Here’s a transcript of my comments on CNN’s Your $$$$ this weekend. Thought you might enjoy…
ALI VELSHI: Businesses start up with in these economies, and by the way consumption we were over consumers and that’s going to change, but we do remain consumers. People do buy things.
CHRISTINE ROMANS: That’s right.
VELSHI: Richard Sloan joins us now; he’s the founder of StartupNation. It’s a community to help entrepreneurs start their own businesses. Rich good to see you again. It’s been a long time.
RICHARD SLOAN, FOUNDER, STARTUPNATION: Great to see you Ali.
ROMANS: Just because it’s a recession doesn’t mean you should be too afraid to go out there and start your own business or maybe you’re forced to go out there and start your own business.
SLOAN: You know, in fact I think there are great arguments that can be made that needs are more extreme. There is more urgency among the consumers out there so there are actually special opportunities that exist in a market like this.
ROMANS: Richard, do the president’s plan, the administration’s plan to try to better fund small business loans and all of these different things that they’re doing also try to eliminate some capital gains on investments into small business? A lot of different plans, is that going to help?
SLOAN: Well, I think it is going to help. You have to be able to rely and lean on that banker in order to fund many of the activities of your business, but the vast majority of companies that start up right now are micro businesses and individuals often home based and they won’t be looking for a bank loan they’ll be bootstrapping.
VELSHI: Rich, one of the things we talked about is particularly for people looking for jobs and the effect of social media and social networking. We talked about face book and last week we were talking about how Christine and I are both on Twitter now. You actually think these are things that people should do for their small businesses to grow their businesses.
SLOAN: Yes, absolutely. We always advocate at startupNation that you create a Web site for your business, but it’s not just enough to have just one oar in the water these days when you have face book and Twitter and so many other social sites out there. You can actually create a broad presence and kind of divert traffic into your site.
VELSHI: You have a few tips, Rich. It’s your passion. Take stock, taking stock of your skills and commit to your concept. Test drive your concept, but you know what I like? Google like mad. Your fourth point. What do you mean by that? There’s free research out there.
SLOAN: Well, look, you’ve got to have the passion and that’s going to be all about playing to your passion and you have to take stock of what your real resources are. You have to make sure you have a tight concept and you want to test drive it with other people, but Google like mad means you have information available to you today to be strategic, to be smart, to make great decisions in strategies based on all that data that’s available to you by being a good googler. Pull in that information, use it, incorporate it into your strategy and you’ll have much better chances for success.
ROMANS: All right. Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation. We should tweet all five of these.
SLOAN: Tweet away.
ROMANS: Social networks so all of these millions and millions of fans.
VELSHI: Do you know how to follow me on Twitter?
ROMANS: I think I am.
VELSHI: I’m Ali Velshi. What are you?
ROMANS: It is Christine Romans.
VELSHI: OK. That makes sense.
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