3 Reasons It's the Perfect Time to Be an Entrepreneur

By Jim Joseph

Never in our collective lifetimes has it been better to be a startup. Coming out of the economic disaster a few years ago, it became clear that recovery would be on the shoulders of small business. Entrepreneurs are truly the backbone of our economy, way of life and the American dream.

We've got a perfect storm happening that is making the success of startups much more tangible. Here are three reasons why it's the perfect time to be starting your own business:

1. Young and old -- everyone's on board. The generation gap is alive and well, and it's serving the entrepreneur. Baby boomers are recreating their careers hand-over-fist, while the far younger millennials are rejecting traditional career paths in pursuit of something more personal and meaningful. The result is a constant flow of fresh thinking, startup ideas, and talent to make them all happen.

2. You don't have to do it alone. While many say the internet has made location irrelevant, I'd disagree. Perhaps geographic location -- as in what city you live in -- is no longer relevant, when it comes to setting up shop, everyone still needs a place to work. That's why we are seeing really cool new office spaces for startups pop up in major entrepreneurial cities. Places like Capital Factory in Austin or Alley NYC in New York offer entrepreneurs a place to hang their hat, connect with other small businesses and add some form of infrastructure to their company. These hot new places have become a way for startups to share resources and ideas, hopefully propelling their businesses forward in a location that will help their success.

3. There's no end to marketing opportunities. Social media is a complex place for the entrepreneur, but if you make the effort to get you and your company name out there, you'll reap a wealth of benefits. For those startups looking for help in managing and navigating the world of social media, companies like Rallyverse that has made it easy to create and post content on LinkedIn, for example, can help simplify the task.

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11 Questions Every Entrepreneur Must Be Able to Answer

By Iyla Polzin

As a serial entrepreneur--I founded digital creative agency Ciplex and more recently the social greeting card company Open Me--I'm constantly striving to improve the businesses I'm leading. I do this by regularly asking myself and my team a slew of questions to fine tune what we're already doing and find ways to add value for the future.

I've narrowed it down to 11 essential questions I always want to be able to answer:

1. Is my business scalable?

The long-term advantages of building a scalable business are greater profitability and growth opportunities. You won't have to spend more money to bring in a lot more revenue.

Start by figuring out the lifetime value of your customers, or the dollar value of a customer relationship projected into the future (here's more on how to do that). This essentially tells you what a customer is worth to your business. When you factor this in with your customer acquisition costs, you can figure out whether your business can scale based on your current products and strategies.

2. What are my visitors, users, and customers worth?

These three audiences vary in terms of their identity. So let's break them down: Visitors are people who frequent your website; a user is a converted visitor that signs up for your website or downloads an app; and a customer is someone who makes a purchase from your business. (You might not necessarily have all three of these segments.)

It's important to understand how much time and resources are necessary to allocate toward each of these three audiences. Visitors, while likely greater in number, yield no revenue as compared to users and customers. Customers make up less of your total audience, but they will yield a greater income. Understanding the return on investment for each of these groups is key to making sure you're allocating time and resources appropriately.

3. Am I acquiring visitors, users, and customers for less than they're worth?

Have you considered your customer acquisition cost lately? At what point do you break even?

Some businesses, like e-commerce sites, convert visitors to customers and completely skip the user phase. Other businesses, like Instagram, transform visitors straight to users, but don't have customers.

4. What can I do to lower my acquisition cost?

It's your duty to look for ways to constantly improve what it costs to acquire users. For instance, your online marketing strategy might involve bidding on expensive, large volume keywords. Instead, consider changing your campaign to a greater number of  lower volume, less competitive keywords. You may even consider other tactics like Facebook advertising. There's also retargeting. It's a great way to re-market to the visitor you paid to get there, but didn't convert to a user or customer in the process.

5. How do I increase the value of my customer?

Once you understand the value of your customer, it's important to take steps to increase it. While you aren't able to change the basics of your products or services, you can increase the value of your customer by selling more to them, retaining them longer, and lowering your own costs to serve them.

6. How can I increase conversion rates?

The main step for increasing conversions is to figure out where your users drop off in the conversion funnel--is it on your product description pages, in the check-out process, or somewhere else? Enlist the help of analytics tools like Mixpanel and ClickTale to see how your users behave once they're on your site. You may also want to try using A/B testing through Optimizely to figure out whether your assumptions are correct.

7. What other forms of marketing have you not considered?

Finding the best marketing strategy often involves a lot of trial and error, but it's a smart idea to pay attention to consumer trends.

For instance, consider your mobile marketing efforts. Fifty-six percent of Americans own smartphones. What are you doing to reach them? Make sure your website is mobile-friendly, as well as your email marketing campaigns.

8. Am I innovating?

Sure, you built your business around a solid idea and may have found success. But this doesn't mean you should stop innovating.

Take Blockbuster, for example. As the DVD business declined, Blockbuster neglected to focus on the rise of on-demand viewing. This led the company to lose its spot in the market to companies like RedBox and Netflix, which were more on trend with what customers want now. What can you do to ensure your product or service survives the constantly changing landscape of your market?

9. What are my competitors up to?

Keeping track of what your competitors are up to will keep you afloat. You can stay up to date with their moves with something as simple as creating Google Alerts for them and tracking the latest industry news.

Did a competing company just release an app for their product? It's time to consider what an app could do for yours, as well. Remember, it isn't about doing the same things as your competitors--it's about doing them better.

10. How's my team doing?

If your team isn't thriving, chances are your start-up isn't doing too well either. Make sure they're engaged, motivated, autonomous, and on track with your goals. If they're not, what can you do to remove the obstacles in their way? I've had great success with breaking down company hierarchy and removing set hours so that employees have more freedom to work when they want to.

11. How can I be a better leader?

Your leadership habits directly affect your entire business. It's important to stop to question yourself often. Are you micromanaging? What about struggling to communicate with your team? Self-evaluate and ask partners and employees for regular feedback. Nip these problems in the bud early or you may have bigger problems in the future.

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10 Simple Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

BY ERIC V. HOLTZCLAW

As a small business, you may think it's impossible to get the word out about what you do. That's no excuse. And you don't need fads or gimmicks. Follow the proven, timeless tips and techniques of these entrepreneurs to help get the word out about your business and watch it grow.

1. Give Your Stuff Away

Ari Fleischer and Aly Moler of Frozen Pints have grown their craft beer ice cream business by leaps and bounds by attending craft beer shows and farmers markets to do one thing--give their product away. Once customers taste this unexpected combination (which happens to be delicious) for free, they line up at their local store to buy it or even request that the store carry it.

2. Attend Networking Events...

Desiree Scales of Bella Web Design is a master networker.  She attends and presents at almost every event in town. Her contribution to the overall community makes her one of the first people that come to mind when anyone looks for an expert in her area of concentration: small business websites and drip marketing.

3. ...Or, Create Your Own Event

If you don't like the events you are attending, invent your own! Darrah Brustein has created one of the most successful networking events in Atlanta: Atlanta Under 40. The event, which Darrah created to connect with other young entrepreneurs in her city, is now being franchised to other cities.

4. Volunteer to Lead an Organization

The secret to getting the most out of a group or organization is not just to attend but to lead. Take Lisa Calhoun of Write2Market. She served as the president of Entrepreneurs' Organization, allowing her to rub elbows and connect with the brightest minds of the fastest growing companies in the Atlanta market.

5. Start a Podcast

Todd Schnick of Dreamland Interactive is the first person I saw create his own podcast--he interviews other business owners.  People love to tell their story, and by highlighting them on a podcast you make an instant and meaningful connection. It's also a great way to get an education on a topic you are interested in.

6. Be Helpful

Most small business owners struggle to get their finances in line, especially when they move from an Excel spreadsheet to something as sophisticated as QuickBooks. Cathy Iconis of Iconis Group hosts a Quickbook Chat on Twitter every Thursday night at 7:00 EST to answer small business owners' questions--and potentially find some clients.

7. Send a Weekly E-mail

If you want to stay in relationship with your customers, there is nothing simpler than creating a weekly e-mail that provides something of value. Rick Houcek of Soar With Eagles sends one out every Monday that he calls the 2-Minute Monday Motivator. I look forward to getting it every week and often forward his advice to others.

8. Support a Cause

Mary Hester of LAN Systems throws an annual cookout with purpose every Earth Day. Party-goers are encouraged to bring their "e-waste"--old computer monitors and CPUs. At their most recent event they collected more than two tons of IT equipment, keeping it out of the landfills and creating goodwill with their customers, current and potential.

9. Sponsor an Organization

Many local organizations are not that expensive to sponsor for a year if you consider the  so-called per meeting cost. If your product or service is a good fit with their audience, you will get exposure every time the organization sends out an e-mail and a mention every time they meet. Attendees always remember and appreciate companies who sponsor their favorite organizations.

10. Create a Cool Giveaway

When thinking through what your company will  give away make sure it's something they won't want to throw away or easily lose in their desk or bag (think pen).

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Do You Have the Moxie to Be a Parallel Entrepreneur?

By Martin Zwilling

With the cost of entry at an all-time low, and the odds of success equally low, more and more entrepreneurs are starting multiple companies concurrently. This "parallel entrepreneur" idea has been around since at least the days of Thomas Edison, and for the new generation of entrepreneurs, who have been multi-tasking since birth, it's probably not even a stretch.

Some entrepreneurs, like Paul Graham of Y Combinator, and Dave McClure of 500 Startups, mask their focus on multiple startups by running an incubator or accelerator, and providing seed funding for a number of individual efforts. They skip from one to the next, providing expert guidance and money, getting their satisfaction (and reward) from the best of the best.

For entrepreneurs who really try to be the CEO of multiple early-stage startups concurrently, the hot new term for this practice is "multi-table" entrepreneurs. I suspect this term is derived from the common online gambling practice of playing multiple poker games at the same time. In fact, I think that's a great analogy, since the odds in a poker game may be similar to those of a startup.

Yet there are clear advantages to the parallel approach, if you have the moxie, resources, energy bandwidth and the ability to multi-task effectively:

1. A portfolio approach vs. all eggs in one basket. Investors have long argued the value of a portfolio to hedge and leverage the risk, so why shouldn't entrepreneurs do the same? With the current low capital requirements for smartphone and Internet apps, and high market volatility, it makes sense to spread the risk around as much as possible.

2. Optimize your advisers and investors. Advisors and mentors are busy people. In your weekly meetings, it's as easy to cover multiple company issues as one. Investors building their portfolio love to hear about multiple startups in one sitting, to select the best fit. Investors look at the people first anyway, so a strong team is good common ground.

3. Many entrepreneurs love investing in other startups. Most Angel investors I know have previously founded and run at least one startup. Both these roles require unique skills, but both can benefit from operating in the other mode. Multi-table investors are the norm, and the investment process is good training for multi-table entrepreneurs.

4. Learn to manage resources like multi-divisional corporations. Allocating resources -- financial and operational -- between divisions has long been a strategy for conglomerates and can work just as well for savvy entrepreneurs. Revenue from one startup can be "invested" in another, and assets like buildings and computers can be shared.

5. Attract and share specialized talent and skills. It's very hard to attract talented people to a single product startup, but much easier if the entrepreneur has a bigger vision, with several entities producing complementary products. Expensive, "lean-startup" specialists can see a career potential, work fulltime, and drive multiple successes.

6. Cross-fertilization from current market feedback. One thing that you learn in one company, at a given moment in time, is equally valuable or leveragable in a different way at your other companies. As your customer list grows in one, you own it for the second. The cost of finding new markets can now be split among multiple entities.

7. Foster and enforce the art of delegation. For long-term success, every entrepreneur needs to know when to step in, and when to delegate. That's a skill that may not get enough attention until too late. With parallel startups, delegation is a requirement for entry, and a valuable skill for all environments.

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How to Build a Company of Entrepreneurs

By Peter Economy

Entrepreneurs like making things happen.

They build up something from nothing and make innovative products and services in response to their customers' needs. In the process, they put people to work and generate value for owners and shareholders.

It's hard not to wonder what value you could create with a company of entrepreneurs. Here, then, are seven ways to put your workers on track and see what exciting things they come up with. 

1. Organize for growth

Want your workers to think like entrepreneurs? Then ditch the rigid hierarchy and replace it with a structure that lets employees make decisions quickly--and as close to customers as possible. Position your company for growth by pushing decision making down as far as you can, then get out of the way.

2. Make everyone a salesperson

Instead of building a company where some people do the work and some people sell the work, build a company where everyone sells. From the receptionist who fields customer phone calls to the executive team quoted in the press, everyone should play a key part in this process. 

3. Let them make decisions

To get your employees to act like entrepreneurs, you've got to treat them like entrepreneurs. Give them the authority to make decisions that have an impact on their work, then hold them accountable for what happens next.

4. Experiment constantly

There isn't a product, system, or procedure that can't be improved, so encourage your employees to seek out and implement changes that will have a positive impact on your company.

5. Give them freedom to act

Micromanagement is out. Freedom is in. Help your employees set reasonable goals and let them figure out how to reach them. You'll be surprised by all the ideas that crop up. 

6. Encourage feedback 

Whether an employee-led initiative goes right or goes wrong, devote some time afterward to reviewing the results, then develop a road map based on those lessons. 

7. Provide ownership opportunities 

If workers don't have any equity or ownership stake in the company, it's unlikely they'll think like owners. Instead of hoping your employees feel as strongly as you do, try granting stock based on their performance or create a profit-sharing pool to rewards employees for their hard work.

When your employees are encouraged act like entrepreneurs, they will be more engaged in their jobs and far more effective. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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The Best Kind of Entrepreneur to Be

By Jeff Haden

"Entrepreneur" is an awesome word. Many people, especially those for whom the corporate world is anathema, can't imagine being anything but an entrepreneur.

Unfortunately, for many aspiring business owners "entrepreneur" is also an intimidating word.

Why? If we play word association and I say, "entrepreneur," it's possible the first thing that comes to mind is a success story. Depending on your generation, maybe you picture Kroc, Walton, or Knight. Or maybe you see the smiling faces of Branson, Bezos, Gates, or Dell. Or maybe Page and Brin, Cuban, Zuckerberg, or Cashmore pop to mind.

Or maybe you just think, "Jobs," since Steve transcends just about every generational and socio-economic divide.

Then again, instead of flashing on a famous entrepreneur, something on the opposite end of the success spectrum could come to mind. You might picture pulling that endless string of all-nighters while living on Ramen noodles (the stereotypical breakfast, lunch, and dinner of entrepreneurial champions.) Or you might picture all those lean months and years of hardship and sacrifice as you struggle to create a business no one believes in but you... and sometimes, in your worst moments, not even you.

No matter what the outcome of your particular free association exercise, the word "entrepreneur" can feel like a lot to live up to.

Even successful entrepreneurs feel they don't. I know people who have built great businesses. Huge businesses. Massive businesses. But however bright their entrepreneurial beacon shines, in their hearts they still feel their light is lost in the glow of those who made greater sacrifices or who have accomplished even more.

And maybe that's you.

Maybe you're afraid to start a business because you feel you could never compare to the brightest stars in the entrepreneurial firmament. Or maybe you shrink from the thought of having to work and sacrifice and struggle towards a goal you may never accomplish. Or maybe you think other people have some intangible entrepreneurial something--ideas, talent, drive, skills, creativity, etc.--you just don't have.

If that's the way you think, you're wrong.

Success is only inevitable in hindsight. It's easy to look back on another person's entrepreneurial path to greatness and assume every vision was clear, every plan was perfect, every step was executed flawlessly, and tremendous success was a foregone conclusion. It's easy to think Steve was always the iconic Steve.

He wasn't. His success was never assured. It was often in doubt. Only in hindsight does it appear Steve was destined to succeed.

Plus, not only do you already have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, in many ways you are already an entrepreneur.  "Entrepreneur" is commonly defined as, "a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on financial risk to do so."

Let's see. You already organize your affairs. You already take on financial risk. Even if you currently work for someone else you're still an entrepreneur because you organize and operate the business of you.

So don't measure yourself against other entrepreneurs and find yourself wanting before you even begin. Don't measure yourself against some standard of effort and sacrifice and perseverance you feel you can never achieve.

Pick a goal and measure yourself against that goal. That's the only comparison that ever matters.

You don't have to try to be the next Jobs. You can try to be something a lot better.

You can be the next you.

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15 Things Inspiring Leaders Do Differently

By Lee Colan

Over the past fourteen years, I have worked, coached, trained and studied well over 20,000 leaders. In that time, there are some common practices that I've observed from inspiring leaders at any level in any size of organization. Think of this as a to-do list if you aspire to inspire.

Inspiring leaders...

1. Install a rigorous selection process to ensure they hire only the best and brightest.
2. Set a clear and compelling vision.
3. Collaborate with their team to define a plan for realizing that vision.
4. Keep the plan visible.
5. Keep score along the way to keep the team energized and accountable.
6. Look for people doing something right and recognize it.
7. Eliminate barriers to getting work done.
8. Address even minor performance issues with proactive coaching.
9. Listen more than they talk.
10. Uncompromisingly uphold the team's values by using them to make big and little decisions.
11. Give credit for and reward successes.
12. Get to know the person behind the employee.
13. Care about their people as much as their people's performance.
14. Focus on the organization's purpose as much as (if not more) than profits.
15. Consistently and frequently communicate even when they is apparently no news.

On the contrary, leaders who miss the mark are likely to find their team's enthusiasm expiring.  These fifteen (not all that uncommon) leadership practices are what to avoid.

"Expiring" leaders...

1. Hire by the seat of the pants, caving to pressure to just fill seats.
2. Paint a vague or ever-changing picture of the future.
3. Tell their teams how to achieve their goals.
4. Keep the plan close to their chest in case they want to change it.
5. Leave the team in the dark about progress to maintain control over consequences and rewards ... and to avoid personal accountability for results.
6. Look for people doing something wrong and punish them.
7. Create barriers to getting work done.
8. Sweep minor performance issues under the rug if they are uncomfortable to address.
9. Talk more than listen.
10. Talk about team values but make decisions using "real business criteria."
11. Take personal credit for team successes.
12. View team members as interchangeable parts to the business machine.
13. Care about results only.
14. Focus on profits.
15. Communicate using the "no news is good news" philosophy.

Take a good look at the way you lead your business. If any items from the second list apply to you, what action will you take to fix them?

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