Shanerogerson Business Blog: April 2017

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Want Press for Your Business? Do It for the Right Reasons.

As we wrapped up this issue, I received an unusually personal note from a woman in Chicago. She and her boyfriend had overcome great setbacks; now she wants to help him build a restaurant, but they’re struggling. She hoped I’d run a story about them. “I felt I needed to reach out,” she explained, “because I worry at times that he may not be discovered or ever have a chance to fulfill his dream.”

Monday, April 3, 2017

The Dos and Don'ts of Using a Well-Known Business Accelerator

Accelerators are an amazing way for entrepreneurs to learn the ropes of launching (and running) a business while also gaining valuable connections. That is, if the founders select the right one for their needs. Participating in the Techstars Boston accelerator program has had a profound effect on the success of Moritz Plassnig’s company Codeship, a developer-tool business. In the article below, he offers some smart advice on using elite accelerators like Y Combinator and Techstars.

6 Top Entrepreneurs Share Their Best Business Advice and Tips for Success

1. Richard Branson. “The best businesses come from people’s bad personal experiences. If you just keep your eyes open, you’re going to find something that frustrates you, and then you think, ‘well I could maybe do it better than it’s being done,’ and there you have a business.”
2. Arianna Huffington. "If you're going to start a business, you need to really love it, because not everybody is going to love it. When The Huffington Post was first launched in 2005, there were so many detractors. I remember a critic who wrote that The Huffington Post was an unsurvivable failure."
3. Mark Cuban. "Then, taking that first step is always the hardest. It's terrifying, but really, it’s about preparation. We all go through this process where you’ve got the business idea, you get that feeling in your stomach and you get all excited. Then you talk to a friend, and your friend says, ‘oh wow that’s pretty cool, I’ve never heard of anything like that. I’d buy that.’ And then you do the Google search.” “The first thing I’ll tell you, is that just because you don’t see it on Google, doesn’t mean one hundred companies haven’t gone out of business doing the same thing. It hasn’t been done for a reason, because every company that’s tried it, has gone out of business.”
Sophia Amoruso. "Don't give up, don't take anything personally, and don't take no for an answer; you never know what you're going to learn along the way."
5. Tony Robbins. "The most painful mistake I see in first-time entrepreneurs is thinking that just having a business plan or a great concept is enough to guarantee success. It’s not. Business success is 80% psychology and 20% mechanics. And, frankly, most people’s psychology is not meant for building a business."
6. Tim Ferriss. "I’ve actually heard this from more than one person, including bestselling authors, Drew Houston of Dropbox, and many others who are icons of Silicon Valley. It’s something I re-read every morning. It’s also said that ‘your network is your net worth.’ These two work well together.”