such as a 40 year-old just starting a business for the first time.
Yes, that is true. And one could probably argue that Mind Petals has more of a “New” entrepreneur focus to it. But in my heart, this network is and always will focus on the “Young” entrepreneur.
Yes, when I say young… I mean physically. Sure, this may offend some people who think that they can’t learn from us because most of us aren’t running “successful” companies and many of us don’t have a lot of experience – those are both givens and I can’t deny that (However, many of us are indeed running successful businesses and are applying we are doing to grow our companies in our content).
But those things are simply inconsequential to this network. Mind Petals isn’t about “success” as much as it’s about the “journey to success.” And for those people who think that you can’t learn from young entrepreneurs then the loss is yours.
When building Mind Petals, I envisioned a community where young entrepreneurs could share information, insights, stories, and experiences. A place that fosters ambition and motivation. I’m holding strong to that same vision and even though it can be tempting to market the network in a way to make it more attractive to all entrepreneurs, I feel that that would be a big mistake.
At the end of the day, I honestly believe that all entrepreneurs can benefit from Mind Petals. As we continue to grow the community, we will allow for more contributors from a wider range of entrepreneurs – young and old – but the aim of “Young Entrepreneurship” will never waver. I can promise you that.
Semantics of “Young” and “New” aside… let’s focus on the path to success, helping our fellow entrepreneurs, and ultimately positively changing the world. That’s the focus!
Rock on!
Mind Petals & Ma.gnolia
Mind Petals is proud to sponsor Ma.gnolia. With thousands of sites popping up on the web in a never-ending cycle, social bookmarking sites have never been more important than now. Sure search engines are great, but with the advent of tagging, people – not machines — are helping connect more people with what they are actually looking for, making the web more efficient and accelerating the entire search process.
Thanks for pushing this evolution forward, Ma.gnolia.
“Found is the New Search”
101 Motivational Notes for the Budding Entrepreneur
The Mind Petals eBook
Calling all young entrepreneurs… calling all young entrepreneurs… Mind Petals is putting together a free eBook, 101 Motivational Notes for the Budding Entrepreneur.
We are reaching out to the world of young entrepreneurs who have stories to tell and insights to share with other entrepreneurs building a business.
Become a part of Mind Petals history and submit a 250-600 word essay/article on a motivational topic that would help another entrepreneur who is starting a business. Topics can range from “How to Build a Team” to “Bootstrapping your Business.”
Send article(s) along with a short bio to: book@mindpetals.com
Mock Up Site: Alternative to a Business Plan
If you are attempting to start a venture that will require some sort of internet presence you may be able to find a way to impress potential investors without the need of an in depth business plan.
How do you do it? It is pretty simple. Just buy a professional looking website template and logo template that goes along with the theme you are envisioning. Customize the text as if this was the fully running website. Include links to the future functional areas just do not activate them. Take this site and begin showing it to select individuals, they will think you are farther along than if you just had a paper business plan and it is easier to show someone a prototype than a 50 page business plan.
How much would something like this cost?
- Domain $8.95 See: GoDaddy
- Hosting $10/month See: HostGator
- Site Template about $35 See: TemplateHeaven
So for well under $100 you have a mock up site that you can use instead of, or in addition to, a full business plan.
You will need someone with basic website design knowledge to install the template and edit the site text, sections, etc.; but that can be done by just about anyone or if you know how you can do it yourself.
Mind Petals Is Just Warming Up
Wow, I can’t believe that it’s only been 5 weeks since Mind Petals launched. The amount of positive feedback, recognition, and awesome bloggers that we have attained in this short amount of time portends much success to come as we continue to grow as a network, community, portal, or whatever term that you’d like to describe Mind Petals — doesn’t matter.
I wakeup everyday looking forward to meeting more young entrepreneurs. I’m like a little kid stretching out my hand for candy. Meeting fellow entrepreneurs is my candy, my joy. As the days go by and we continue to share our knowledge, help others in need, and work on our businesses, our position as young entrepreneurs continues to get stronger and stronger as we gain momentum throughout the business world.
Sure, many of us haven’t built multi-million dollar businesses or have clients that number in the thousands just yet. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we are trying to make things happen and we are at it everyday no matter what obstacle come our way – and let me tell you, there have been many obstacles for us young entrepreneurs.
Many of us run our own venture development firms, hosting companies, ecommerce stores, have created hosted applications, and consulting firms. We are not only talking about entrepreneurship, but are really doing it as real young entrepreneurs.
Apart from continuing to help entrepreneurs around the world through our influential blogs, we have been taking full advantage of the Mind Petals’ network to meet fellow entrepreneurs who are on doing similar things as we are.
We are taking it a step further — beyond the content — and really reaching out to other entrepreneurs who want to learn more about something; who want to brainstorm; and who want to seek partnerships to build something new — these are the things we love doing!
Adding a new member to the network is a very powerful thing for us because all of that member’s knowledge, experience, connections, and insights are openly shared throughout the network and ultimately is shared throughout the network’s entire readership.
So if you’re wondering why we don’t have 100 blogs in the network, it’s because we don’t just let any entrepreneur blogger in – only the most serious, dedicated, hungry, knowledgeable, and ambitious make it that far.
We want Mind Petals to be more than a network; more than just a bunch of blogs; more than a community; and more than great young entrepreneurs – we want Mind Petals to become an idea; a way of life that symbolizes young entrepreneurs making things happen with their lives no matter how hard it becomes; a symbol that can not be destroyed even if our servers are wiped out and our members leave – therein lies the true definition of Mind Petals.
Gotta Keep it Young!
Today, I along with the Mind Petals’ Board of Advisors have decided to keep the network focused on the youth. It wasn’t an easy decision and it’s been something that we’ve been scratching our heads about for some time, but we feel that it’s the right thing to do. We will only be adding bloggers under the age of 30.
Yup, this update goes counter to my last post about membership, but in order for this network to be official, it MUST be fueled by the youth! We are the ones, more than any other entrepreneur, that need to stick together and help one another.
Sure, yes, and of course we can learn things from entrepreneurs of all ages, and we will all continue to do so, but the network must be a haven for the budding entrepreneurs putting everything on the line, the young entrepreneurs bootstrapping a business, and the young entrepreneurs that are sitting at home creating a masterpiece to change the world.
We are the future.
Our youth is our biggest advantage and the message MUST be reflected in our membership. Power to the young entrepreneurs!
Mind Petals - Infinite Ideas to Bloom
Mind Petals, the entrepreneur’s official blog network is finally here. It’s been a fun, rough, and exciting few months in the making, but my vision is now a reality.
I created Mind Petals as a way to connect entrepreneur bloggers across the internet – aggregating the best content under a network where people from all over the world can come and learn about the world of entrepreneurism, directly from the entrepreneurs making things happen with their lives.
So where do we go from here? That’s easy. We can only go up. My passion for entrepreneurism, innovation, and desire to change the world is shared with all of the Mind Petals’ members. Changing the world and writing about how we are doing it, is the true engine that runs this network.
Gaining feedback from readers and commenting on how you would like to see this network grow, will only help Mind Petals to reach more entrepreneurs and spark more minds throughout the world. Please share your thoughts.
This network is yours! Through the content shared throughout this network, lives will be changed, companies will be founded, partnerships will form, solutions will emerge, and the world will be improved.
There are infinite possibilities in this universe – “Infinite Ideas to Bloom.”
