Looks like I have a new example to use in class for legal changes that create new business opportunities. There are several new entities popping up due to the the growing interest in crowdfunding and the passage of the JOBS Act that will allow crowdfunding to be used for equity investments rather than just donations [...]
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A reader from Canada passed along a piece written by Mariana Mazzucato titled “The Entrepreneurial State.” It is an interesting window into the view that the state is the ultimately the most effective driver of economies and innovation. The author lays out a case for more government involvement in spurring entrepreneurship. She argues that rather than [...]
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Not everyone is prepared to be a successful entrepreneur. In the new book Heart, Smarts, Guts and Luck, two successful venture capitalists and a management consultant surveyed a large number of successful entrepreneurs to uncover what traits they have in common. One of the traits — guts — particularly hit home with my experience as [...]
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I still look forward to the beginning of classes each fall. I am excited to see the new groups of faces in each of my classes. I am excited to try out the new materials and new pedagogical approaches I worked on over the summer. I still get a few butterflies in my stomach when [...]
The late, legendary Silicon Valley attorney Craig Johnson used to say, “The leading cause of failure of start-ups is death, and death happens when you run out of money.” And the leading cause of running out of money in a start-up is poor financial forecasting. At the core of unrealistic forecasts is the undying optimism [...]
Entrepreneurs cannot achieve success alone. They need the help and support of a whole host of people who are directly involved in the business, including employees, partners, family members and investors. Entrepreneurs also need to develop key “partnerships” with people and organizations that are not a direct part of the daily operation. These partners work [...]
The economy continues to languish while the politicians blame each other and business owners continue to wait for signs that things are really going to improve. The big word for many entrepreneurs is uncertainty. It is not only uncertainty about when a true recovery will begin, but also uncertainty about things such as tax rates, [...]
Here is what is in my pile for summer reading for the next month: Small Town Rules, by Barry Moltz and Becky McCray — already started this one. A great read (as Barry’s books always are) with an important lesson. Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman — Kahneman is a Nobel winning economist. In [...]
Lee Schafer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune called me the other day to see if I had any information on the effectiveness of angel investment tax credits for a story he was writing. I told him that all that the tax credit programs do is speed up or slow down investments (to take advantage of [...]
Something that always gives me pause is when I hear entrepreneurs and their managers refer to their small business as “the company”, or even worse, “the corporation.” I was talking with an entrepreneur who has two partners and no employees. Their business seemed to be kind of “stuck.” They were not getting some important, and [...]
