Month: October 2015
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Knowing When Your Business Strategy Isn’t Working
In late February Trayvon Martin, a 17-year old black male, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic, in Central Florida. And while recent evidence suggests Zimmerman did not act in a racially-motivated way, this tragic story has our nation up in arms yet again over the issue guns and race. Zimmerman claimed…
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Building the Right Support Team
I was nervous as I rounded the corner heading to John Jay Criminal School of Justice in NYC last week. I was invited to mentor and coach a group of 30 or so entrepreneurs just completing a major part of their training. But these weren’t just any entrepreneurs. These were men who completed serving 1-20…
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Top 5 Ways to Improve Success (as an Entrepreneur)
I was starting to get fidgety in my seat in the café the other day as I listened to an entrepreneur I had been introduced to. Not because I saw many flaws in her business idea or what it was going to take her to launch it. Nor was it because she was struggling to…
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Stuck Launching Your Business?
It isn’t often we get good news from Afghanistan. So you can imagine my delight when reading a rare exception, as reported in this week’s New York Times. Meet Meena Rahmani, a 28-year-old Afghan woman who recently opened the country’s first bowling alley. And while much of the country’s businesses are closing, Ms. Rahmani’s six-month-old…
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The Importance of Accepting What is In Front of You
It was on September 11th, 2005 that Army Sergeant So thought for sure he was going to die. For it was in the middle of the night while camping out with the 20-man infantry unit he was supporting in Eastern Afghanistan that they were ambushed. No sooner had the hailing bullets stopped when his commander…
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Five Ways to Raise Capital For Your Small Business
It goes without saying that raising capital is a major concern for most entrepreneurs. To help you study up on the subject, I’ve put together a list of five of my most popular blog posts on raising capital. 1. #1 Strategy to Achieve Financial Success in Biz Business is a direct reflection of how we…
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What is Your Exit?
It was only when I met Taj Chahal for coffee last week that I learned about his completely UnReasonable life as an entrepreneur. When he was 19 and his brother Gurbaksh was only 16, they started their first company from a shared bedroom in their family’s modest home in San Jose, CA during the Web 1.0…
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Top Five Tips for Winning a Pitch Contest
By last Friday afternoon I was getting giddy. I had just spent the past three and a half days, working over July 4th, to review hundreds of business pitches from around the country. Earlier in the week I was asked to be a judge for a major contest that ended up going viral and the…
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Your Customers Not Getting It?
I was at the top of the world. I just was written up in the New York Times front page of the Metro section (today’s NY/Region), was covered on dozens of TV programs, in newspapers and magazines around the world and had many more wanting to cover the business. I was 29 years old and…
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Entrepreneurs Solving World’s Challenges
The room was filled with a tension so thick that movement came in quakes. Ten companies were ready to stand: 13 modules complete, six weeks in the making, self-vetted and prepared with only five minutes to present. About 80 investors, lawyers and guests had come to listen to the final ten showcase their businesses at…