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  • Virgin CEO Branson on the Secrets to Business Success

    Richard Branson went from mail order record retailer, to record shop owner, to record company owner, to one of the most successful business owners with his hand in travel, retail, and green investment. He shared his Five Secrets to Business Success with Entrepreneur , and it is a list that works for businesses of all sizes. No. 1: Enjoy What You Are Doing. No. 2: Create Something That Stands Out No. 3: Create Something That Everybody Who Works for You is Really Proud of. No. 4: Be a Good Leader. And then there is Branson's fifth secret to business success, Be Visible . It is clearly something at which he thrives, but it is interesting to note that he believes it is an important rule for all his managers: A good leader does not get stuck behind a desk. I've never worked in an office - I've always worked from home - but I get out and about, meeting people. It seems I am traveling all the time but I always have a notebook in my back pocket to jot down questions, concerns or good ideas. If I'm on a Virgin Atlantic plane, I make certain to get out and meet all the staff and many of the passengers. If you meet a group of Virgin Atlantic crew members, you are going to have at least 10 suggestions or ideas. If I don't write them down, I may remember only one the next day. By writing them down, I remember all 10. Get out and shake hands with all the passengers on the plane, and again, there are going to be people who had a problem or have a suggestion. Write it down, make sure that you get their names, get their e-mail addresses, and make sure the next day that you respond to them. Of course, I try to make sure that we appoint managing directors who have the same philosophy. That way we can run a large group of companies in the same way a small business owner runs a family business - keeping it responsive and friendly. Read more from Branson here .

  • Common Mistakes of Startup Entrepreneurs

    Earlier we highlighted some advice on big mistakes that leaders of large organizations make. Some of the advice applies to smaller operations, but a lot of it doesn't quite fit for the startup entrepreneur. So in keeping with the mistakes theme, here's a list of the top 10 Mistakes that Startup Entrepreneurs Make, that Rosalind Resnick --founder and CEO and Axxess Business Consulting Inc. --put together for the Wall Street Journal : 1. Going it alone. 2. Asking too many people for advice. 3. Spending too much time on product development, not enough on sales. 4. Targeting too small a market. 5. Entering a market with no distribution partner. 6. Overpaying for customers. 7. Raising too little capital. 8. Raising too much capital. 9. Not having a business plan. 10. Over-thinking your business plan. Read Resnick's detailed descriptions of these common mistakes here .

  • The Motivation of Serial Entrepreneurs

    Dr. Steven Berglas -executive coach and author-spent most of his professional life on the faculty of Harvard Medical School's department of psychiatry. And as both coach and psychiatrist, he has become interested in a group of people he calls "serial entrepreneurs." These are people who make the brave move of starting a business, going through the ups and downs of success and failure. Then do it again. And again. And while most people become "more risk averse" as they get older and more experienced, according to Berglas, these "serial entrepreneurs" only become more spirited and willing to take more leaps. And Berglas believes that they are driven by "purpose" more than profit: Serial entrepreneurs want to make a buck, sure. They might even want to show up a nagging authority figure from their past. But what they really want, above all, is to change the world. (In psychiatry this attribute is known as generativity--a passion to improve the planet for successive generations.) Revolutionizing industries might be one approach; combating an injustice or influencing policy are two more. Of course serial entrepreneurs take pride in their accomplishments; so, too, do they suffer self-doubt. The difference is that they respond to ups and downs with relative equanimity. Reason: Their work isn't about single victories--building once and settling in for the long, secure fade. Changing the world is a quest. And that work is never done. Read Why Serial Entrepreneurs Can't Stop at Forbes , here .

  • Government Policy and Entrepreneurship: The Case Against Targeted Funding

    William Kerr and Ramana Nanda , assistant professors at Harvard Business School , are "all for policy support for entrepreneurs," but the currently favored approach of governments--at the state level primarily--is not effective, they argue. Writing at Forbes, Kerr and Nanda remind us that most successful new businesses start out with 5 or fewer employees. So when policymakers select "hot" new companies to support, and those companies that get attention are frequently large enough to get noticed, they undermine "creative destruction"--"whereby entrepreneurs with new ideas and methods of production displace less efficient incumbents." And targeting sectors, Kerr and Nana argue, is also ineffective: Every politician loves to announce that their city or state will be home to next biotech cluster. In fact, 49 of 50 states have made such announcements in the US despite the fact that most biotech activity funded by venture capitalists tends to cluster in Boston and San Francisco (Lerner 2009). Public efforts to boost such innovative start-ups tend to be unsuccessful because policymakers find it hard to shut down "experiments" that yield negative information. How many politicians want to announce that the biotech cluster idea did not work? In short, targeted funding may be effective politically, but it is not effective in spurring real growth in the small business sector, they conclude, and should be dropped in favor of policy that supports improving the overall economy. Read How Governments Should Spur Entrepreneurship here .

  • Great Companies and The Importance of 'Purpose'

    You want to start a company. No doubt you have a good idea. But Nikos Mourkogiannis says you need something more-- purpose . Purpose, he says, drives the creation and growth of successful businesses. A company's purpose should "unify people," and direct the business toward success. Mourkogiannis is an independent consultant with an expertise in strategic leadership, and he initially put forward his central belief in his book Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies . He recently talked to Harvard Business Publishing 's Sarah Green , and discussed what he thinks are examples of great companies and the purpose of each.

  • Back to Business Plans

    Over at Entrepreneur , Tim Berry says business plans are back. While planning may have fallen out of favor for some, Berry says his specialty (he's the business plans coach at Entrepreneur.com) is going to be the reason for many turnarounds this year. This is the year for getting key planning elements defined and understood, for regular plan review and course correction, and for more focus on the planning process. All of which means, in a nutshell, that more businesses will benefit from better planning processes. Ultimately, that means more businesses, more jobs and more success. Berry goes on to list three key factors behind his prediction: 1) The natural backlash of the 'don't plan' fad: "The more you see experts harping about the straw-man business plan that wasn't that useful, the more we're going to see people turning to real business planning because they need it." 2) Back to planning fundamentals: "...good planning increases your ability to manage change by providing you clear visibility of how everything links together." 3) New age of accountability: "You can't assume that showing up is enough anymore; things have to get done. And that means getting done remotely, or virtually, or wherever and whenever." Read the full article here .

  • Bringing the Startup Mentality to Managing a Newsroom

    As newspapers continue to struggle to keep afloat, news managers are desperate for ways to respond to a shifting business climate. Mark Briggs advises them to ditch the "command and control" management style, and adopt the mentality of a startup business. Briggs wrote Journalism 2.0 --covering the opportunities for the news media in the digital age--and he blogs at a site of the same name. Inspired by some of Internet entrepreneur Scott Porad 's ( FailBlog.org and I Can Has Cheezburger? ) writing, Briggs came up with with some core ideas for bringing the startup culture into the newsroom. 1. Divide and conquer: Pick 2-3 small teams and give them decision-making authority. In other words, allow them to launch anything the whole team agrees is worth trying. But pick the right people. Remember, there are certain types of people who prefer planning to progress. That’s not who you want. 2. We report, you decide: Use the weekly or monthly meetings that normally serve to seek clearance on new projects as a progress update. So instead of “we’d like your blessing to try this new approach,” the message would be “we are trying this new approach and this is what we’ve seen so far.” 3. Don’t let money stop you: If it’s a service that costs money, don’t waste time traveling up the chain of command to get approval. Either ask the vendor for a free trial (good service providers will be flexible, especially in this climate), or if it’s an online technology, look for an open source solution or find another news organization that will share some code. Read Briggs's full post here .