Excerpts on Entrepreneurship

A Few Moments in the Limelight Can Boost a Small Business - SmartMoney.com, March 12, 2007 BUSINESS OWNERS EAGER for exposure can only dream of the celebrity attention that Stacey Griffin of New Orleans is getting. Griffin started a new business in December selling eight-ounce boxes of purified water called Aqua2Go. The product, designed for kids and adults alike, is convenient like a juice box (and even comes with a straw) but contains water instead of a sugary-sweet beverage. With limited resources for marketing, "I started sending emails to everyone and anyone I could think of," she says.

The Entrepreneur's Challenge In Nigeria - Forbes.com, March 7, 2007 Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has set an ambitious goal: He wants the country to become one of the world's top 20 economies during the next two decades. To hit that target by 2020, Nigeria will need to increasingly globalize education in two key areas: Information and communications technology, and entrepreneurship. In fact, Obasanjo has mandated that all university students in Nigeria, regardless of their major, will need to study entrepreneurship.

Need Ideas Marketing A Small Business? - NewsReleaseWire.com, March 7, 2007 Just starting out doesn’t have to mean spending on expensive marketing and branding activities. New business opportunities will be missed if new business owners spend all their start-up money outsourcing these activities, but they can learn to do marketing and branding themselves.

New investment fund for startups - suntimes.com, February 26, 2007 A new $10 million investment fund for early-stage startups, the Illinois Innovation Accelerator Fund, backed by state taxpayers and local investors, will be unveiled today.

Entrepreneurship Week USA - What's Your BIG Idea? Take It On! - The Public Forum Institute, February 7, 2007 From February 24 to March 3, 2007, EntrepreneurshipWeek USA will be a collection of thousands of activities, ranging from high school competitions to academic gatherings and local town halls to a national policy summit. More than 700 organizations throughout the country have answered the call, planning activities in all fifty states.

Attack of the mini-Googles! - Business 2.0, January 20, 2007

Subject-specific search engines are proliferating like mad. But the smartest, like Mobissimo, are following the lead of the master.

How To Reap The Rewards Of Your Innovation - Forbes.com, January 17, 2007

A new book by two Boston Consulting Group gurus addresses the fundamental challenge of chasing new ideas.

Will My New Business Ever Make Money? - Forbes.com, January 16, 2007

Prepare a break-even analysis before laying out on a complete business plan. Here's how.

From the Technology Entrepreneur Center.

Welcome to a Vital Community Resource

Central Valley Christian Network is a great asset to the Christian community in Fresno and the Central Valley and is a fine example of entrepreneurial initiative. I was able to post an announcement for The Entrepreneur's Table meetings of our church on their site with great ease and a link back here. We'd like to welcome anyone coming from that link and congratulate CVCN for a job well done.

By the way, when you are near Fresno, drop in on one of our meetings:

The Entrepreneur's Table is a educational, support, and encouragement ministry as well as a leads group for believers who wish to apply biblical principles to their businesses and entrepreneurial initiatives.

Participants are welcome to bring their own dinner and share together while they eat.

We meet in the Fellowship Hall at Baptist Temple, the Fellowship of Joy, 4141 N. Fresno St. between Ashlan and Dakota.

It is a small and energetic group.

The Entrepreneurial URGE

The entrepreneurial urge is the motivational edge of men and women who love to develop bold initiatives and who change the world little by little.

When Steve Jobs approached John Sculley, then C.E.O. at PepsiCo about coming on board at Apple, he posed this question:

"Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?"

No doubt, Jobs knew that the question would go to the heart of Sculley's "urge" and elicit the desired response.

Do you want to change the world?

That is what entrepreneurs do every day. They change it person by person, idea by idea, perception by perception, piece by piece. They do it the way you eat an elephant, one bite at a time.

Here is an acronym for URGE. I am making it up as I write it here:

1. U = Urgency. That is what an urge is, an inner sense of urgency that says that something has to be done and it has to be done now and by YOU!
2. R = Resources. The entrepreneur may or may not have adequate resources, but she is willing to invest whatever she has and look for the rest. She is, after all, resourceful and sometimes that means being very creative.
3. G = Grandiosity. The entrepreneurial urge is to think big - bigger than is practical, vaster than the present reality, greater than others can imagine. You see it when others don't.
4. E = Energy. This is so vital to the entrepreneurial mindset and spirit. Energy flows and is directed toward the point of focus. The entrepreneur makes other people tired because he is tireless and does not quit.

Do you have the urge? Do you want to change the world?

From Crown Ministries

Managing time with a home business

by Crown Financial Ministries

According to several recent surveys, more women than ever are seeking to leave full-time jobs and return home to become stay-at-home moms or to operate home-based businesses. However, many of these stay-at-home moms who have chosen to start an at-home business have discovered that there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all that needs to be done. Read More! In fact, some feel as if they are busier than when they worked full time outside the home. 10 tips for managing time Working at home requires a certain level of flexibility and liberty, but daily abandoning scheduled work can lead to an unhealthy business. “The Lord your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hand, in the offspring of your body…for the Lord will again rejoice over you for good” (Deuteronomy 30:9-10). The following are 10 tips that will help any stay-at-home mother manage her home business.