“You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” —Morpheus, in The Matrix As I grow older, I sometimes imagine how my entrepreneurial drive will change when […]
View Post Alice In Wonderland, Chick-fil-A, Morpheus, Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize, The Matrix, Truett Cathy, Wealth: Is It Worth It?
Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats. —Sue Grafton, author I hate to rain on your parade, but your idea is not special. There are likely other entrepreneurs or companies with “your” idea, equally inspired to dominate the business world and to make millions. And when your […]
View Post Atlanta, Grand Canyon, Groupon, Harvard University, LinkedIn, Mark Zuckerberg, MSNBC.com, Noam Wasserman, Reid Hoffman, Silicon Valley, Sue Grafton
Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing. —Warren Buffett, businessman, investor, philanthropist. Among the several definitions of an “entrepreneur,” some are pretty good while others are downright terrible. Regardless, a common word among them seems to be “risk,” which is what truly defines an entrepreneur. The following simple definition by Merriam-Webster is one […]
View Post 401(k), Bill Gates, Calculated Risk, College, Failure, Harvard University, Kauffman Foundation, Michael Masterson, Microsoft, Risk, Saratoga Venture Finance, The Great Recession, The Reluctant Entrepreneur, Warren Buffet
Eventually, the nerds and the geeks will have their day. —Judd Apatow, film producer, comedy writer Chances are that when you think of the most successful and wealthy entrepreneurs, you don’t think of a group of weird people. Instead, you probably think of well-respected and brilliant people who exhibit all the admirable qualities of well-rounded, […]
View Post Cass Business School, Cisco, dyslexia, Geeks, John Chambers, Judd Apatow, Julie Login, Kinkos, Mark Zuckerberg, Nerds, Paul Orfalea, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, The Economist, Virgin Group
I have always been afraid of banks. —Andrew Jackson, seventh president, United States of America. One of the worst things you can do as an entrepreneur is to open a business bank account at a bank where you have a personal bank account. Likewise, it is not a good idea to open a business credit […]
View Post American Express, Andrew Jackson, Banking, Business Credit, CapitalOne, Corporate Law, Credit, Credit Card, Credit Report, Debt Collection, Debt-to-Income Ratio, Discover, Finance, Loans, Overdraft Fees, Personal Finance, Right of Offset, Social Security Number, Tax Identification Number, Veil Piercing
Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty. —Plato, Greek philosopher If I had listened to my intuition, I could have saved myself some trouble. I would have heeded the many clues that the shoddy owners of the mom-and-pop business gave me. I would have run out of their dubious restaurant as fast […]
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The most important career choice you’ll make is who you marry. —Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook As I watched my life play out on the big screen in the movie The Social Network, I smiled, reminiscing about my college days when I, too, was an instant campus superstar like Mark Zuckerberg, cofounder of Facebook. It was […]
View Post Kanye West, Mark Zuckerberg, OmniPublisher, P. Diddy, Sheryl Sandberg, The Social Network
Systems are the essential building blocks of every successful business. —Ron Carroll, entrepreneur, business coach As a computer science major in college matriculating with some of the brightest students from around the world, I quickly learned that my computer programming skills were not the most economical. I could get the job done, but not in […]
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Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets. —Steve Jobs, cofounder, Apple As a sophomore in college, I cofounded a Latin jazz band called Río Negro with a Puerto Rican friend of mine who played congas. We loved everything about Latin music and […]
View Post Apple, Atlanta, Bill Clinton, Latin Jazz, Rio Negro, Steve Jobs, Super Bowl