Hire slow, fire fast. —Unknown. I recently received a desperate call for help from one of my mentees, who is working hard to grow his new clothing company. He sought advice about how to deal with a lazy business partner who is preventing the company from moving forward. My mentee wrote, I have been working […]
View Post Attrition, Human Resources
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. —Henry Ford, founder, Ford Motor Company. The two kinds of entrepreneurs are those who create markets and those who do not. On the one hand, the entrepreneur who creates markets is considered a revolutionary. On the other hand, the entrepreneur who […]
View Post Amazon.com, Blue Ocean, Blue Ocean Strategy, Cirque du Soleil, College, Forbes, George Lucas, Harvard Business Press, Henry Ford, Jeff Bezos, Lexus, Michael Bloomberg, Michael Dell, Nike, Phil Knight, Profit, Ralph Lauren, Red Ocean, Renée Mauborgne, Revenue, W. Chan Kim, Wall Street
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. —Proverbs 27:17 The average person is intimidated by smart people. I know firsthand: Whenever people find out what I scored on an SAT exam, they are shocked. (I have very proud relatives.) Some try to stump me on the spot with a complex riddle or math […]
View Post E. James Rohn, Hewlett Packard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, SAT
I think, team first. It allows me to succeed, it allows my team to succeed. —LeBron James, NBA champion One of the most costly mistakes I have made as an entrepreneur is to rent high-end office space, thinking that it would foster growth through increased productivity and project a more professional image. It did none […]
View Post Buckhead, Prestige, Regus
Beauty awakens the soul to act. —Dante Alighieri, Italian poet. Excited to hit the pavement and to sell advertisements for my new magazine, I visited a local mom-and-pop store near my alma mater, Morehouse College. After my sales pitch, I waited to hear if the business owner would place an ad in my next issue. […]
View Post Black in America, Black in America: The New Promised Land, Cadillac, Chelsey Rodgers, CNN, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ford, Investors, Los Angeles Lakers, Miss USA, Morehouse College, Silicon Valley
Clothes don’t make the man. —Unknown. Apparently, Wall Street investors prefer that disruption be applied to business and not to fashion. When Mark Zuckerberg, cofounder of Facebook, began his IPO tour to persuade Wall Street investors to purchase stock in his company, he showed up in his iconic hoodie. In doing so, he continued a […]
View Post Analyst, Brooks Brothers, Business Attire, Dress Code, Fashion, Hoodie, Initial Public Offering, IPO, Izod, Michael Pachter, New York City, R. Jewels Diamond, Rolex, Silicon Valley, Wall Street
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. —C. S. Lewis, author, theologian. “I’m too old to start a business,” said my forty-four-year-old friend when I encouraged her to become an entrepreneur. I shook my head as she rambled on about how she has too many responsibilities and […]
View Post Age, Alfred Hitchcock, David Galenson, Experimental Innovators, Film, Hollywood, Inspiration, Instagram, Kevin Systrom, Main Street, Mark Twain, Media, Motivation, Research, Sole Proprietorship, University of Chicago
I’d rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent. —John Wooden, American basketball coach The tension in the office was high. A burly senior developer looked my manager right in the eyes and shouted, “Don’t ever ask an intern to develop an application without […]
View Post Human Resources, Internship, PayPal, Peter Thiel, Seniority, Software Development, Talent
The customer determines at the end of the day who is successful and for what reason. —Jerry Harvey, inventor, entrepreneur Everyone talks about how entrepreneurship affords you freedom and independence to do what you want. No longer do you have to suffer the rigid and long hours of corporate America. Nor do you have a […]
View Post Apple, Bank of America, BlackBerry, Circuit City, Facebook, IBM, Jerry Harvey, likes, Verizon Wireless, Wells Fargo
A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies. —Oscar Wilde, Irish writer, poet. One of the biggest rivalries in business history is between Apple and Microsoft, two behemoths that have ruled the technology sector for decades. Wherever you go in the world, whether it’s to the United States or to China, […]
View Post Apple, AT&T, Bill Gates, Boston Red Sox, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Enemy, Ford, General Motors, Ivan Drago, McDonald's, Microsoft, New York Yankees, Pepsi-Cola, Rocky, Steve Jobs, Strategy, Teamwork, Technology, Verizon