The Pragmatic Strategist

One of my favorite things about the information economy is the extent to which a highly commoditized, social web lowers the barrier to entry for prospective entrepreneurs.  While some of us elect to dive into owning our own business head-first with little or no safety net, that’s not the best way for some people.  Many [...]

In a recent blog post, author Scott Ginsberg recently asked Have You Executed These Ten Essentials of Entrepreneurial Excellence? He then listed off the ten things he highlights as essential for entrepreneurs to be truly successful: Prestige requires pandemonium Confidence requires congruency Fame requires flexibility Success requires surrender. Creativity requires curiosity Originality requires murder Serendipity [...]

CNN recently reported that researchers from Harvard Business School, Insead and Brigham Young University have just completed a six-year study of more than 3,000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs, and say they have identified five skills that drive innovation: Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields. Questioning: Innovators [...]

One of my favorite parts of the end of any year are the ‘year in review’ and/or ‘next year’s prediction’ lists.  And when it’s a year that ends in a “0,” the lists are usually longer, more interesting and cover a longer window.  So, too, already with this year.  As we head into 2010, we [...]

One of the reasons that I have always loved being in the web business is because things constantly change.  When I first got online in 1993, we used bulletin board systems and monochrome monitors.  When I got my first tech job in 1996, everything was about corporate Windows networks and preparing for Y2K (remember that?).  [...]

For some families, business is just part of the package.  As someone who grew up in a family-owned business, one of the reasons I ducked-and-weaved every time my husband used to bring up the idea of us owning our own business was because I saw a lot of headache (and heartache) as a result of [...]

Entrepreneur-turned-VC, Mark Suster, recently posted an article on his blog, Both Sides of the Table, highlighting what he considers to be the essential qualities of entrepreneurship.  At the heart of his post is a very, very simple philosophy: entrepreneurs just do it. For some people, this is easy.  Moving ahead, pulling the trigger, motivating people [...]