Thursday, August 23 by David Askaripour in Communities | 2 Comments
Experience just launched their Entrepreneurship Guide that has been in the making for many months now. Various young entrepreneurs from around the world will be sharing their insights, lessons, successes, failures, and practicable tips with the entrepreneurship community.
One of the profiled entrepreneurs John Earle, founder of Johnny Cupcakes, has an amazing product with an even better marketing strategy. From his location in Boston, John mixed the cupcake world with the apparel world. Something so weird, out-of-the-box, and interesting that you can’t help but want to learn more about his clothing line.
“Evil, evil, evil,” said one potential buyer, lured in by a frosting craving and finding only cotton. But a few grumpy sweet-teeth notwithstanding, eighty percent of hungry customers end up leaving with something to wear. And even if designer clothing - or “unique, limited, wearable art” - isn’t your cup of tea, if you live in Boston you either know who Johnny is or think you do. His name is just that catchy, his clothes are just that fun, and his word-of-mouth advertising scheme is just that ingenious.
Check out John’s profile and the rest of the amazing young entrepreneurs over at Experience. I’m looking forward to seeing this entrepreneurship guide grow.
Friday, April 27 by David Askaripour in Communities | 8 Comments
A few years ago, when I was just starting to get into entrepreneurship and also the stock market, one of my biggest dreams was to, one day, take a company that I created public. You know, issue an IPO (initial public offering) on the NASDAQ or the NYSE.
For those of you unfamiliar with taking a company public, here’s the quick rundown: Say you own a candy company and you are doing very well, but you’d like to expand into new territories. Well, you need more money to do that, right? So, what you would do is contact an investment banking firm, the firm would assess how much of the company you should sell to the public and then decide on an appropriate price per share, then through a series of other investment banking firms, brokerage houses, (called, the syndicate), your shares would be released onto the open market for anyone interested in owning a piece of your company. You would then, if all goes well, have the necessary money that you needed to expand your operations and the public would now own a certain amount of your company.
Of course it’s much more detailed than that, but the basic concept is giving up a chunk of your company to raise a large sum of cash to reinvest back into your business. In street terms, it’s called “floating” your company onto the market, and the “float” is the amount of shares you dump onto the market for the public to snap up.
Nowadays, I’m not so interesting in brining a company public one day, especially with the pitfalls that this country is facing with the Sarbanes Oxley Act, which is extremely prohibitive when it comes to going public.
But the concept of going public got me thinking about one particular young entrepreneur. Mark Zuckerberg of facebook. Now here’s an entrepreneur who turns down a 1 billion dollar offer to sell his beloved facebook. I admire him for his balls (wait, that didn’t come out right). Let’s try it again: I admire his boldness and courage to turn down such a huge offer.
My hunch tells me that he’s holding out for something bigger. Some sort of investment vehicle that will make him more than a billionaire one day. A source that knows Mark once told me that “Mark declined the deal because he wants to become a billionaire from the deal and the 1 billion offer wouldn’t be enough to make him one.”
So, want to know what I think? I think that Mark is holding out to go public. I think that facebook is gearing up to offer in IPO within the next 18-24 months. And, I think that it makes sense.
The IPO would give the army of students who truly love facebook the chance to own a piece of it and to financially share in the growth of the company. And, of course, facebook would make billions in the process. Money that can be used to make facebook a much better service for everyone. Not a bad deal.
With all the buzz and media continuing to shine light on facebook, I think it’s fair to say that there will be a certain level of Irrational Exuberance around the purchasing of the stock. In other words, many investors will blindly dump tons of cash into the stock without studying the fundamentals because it’s “cool!!!”
Sound familiar, ahm… tech bubble stock crash. Not to say there’s another bubble forming, but let’s just say that if there is… it may be facebook’s IPO (froth), that starts generating some bubble action.
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Monday, January 29 by David Askaripour in Communities | 4 Comments
The founder of Startup Business School, Richard Banfield, recently reached out to me and informed me of what he was doing – how his site is helping entrepreneurs.
Startup Business School is a great site filled with plenty of resources that can help all sorts of entrepreneurs, especially us young guys. They are currently offering a free guide called “The 101 Essential Startup Tips.” It looks like a pretty useful guide and it’s free so you don’t have much to lose, right.
The meat of the site is their Lessons pages which consists of an excellent library of articles. Topics such as building a team, getting funding, management, leadership, and other subjects are covered.
SUBS also offers a service that appears to be focused on young entrepreneurs. Though not immediately clear, the service seems to be a package of tools that helps you organize your business by proving you online lessons, a platform to build a business plan, network with other members of the service, and to communicate on their blog. They offer a free and premium package.
Personally, I think a service such as this one is going to be a hard sell for young entrepreneurs. When it comes to actually paying for help to start a business via lessons, many will turn in the other direction and seek help from their current network of peers and entrepreneurial friends.
The internet has become the largest playground – ever – for us young entrepreneurs and our support system that enables us to reach out to one another and help each other is growing by the day. Through forums, blogs, communities, etc… we are uniting and forming structures that allow us to gain/share the information we need without having to pony up cash.
SUBS, overall, seems like a pretty cool place for entrepreneurs to jump into some quality articles and network with some like-minded people. But nothing will ever replace the real-time experiences of starting your own company – something no amount of online lessons can ever replace. The real school of entrepreneurship is, guess what, just doing it!
Thursday, December 28 by David Askaripour in Communities | 4 Comments
I’m an internet guy, but the web has nothing on physical interaction. Doesn’t even come close (well… it comes close but not close enough). Last night I attended “darrenCamp” on the Upper East Side section of Manhattan.
Darren Herman, founder of IGA Worldwide, did an excellent job putting some of the smartest, innovative, and savviest marketing, internet, and finance people in one room. It was a great networking experience and I left with a handful of contacts.
Darren said something that really struck a cord with me last night: “The web really isn’t that social.” He went on to explain that you can view a person’s IP address and see how they got to your site, but you can only go so far in getting to really know that person.
He sees the rise of avatars as something that is going to break the social barriers on the net. You know, like actually seeing someone’s face on your blog or perhaps their Second Life profile on their website/blog.
To a larger degree, I agree with Darren and I think that we have a long way to go before the net truly does become social. Sure, we have communities such as facebook, MySpace, flickr, blog networks, etc…etc… but all of them have barriers that don’t allow people to make intimate connections with others besides reading their content, viewing their profiles, commenting, and tracking their IP addresses.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that blog commenting, profiles, and reading peoples’ content are excellent ways to get to know someone online – those are the best tools that we currently have online right now and through them we are reaching out to millions of people everyday.
However, like everything else in the world, there’s room for improvement.
Here are some thoughts:
- What about sharing voice profiles with people. Imagine being able to listen to a mini voice introduction of your facebook or MySpace buddies, that would be great.
- As Darren suggested, it would be cool for Second Life to build wikis for people to share their avatars across their sites/blogs.
- Or, what about online scrapbooks that we could share with people. A digital book of videos, recording, images, sites that I visited, favorite music, etc… I think that if someone was able to build a service that organized these eclectic elements of someone’s life in an easy to view (and cross-social network) way, then it would go a long way in penetrating the social barriers online.
But as I stated in the beginning of this article, real world interaction will always trump online interaction. Just like how print publication will never die because people love the feeling of holding a book and reading it. Just can’t beat that!
There’s something magical about sitting alongside of someone and holding an intelligent, engaging, and insightful conversation with that person. Being able to share your ideas, brainstorm, and think about the future with someone is an experience that humans will never get tired of.
As young entrepreneurs we should constantly be seeking interaction with people in our sector and related sectors. As a founder of a company, you should always strive to put a bunch of smart and insightful people in one room.
As the organizer, you’ll benefit from getting to know virtually everyone attending the event – people that can become great assets to your organization. As someone attending the gathering, you’ll be able to network like a madman and get to know a panoply of people from various sectors – people that can offer you priceless information that can help your company grow in new directions.
Here are some pics from last night’s gathering at darrenCamp:
What do you think: is the net really that social? Do you attend events and gathering to network?
Wednesday, December 13 by David Askaripour in Communities | 2 Comments
Walamu recently jumped into the college classified coliseum where it’ll have to battle barbarians such as Dorm Item, CollegeMedium, ACollege Trade, and Chegg (Chegg may try to throw eggs, so watch out).
Walamu is a great example of a college classified site (I think I’ll start to call them “CCS”) executed very well for a particular school, Rutgers in NJ. I like Walamu’s one school at a time approach.
Let’s face it, it’s going to be extremely hard for any of these CCS’s to reach a critical mass in thousands of colleges around the country – it’s doable, but it’ll take time and huge marketing campaigns (unless the site is so brilliant that it sparks a word-of-mouth frenzy).
So by focusing on one university at a time, you’re building a strong base of students. If you’re able to build a critical mass at one school, then you know your service is doing something right. Then, obviously, you’d do the same thing at another school and so on… It’s a great approach. Seemingly “slower” but by building strong bases, you can build an army of loyal users.
Walamu’s has a slick design that’s very easy on the eyes. Unlike most of the other CCS’s, they separate the “classified” section from the “marketplace” which may or may not be a good thing.
Students want things to be as simple as possible, they never like a lot of choices. Give a student a lot of choices for your service, and watch them move onto the next service that has less options. Students are known to love simplicity.
So in that light, I’d much rather see “one” listing with various sorting of books, jobs, electronics, etc… In fact, I’m still wondering why all of these sites are still using the words “marketplace” and “classifieds” at all.
Those words are so ebay-ish and craigslist-ish. Wouldn’t it be cool if one of these CCS’s took a new approach and began calling the listings something completely different? I think so. It would make them stand out from the pack immediately. Who has the guts to do it first?
The CCS that is able to be the most creative combined with the simplest features is going to be the winner of this battle. But if sites such as Walamu continue to focus solely on one school at a time, then we’ll see a lot more of “mini-successes” from school to school.
Walamu is off to a great start and if they can get a few thousand consistent users at Rutgers, then they’d be in great shape to enter another university. Vertical growth can prove to be the lifesaver for these services.
Wednesday, November 29 by David Askaripour in Communities | 4 Comments
Can you believe it, Mind Petals didn’t have a group on facebook. Well as of today we officially do and we’re hoping to have many young entrepreneurs join the group and get the discussion going.
facebook is clearly the official social networking site for the college student. From starting back in 2004 until now, facebook continues to grow and grow like no tomorrow. College students are beyond surprised when they find out that one of their friends doesn’t have a facebook account. It’s like: “What are you crazy!?”
So in an effort to spread the word of Mind Petals to more young entrepreneurs, making a facebook group was an awesome direction to go down.
If you’ve been enjoying Mind Petals and know other young entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs in the making that would benefit from our network and our newly founded group, please spread the word and help us spark more minds into the world of entrepreneurship.
Here’s the link to the facebook group: Mind Petals Entrepreneur Group »
Join and let’s start uniting the young entrepreneurs on facebook!
Tuesday, November 28 by David Askaripour in Communities | 13 Comments
Last week I spoke with the founder of CollegeMedium, another new college classified marketplace. Today I learn of Chegg.com, a well establish university classified site that seems to be winning the race amongst many of these sites popping up.
Chegg has over 650,000 textbooks listed in their database and are currently selling items such as furniture, cars, clothing, etc… With their intuitive and clear design, Chegg is extremely easy to use.
Chegg has an ebay look and feel to it, allowing users to sort the listing by highest and lowest price. On Chegg, students are also allowed to swap their services by bartering their items for something, which is a nice little addition.
Though these college classified sites are becoming extremely commonplace, I don’t think that they are having any real impact on Amazon which is probably the number one place that college students turn to when purchasing books for school. But it’s way too early in the game to even begin comparing Amazon to sites such as Chegg, Dormitem, and CollegeMedium.
And as founder of CollegeMedium pointed out: “facebook seems like the next logical step, I strongly doubt that’ll happen. A classifieds site is simply a different form of advertising, which is already facebook’s primary revenue stream. As such, creating a free-classifieds section would seem a bit counter intuitive.” facebook may not even be thinking about entering the market.
But based upon what facebook has written on Dormitem’s buzz page — “You’re on our radar” — I beg to differ.
Another concern that I have for these sites is the fact that publishers are updating textbooks by the year and sometimes even by the semester. I personally remember my professors demanding that we purchased the latest version of a particular book for class. So will many student purchase outdated books? I doubt it.
It’ll be interesting to see who comes out on top or if all these sites can co-exist? But from the looks of it, Chegg has a clear lead in this race and with the recent acquisition of textopedia.com and the $500,000 in funding, things may only be getting brighter for Chegg. However, this is still a very fragmented market and still up for the taking.
Monday, November 13 by David Askaripour in Communities | 7 Comments
At first I found it repulsive, then I became curious, and finally I became a fan: setting up a network of sites that are 100% supported by Google Ads, sponsorships, and other advertising models.
When I first came across a site network founded by a young entrepreneur, I thought to myself: “All of this dude’s sites are littered with ads and links to other sites, there is no way that he is making money off of these sites. People just aren’t going to stand for it.”
Little did I know. I soon found out that many of these young entrepreneurs who ran these sites were making anywhere from $200 - $800 on a daily basis; usually closer to the $200 range. I was a bit confused, shocked, and amazed after coming to this realization.
The realization that you can have a site that is populated with 75% ads and 25% content and still be able to have a hefty amount of traffic on your site, making you residual income on a daily basis. Amazing.
What type of network sites have I seen young entrepreneurs focusing on?
- MySpace theme sites
- Poker sites
- Sexy videos and photography
- Funny content (jokes, stories, video clips)
From what I’ve seen, these entrepreneurs aren’t really carving out niches with super specific topics, they are simply taking a small piece of the pie from these general categories and executing them quite well with this formula:
- Super simple designs
- Adsense, TLA, sponsorships
- Cross promotion between sites to increase Page Ranking (PR)
- Making more sites to add to the network
- Repeat steps 1 - 4
Some people – actually, many people – wouldn’t consider this as a sound business model. As I stated, I thought that it was a waste of time, energy, and focus taking this particular route. I thought that you’d be better off focusing on one or two sites, rather than 20+ sites.
I have since come to think differently about these 100% ad supported sites and feel that we haven’t even scratched the surface with them, especially because I’m not really seeing any super-niche networks out there; mostly poker and MySpace networks.
I’m still a big fan of focusing most of your energy on one project at a time, but I can’t deny the fact that this method holds promise and should — at the very least — be explored by entrepreneurs who have the time and interest to give it a shot; not much to lose and so much to gain, right.
The time has never been better than now to stake your claim on the internet. If you have a particular interest that you can build a website around, then go for it! Who knows, after you get that site rolling, you can start another site that relates to the first and being to build that network of yours.
In time, that one site that you started some time back can turn into a monster of 20 sites that are well cross promoted, popular, and brining in a steady stream of cash. The sky is the limit!
What do you think about site networks – yes, no, maybe?
Sunday, October 8 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
Facebook oh facebook, oh how much we love you. No, seriously, us college students really do love facebook. It’s simple, to-the-point, easy to use, and has a ridiculous following of loyal college students around the world. It’s truly an impressive service that isn’t going to be slowing down anytime soon.
It’s only natural that we’ll start to see spin-off sites such as Miss Facebook that will attempt to piggyback the success of facebook. Look at what’s happening with Myspace: there are a billion services that are directly built around it and almost everyday we’re hearing about more ways to incorporate new widgets into the Myspace platform. It’s only natural that the pro-facebook entrepreneurs will start to create similar services.
Harvard Junior and company founder, Daniel Wallace, stated:
MissFacebook is an entertainment-based site built using Ning.com that lets users vote on head-to-head duels between competing girl pictures. These pics are meant to be facebook-style headshots, hence the name “MissFacebook.”
The idea was mostly spawned by the hundreds of facebook groups called things like “The Absolute Hottest People of Facebook” and so on. We figured there could be a fun way to democratize the process. We let girls submit pics to enter the competition, and they can always request to have their picture taken off by emailing us at missfacebook@yahoo.com
Miss Facebook is a simple – possibly too simple – service that allows students (or by the looks of it, anyone) to vote on the hottest girl via various “duels.” Built using the Ning social networking software, the functionality of the service isn’t that great but I think that they’re off to a cool start — something that has potential, indeed.
It’s just the beginning for these facebook-ish sites to stake their claim on the net. If a few of them are able to succeed, then it’s just a matter of time before we see entire networks built around the fame of facebook. It’s great, because if anyone can make it happen, it’s going to be the college students who are using facebook every day to connect to their friends and classmates.
facebook, on!
Friday, September 22 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
As promised in this mornings post, I’m back with some cool shots and commentary from the One Web Day event that took place at Battery Park here in Manhattan.
The weather was great – not too hot, not too chilly – and the energy coming off of all the net lovers was definitely felt.
Though the turnout was on the small side, founder of One Web Day (Susan Crawford ) stated that the event was an “experiment” and expected the holiday to grow with supporters every year.
She was absolutely right. We’re only scratching the surface with the web and we still have a long, long way to go until more people become as enthusiastic about the web as us “nerds and geeks.” It’s happening.
Here’s a shot of law professor and founder of One Web Day, Susan Crawford:
The first ever global icon for wireless hotspots was presented at the event. Keep an eye out for this icon. Looks a bit like the RSS icon, eh.
Here’s a shot of Craig Newmark – founder of Craigslist – and some corresponding clips of a short movie that was played, explaining the brilliance of craigslist:
Here’s a shot of Scott Heiferman of Meetup:
Oh.. and last but not least, here’s shot of some big balls from the Wall Street Bull up the street. For all of those risk-adverse people out there, this graphic image may help encourage you to start making things happen! LOL…
Overall, it was a great event. Celebrating One Web Day really felt good and I hope that this holiday continues. Actually, it will continue! And the web will grow! At this point, it’s unstoppable and we’re lovin’ it babe!
Friday, September 22 by David Askaripour in Communities | 1 Comment
Guess what everybody? Today is officially the first One Web Day. Started by law professor Susan Crawford, One Web Day was crated as a way to celebrate the importance of the web and how each person benefits from the net in their own unique way – think of Earth Day, but swap “Earth” with “Web” and you’ll get the idea.
Today I’ll be attending the main event here in New York City, but countless celebrations will be going on throughout the entire world. In London the man himself, Tim Berners-Lee, will be making a speech in the Royal Exchange Grand Cafe & Bar at Bank starting at 2pm.
One Web Day is really about soaking up everything the internet has to offer. We’ve come such a long way over the past 15 years. Today is a day to go outside and start a blog, write a program, make some comments on sites, read an ebook, connect to friends across the world, start a internet service, share photos, make a few dozen Skype calls etc… just make sure to do something on the web and also help someone learn more about this amazing medium of communication.
Stay tuned, I’ll be updating this entry with images and commentary from the event. Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Scott Heiferman of Meetup, will both be giving presentations here in Manhattan’s Battery Park. Today is going to be a great day and I hope that you all will participate in One Web Day and help spread the powers of the net.
Wednesday, September 20 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
I earnestly advise entrepreneurs around the world to help those in need. Whether it’s through offering advice, making donations, using your talents to help someone’s business succeed, or loaning a few dollars to entrepreneurs in developing countries who do not have the means to raise capital to fuel their businesses; capital that can help pull them out of poverty and help ensure a better life for them and their families.
With Kiva, you can help these struggling entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs who are probably no different than you and I in terms of creativity, determination, ambition, and desire to succeed.
But there is one difference that can’t simply be ignored: these entrepreneurs are living in countries that substantially prohibit their ability to raise capital for their ventures. Living in a country where food and shelter are constant worries, you can see how there isn’t exactly much disposable income for business ventures.
This post may come off as a sales pitch for Kiva and though I have no stake in the company or even know any employee of the company, I feel compelled to push their cause as an entrepreneur who understands how hard it is to bootstrap a business here in America, let alone in a developing country with fewer opportunities.
Being fortunate enough to live in a country such as America or other economically thriving (relatively speaking) countries that you may live in, it can be easy to forget about such struggling entrepreneurs when most of us will never experience even 10% of the hardship that these people face on a daily basis.
Loaning money to an entrepreneur in the Kiva program will change lives and go a long way to continue the entrepreneurial spirit that so many of us have come to love. It’s never too late to lend a helping hand.
Tuesday, September 19 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
What if you were to take the challenge of making a commitment to yourself – a commitment to help improve your business in some way – and actually put a dollar amount on that commitment?
So if you made a commitment to make 20 calls per day (for a month) in an effort to find new sponsors, clients, gigs, etc… and if you didn’t fulfill that commitment you’d pay X amount of dollars to a charity of your choice.
Journey Page, a service of Michael Simmons, helps you do just that and much more:
- You make a commitment to your business that you’ll be held accountable for
- You can then link with a partner that will make sure you’re actually living out your commitment on a daily basis
- At the end of the month, you’ll feel great about yourself if you stayed true to your commitment and at the same time, your business will have gotten that much stronger
Journey Page has the right idea when it comes to motivating entrepreneurs and connecting them to a community where they can find like-minded individuals who are willing to offer guidance, support, and motivation.
Are you up for the challenge?
Thursday, September 14 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
With over 25 business blogs and excellent featured articles aimed at helping entrepreneurs succeed, 9rules is a great community for entrepreneurs looking for additional content to help them on the road to success.
With their wide variety of business blogs, you’ll be sure to find pointers, tips, and insights to help steer your business on the right track to marketing your service, keeping on top of your ecommerce store, and making sure your users stay passionate and satisfied.
Keep up the great work, 9rules.
Wednesday, September 13 by David Askaripour in Communities | 2 Comments
Wondering if there are any entrepreneurship events and meetings in your town? How about starting an event for entrepreneurs where everyone can talk about what they are doing with their businesses, network with one another, eat some food, have fun… you know, all the good stuff. Well, with the help of Meetup you can definitely stop thinking about said event and actually make it happen.
Meetup is an excellent site that allows you to create “meetups” or events on anything that you desire. You can also join as many meetups as you’d like and have a blast attending events in your area.
I recently began using Meetup when I found out about the “NY Tech Meetup” where entrepreneurs and technologist from all over the city meet once per month to hear several presentations about startups. I recently gave a presentation there and the entire event was an amazing experience.
I highly recommend checking out Meetup and start taking advantage of the many, many entrepreneurship events happening across the country. And if there isn’t one in your area, no problem – just start one.
Thursday, September 7 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
OnStartups is a sweet blog focused on software startups. We all know that everything is going onto the web; as the days pass, more and more entrepreneurs are looking to the web as a platform to build their ventures and reach the millions of potential clients. It only makes sense.
Dharmesh Shah is the brainchild behind this community. At the age of 24 Dharmesh started his first software startup and made millions after selling the company; not bad for a 24 year-old, eh.
OnStarups is a solid site and well worth the visit. The articles are well written and extremely informative. If you’ve been thinking about starting a software or hosted application startup, then this is your spot.
Wednesday, September 6 by David Askaripour in Communities | 4 Comments
Look for investors, hire people to join your startup, read entrepreneurship blogs, and create groups: Go BIG Network has it all.
Go BIG is an established network focusing on the startup community. Whether you’re starting your first business or your tenth, there’s always room to learn more. Go BIG provides the entrepreneur with a good amount of resources and tools to help keep the startup process as painless as possible. And we all know how frustrating this phase can be.
As a member of the network, you have the capability to create a network of your own. You can add friends and partners to the network. This seems like a great networking tool for entrepreneurs.
BUT…. there is a huge downside to this network. Members pay a fee to post their requests on Go Big; they also have to pony up cash to contact other members outside of their network — what a turn-off.
Though I see the value in such a network, I feel that their offerings go counter to the bootstrapping entrepreneurs who are starting a company. Heck, we’re already paying for hosting, marketing, investing in our businesses, and on top of that you expect us to pay to create a group? No thanks.
Go BIG needs to think more about the bootstrapping entrepreneurs and less about their corporate image. Think I’ll stick to their free articles before they start charging members for that too.
Tuesday, September 5 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
The Kauffman eVenturing Entrepreneur site is on the right track when it comes to providing entrepreneurs with quality information and advice. The Kauffman Foundation has been educating people on entrepreneurship around the nation, helping the youth to aspire to become something great.
Through an impressive offering of articles, blog posts, tools, and links, the eVenturing portal supplies entrepreneurs with a hefty plate of knowledge and insights (yummy!); information that is sure to nourish your business as it grows.
Of course, my favorite section of the site is The Entrepreneur which covers subjects such as: Strategy, Growth, Personal Development, Culture, Leadership, and Exit Planning. And one of the great things about these articles is that they are updated regularly. That’s what it’s all about, fresh content.
With their simple and clean layout, entrepreneurs will be able to find specific information fast, without having to do much searching.
Nothing ground-breaking, but supplying entrepreneurs with related articles of interest is a great addition to the site and can be quite helpful.
Good stuff, Kauffman.
Monday, September 4 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
I wish that I had a rich dad to teach me about money when I was growing up. At the age of 16 I got my first credit card and basically used it like it was free-for-all card that magically purchased items that you would never have to worry about paying back. Go figure.
Well a few years later – around the age of 19 – I picked up a copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and for the first time learned the basic principles of assets and liabilities. It was the book that broke my entrepreneurship cherry. And it was a messy awakening for me.
Seeing how Robert Kiyosaki learned from his Rich Dad really inspired me as well as many entrepreneurs around the world. The Rich Dad series are excellent for budding entrepreneurs looking for books that cover a wide range of business subjects without getting into too much detail or analysis.
The books are a fun read, but can easily bore the seasoned entrepreneur who has risen above the basics. If you’re looking for a quick injection of motivation and encouragement, then go pick up one of Kiyosaki’s books.
A few months ago, I came across the Rich Dad discussion boards. It’s a great forum to reach out to fellow entrepreneurs who are also in the process of running and building a business. Just beware of the masses of MLM cult-like members who hang around the boards… don’t be surprised if someone asks you to help sell $1,000 knife sets or the latest hair conditioner that is supposedly going to revolutionize the industry.
If you’re looking for some solid feedback on your business, advice, and insights into the world of entrepreneurship, then this board is well worth the trip. It’s one of the best out there. Overall (but not all), it’s a solid community of people who are genuinely keen in helping others and learning at the same time – great reciprocity over there.
Wednesday, August 30 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
Mission:
Over 54% of Americans are interesting in starting their own business but don’t know where to begin. RoundOne - a platform of content and community - was designed specifically for aspiring entrepreneurs by experienced entrepreneurs who have been through it all - paralysis, failure, struggle, false starts and tremendous successes. Welcome to a growing community of aspiring entrepreneurs who have stopped dreaming and started doing.
RoundOne is an interesting entrepreneur network that combines blogs, groups, podcasts, and quizzes all in one.
At first site of their blog section, seeing that their most recent featured article, A Pending Deal is Not a Done Deal, was written almost 2 months ago, I began to wonder if this network had any contributors or not. Upon further investigation, I noticed that there were more recent articles in another section, two of which were repeated.
The blog section has a great library of useful information, albeit the information not being updated on a regular basis. They cover subjects such as management, technology, legal, management, finance, and entrepreneurship.
RoundOne Groups is another service. I’m not sure what the purpose of this section is. It’s pretty poorly executed and from the looks of it, with groups such as “Brown Men’s Rugby Club” I’m not sure how such a group would help entrepreneurs.
The network also has a “Connect” service that pairs you with entrepreneurs who share the same ideas and skills as you. I gave the idea section a shot. However, it felt more like hiring a coder than posting an idea to connect with fellow entrepreneurs.
If you place MySpace, Rent A Coder, facebook, into a pot and mix it up with some entrepreneurs, you have RoundOne. It’s a good network, but I get the feeling they over-extended themselves with too many features that don’t have enough driving force behind each one to really become sticky.
Tuesday, August 29 by David Askaripour in Communities | 2 Comments
Last week facebook dropped their “notes” service. Otherwise know as their “blog” service for all of those out there who are reading between the lines. I guess that their cleverness to not use the term “blog” is pretty smart – they don’t want to confuse ( or should I say insult those tech-savvy) all of their non tech-savvy members with jargon only “nerds” would know about. Go figure.
Anyhow, this is great news for us young entrepreneurs who have facebook memberships and also own business blogs(any blogs). Now our entire network of facebook buddies can keep up-to-date with our latest entries directly from our profiles. Pretty cool.
I’ll be the first to admit: the term “blog” is pretty loaded. Heck, I don’t even like the term and some may even say that I’m in the blog business. Not the case. It’s all about content, pure and simple.
Facebook understands this basic principle: content is king. Whether it’s coming from a “blog,” website, portal, whatever… it doesn’t really matter. Being able to share your thoughts, insights, and experiences with the world is the bottom-line here.
Facebook is definitely heading in the right direction with such as move. Quite the power move. For all you entrepreneurs on facebook, please take advantage of this new feature. Your content now has the opportunity to reach a wider audience and essentially open up new doors for your business and making connections.
Now instead of checking facebook to locate the names of girls that I met in the bars (I kid… I kid…), I’ll start catching up on some great content from my entrepreneur buddies.
Monday, August 28 by David Askaripour in Communities | 2 Comments
Do a quick Google search for “young entrepreneurs” and sure enough you’ll come across a wide variety of entrepreneurship forums for you to bask in. I think that entrepreneurship forums are absolutely great for all entrepreneurs – especially young ones just starting out – to share ideas, thoughts, and get feedback. It’s all a part of the learning process.
Here’s a list of some forums that I have recently encountered:
Startup Nation is a full-blown entrepreneurship community. From articles, blogs, podcasts, events, and forums, you’re sure to find plenty of resourceful information there. Though their focus doesn’t seem to be on young entrepreneurship, I would tend to think that many young entrepreneurs also frequent this community.
If you’ve been an active young internet entrepreneur, you have surely heard about Young Entrepreneur forums. It’s a well established forum with a thriving community. Based upon the questions being asked on the forum – “With a brand-new site that I have just gotten on-line, and the need to generate some quick revenue to continue on, would it be a reasonable idea to buy traffic to my site, and, if so, whom would you all recommend?” – it seems as though the community has plenty of fresh entrepreneurs looking for advice.
Last but not least, we have Young CEO Forum. It doesn’t really stand out from the rest, but I am sure that it wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot and see what happens. You never know, someone on one of these forums may be your next business partner that you will go off to make millions with.
All in all, I think that entrepreneurship forums can be extremely helpful to the budding entrepreneur. However, I feel that they are all one in the same. I see no originality or “wow-factors” from any of them. It’s always the same old topics and same old bulletin board software – usually just another template thrown on to change the design. I have yet to see one forum that has truly separated itself from the pack. Hopefully someone will create that forum one day.
Forum on!
Friday, August 25 by David Askaripour in Communities | Leave a Comment
Today I came across a very interesting entrepreneurship network that goes by the name, Young Go Getter. The network is broken down in three sections that appear to be in frames (yikes!) on the homepage.
The first section is the YGG blog which gives the user the option to continue reading the post in the tiny frame or to view it in another window. I would love to see just one clean internal section where I could simply read the content on the homepage in its entirety, forget these mini frames… I feel trapped in a cage when trying to read out of those sections.
The second, ENTREPRENEWS, is pretty interesting. It’s basically another frame with links to various entrepreneur-related articles on the web. This could prove to be very resourceful for many entrepreneurs.
And lastly, they have a discussion/forum board and guess what it’s housed in….? yup, another frame. The board allows for anyone to sign-up and begin discussing from topics ranging from “General Business” to “Ideas & Concepts.” Sweet, I think that’s the best feature of the network and it’s great for throwing ideas back and forth with other entrepreneurs.
Overall I think that YGG is off to a great start, but I’m not quite sure if it lives up to its tagline “The business playground for entrepreneurs young at heart.”
Friday, August 18 by David Askaripour in Communities | 1 Comment
Wow, can you believe it? Myspace recently broke the 100M mark of subscribers – that’s excellent. Why is that excellent? Well, just imagine how many entrepreneurs are on Myspace. When it comes to networking and linking up with fellow entrepreneurs, Myspace can be an amazing tool to make those connections.
Today while surfing around Myspace, I came across bizMAVERICKS page. I was impressed with their mission:
We, as bizMAVERICKS, are rebel businesspeople who will do whatever it takes to create success for ourselves, our businesses, and the world we live in. Our entrepreneurial spirit is strong; and the energy it radiates, is felt by all who encounter it.
It’s great to see people utilizing Myspace to reach out and connect to other entrepreneurs. When most people think of Myspace, they think of flashy pages filled with music, images, and all types of bells and whistles coming at you. Sure, MySpace is a fun and hip place to keep in touch with friends, no doubt.
However when the entrepreneur thinks of Myspace, he or she must also think of the networking possibilities. Com’on guys, we’re talking about over 100 million people here! Just setting up a page with a link to your business can go a long way. Imagine the possibilities if you are actively reaching out to people and educating them on your business and how it can help them – Geeezzz… talk about potential!
Sites like bizMAVERICKS are great because it brings entrepreneurs together from all over the world; entrepreneurs who already have a Myspace account and are keen on networking and building relationships with people just like themselves – people working hard to become successful and change the world. Keep it coming bizMAVERICKS.
Rock on!
Tuesday, August 15 by David Askaripour in Communities | 3 Comments
If you’ve been following facebook for the past couple of months you have probably heard about possible acquisition of the company. Back in April when interviewing co-founder Chris Hughes he responded with:
Question: I hear facebook is up for sale, true? If so, what to you envision happening to facebook once it’s acquired?
I think you’re referencing the Business Week article from last week. That piece, and the rumors that have circulated about the Internet since, are nothing but speculation. We do not comment on rumors.
Rumors, eh? Well based upon all the “rumors,” founder Mark Zukerberg has been holding out for a $2 billion offer in order to let go of the company. Smart? Yes, I think so.
Many young entrepreneurs probably punched holes in the wall thinking about how facebook could be turning down the alleged $750 million offer – a company that has only been around for 2 years and started by a few college students at Harvard.
But I’m impressed with Mark’s high value that he places on his company. His acquisition rejection tells the world that he isn’t in the business of selling out his pride and joy for just anything. I’m sure that there’s more to the story than that, but in any case facebook isn’t just going to let go of their creation for a quick payday ( at least not until the money is right).
For many young entrepreneurs around the country seeing such massive success from a college student can be quite frustrating. The thinking may be “wow, I’m busting my ass everyday – day and night – to become successful and look at this dude Mark became successful almost overnight… grr…”
Well you can’t think like that. Any entrepreneur can achieve success such as facebook did. I’m not a big proponent of luck, but I’m sure that it plays a part when it’s mixed with some determination and ambition.
From the success of facebook, young entrepreneurs around the globe should become even more enthusiastic about starting a company and turning it into a raging success – it can be done!
Facebook was created to help connect students at Harvard. That’s they key: locate a problem and build a business around the solution to that problem. Get started today.
Monday, August 14 by David Askaripour in Communities | 1 Comment
Young Wealth Weekly is a great newsletter for entrepreneurs of all walks of life. From starting a business to stepping up your internet marketing, YWW covers it all and delivers it to your inbox every Thursday.
The newsletter is written and maintained by 9 young entrepreneurs from around the county, myself included. Each week you can look forward to around 3 – 5 articles focused on entrepreneurship: book reviews, case studies, interviews, and insights into the business world through the eyes of a young entrepreneur.
Newsletters such as YWW are vital to getting the word out there to young entrepreneurs seeking guidance and motivation to venture out and start a business – the business that they’ve been dreaming about starting but never got around to actually doing it. YWW is that perfect nudge to get you and your start-up rockin’ and rollin’.
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