StartupNation Blogs

Being an entrepreneur with a startup company is a lot like playing sandlot baseball as a kid. Growing up on E. 199th Street in Euclid, Ohio we could often get 6 or 7 guys for a summer baseball game in the street, but we couldn’t field an entire team. That meant we’d have to choose [...]

Hi gang,
Alas,  there is a part 3.
Having not been able to rent a car,  I could not take up the Air Trans offer of 2 free tickets per 1 seat for my Atlanta to Charlotte flight.  A bummer for sure, but hey, the downside is I got to be home in 45 minutes.
It had been [...]

From an article in Entrepreneur…neat reminder on “knowing your audience” and focusing well.
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It’s called The Trunk Club. It’s a great example of how market, identity, and focus come together to build new businesses that combine new ideas with old-fashioned serving the customer. It’s also a personal favorite because it’s the brainchild of one of my [...]

From a post on 37 signals:
A couple of Getting Realish ideas spotted in Best Life magazine:
Greg Gianforte is the author of “Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company With Almost No Money.” In Follow Your Dream, he advises throwing out your five-year plan and focusing on building something now instead.
Gianforte describes how to [...]

Hi gang,
(When we last left our travel Hero, he was happily blogging from a Seattle pier, looking out at the bay and enjoying himself.   Did he make it home? Let’s rejoin him….)
“Waiter, I’d like a tequila sunrise please.”
“Sure thing - can I see your ID ?”
Blank stare.
“You see, what happened was….”  I told the poor [...]

Are you starting a business with a family member or a close friend?
I know, I know. You are incredibly excited. You have a winning, million-dollar idea, and you are pursuing it with one of your favorite people. What could go wrong?
Well, unfortunately, much can go wrong and sometimes it happens very quickly [...]

Hi gang,
Ok, we’re all business owners here.   Admit it - you’ve screwed up something before, right?  Something simple, something routine, something that makes you feel like a dolt.
“You dolt” is actually what I muttered to myself on Friday as I was checking my bag in at the Air Trans counter to fly out to the [...]

Kids pick up things–not, like, their clothes or anything useful. But they do pick up attitudes and conversations. And then they use them against you.
Take my kids, for example.
Since my foray into the entrepreneurial world, the excuses I get from my kids have totally morphed into start-up business speak and buzz words. Last week, I [...]

In an effort to provide you with PR tips that really work in today’s media world, I’ll be interviewing various experts and entrepreneurs who will share their personal secrets and advice.
To start, meet Jill Exler. Jill is a StartupNation fan who made her big business idea a reality. At jexbo™ (a combination of Jill’s [...]

Hi gang,
I’m out here in beautiful Seattle at the Amazon Seller Conference this weekend.   The conference was started several years ago by a group of Amazon booksellers, and has steadily grown to a conference of around 200 sellers this year.  Amazon doesn’t directly sponsor the event, but this year they sent a River of 20 [...]