Pivot!! Make Your Decisions Quickly

by with 4 Comments EntrepreneurExecutionGeneralPlanning & StrategySmall Business

Those of you that know me, or have been following my Business Execution blog, know that I am a big proponent of planning – both strategic and tactical.  So, how can I now be advising you to make your decisions quickly?  Doesn’t that fly-in-the-face of taking the time to think things through and plan?

Let me explain why I don’t think that it does, and why I believe that the speed of your decision making can be an accelerant to the growth of your business.  After all, I am as big a proponent of execution as I am of planning.

Can money make you stupid?

by with No Comment EntrepreneurExecutionFundingPlanning & StrategySmall Business

Last week I talked about the new JOBS Act making “equity-based crowd funding” legal; and how I believe it is a good thing for startup funding.  So this week I thought I would talk about a potential pitfall for the entrepreneur from this “easy money”.  I’m ignoring any pitfalls that may be introduced by the act itself – until we see a draft of the regulations I think it is too soon to comment.

While I don’t have any “real data”, based on my own experience I would say that when you talk to people starting a business at least 80% of them come out with some statement along the lines of “if I can raise [insert number here], then all of our problems will be solved”.  Unfortunately for many of them, raising the amount of money they are targeting – or even twice as much – won’t help them succeed.

Small business – the engine of the US economy?

by with 5 Comments EntrepreneurExecutionPlanning & StrategySmall Business

Politicians and the media like to spout what seems to be conventional wisdom that “small business is the engine of the US economy” and that these businesses create the most jobs.  But is that so?

One of the criteria describing Collaborative Xceleration’s target market niche is “small companies looking for exponential growth”.  So, recently I’ve been doing some research into how many of these companies exist in the U.S., and what their geographic distribution is (this is also input to deciding where we are going live!).  As part of that research, I’ve come across some interesting data that addresses the “engine of the economy” statement which I thought I would share with you.

Building a Better ‘First-Time Entrepreneur’

by with No Comment Advisory TeamsEntrepreneurExecutionPlanning & Strategy

This week I talked with an entrepreneur (no names; no pack drill!) who isn’t happy with the speed with which their business is progressing (come to think of it I’m not sure I’ve ever met an entrepreneur who was happy with their speed of business progress [superemotions file=”icon_biggrin.gif” title=”Big Grin”]) – and, actually, my conversations were with more than one such entrepreneur.

This got me thinking about weaknesses exhibited in the businesses of first-time entrepreneurs, specifically during the period before they get to revenue.  My conversation with this individual covered most of the topics that I’ve detailed below; they are ones that commonly come up in conversations with first-time entrepreneurs (I’m sure you can come up with others!!).