The Venture Edge

When Kathy and I decided to create this blog, we made a conscious decision to avoid giving employee-management advice that you our readers could find on other blogs and websites, or in our many books. So you won't find a list of the top-5 ways to reward your employees here, nor an essay on how to get your employees engaged in their jobs, nor 10 steps to creating a happy work environment. Instead, we decided to focus on giving you our own unique findings on the best ways to start and grow a GREAT business.

Those of us involved in starting and running businesses (and that's millions of us) could describe the first decade of the New Millennium as a wild ride to say the least.  I won't reiterate here all the events we know so well that affected businesses large and small (every journalist and blogger will be doing that over the next couple days).  What I will say is that if the first decade is any indicator of what life will be like going forward, everyone should consider putting on their entrepreneur hats and tying them tight because it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Okay. Let's say you're an entrepreneur who's looking for the NEXT BIG THING -- where will you focus your time, money, and energy? Consider following the lead of Chinese business, which is going green in a very big way. You see, regardless of whether or not you believe in global warming -- much less the reasons that it may or may not actually exist -- Chinese entrepreneurs have seen the future of business, and it's a very green future indeed.

Even though the U.S. Senate is determined to give us all a present on Chirstmas Eve that we'll definitely want to exchange or regift to someone we don't like, I have to say that this is one of the best times of the year. People are out and about--they may not be buying as much this year, but they look happy and less frightened abut the future than they did last Christmas season.  Optimism is a good thing.  Entrepreneurs tend to be optimists who look for opportunities in situations that other less creative types might find daunting.  The cup is always half full, I say..

DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- is well known for its technology innovations. Founded in 1958 as America’s response to the Soviet Union’s launching of the Sputnik satellite, DARPA invented the Internet (no, it wasn't Al Gore), the stealth technology used in fighter aircraft, high-energy laser technology for space-based missile defense, and much, much more. DARPA’s mission is to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security by sponsoring revolutionary, high-payoff research bridging the gap between fundamental discoveries and their military use.

Small businesses need to manage their cash flow, and in times likes these, that's not so easy.  If their customers fail to pay on time (or at all), they're left having to find a way to pay their employees and purchase their inventory until the cash comes in.  Since for now banks are not cooperating with small business loans, many owners have resorted to business credit cards to carry them over the rough times.  That's fine if things go smoothly, but beware--business credit cards are not as friendly as they used to be. 

Tiger Woods' recent personal difficulties point out the problem when companies tie themselves closely to a celebrity endorser. What happens when that person -- who is, after all, just a person and not perfect -- does wrong, and tarnishes your brand in the process? In the case of Tiger Woods, Accenture has quickly dropped him (he's "no longer the right representative" after the "circumstances of the last two weeks."), Gatorade has dropped its Tiger Focus brand beverage, and Gillette is phasing him out. You've got to imagine that most of his other sponsors are giving the idea of dropping him serious consideration.

The big buzz in the start-up world is mobile communication, whether it's to find things, opt in to special deals from marketers, or conduct your buy/sell transactions from your iPhone.  In the last few months alone I have seen a number of these businesses--it's the wild West out there--but the jury is still out on which ones will stick and which will simply disappear. With a global mobile payments market expected to reach nearly 2 Trillion in the next decade, it's no wonder that entrepreneurs and investors are scrambling to find the platform that will become the standard.

The past three days have been very interesting ones for yours truly. My latest book -- Writing Fiction For Dummies -- was just released, and my coauthor Randy Ingermanson and I are wrapping up a three-day book rush, hoping to drive initial sales of the book. While we're still tabulating the results, early indications are that our efforts paid off in a very big way. As I write this, our book is ranked #368 on Amazon.com -- that is, Writing Fiction For Dummies is the 368th best-selling book on Amazon.com. Not bad out of millions of books available on the Amazon website.

Friday night I was having dinner at a wonderful restaurant in downtown Los Angeles.  It's called Provecho , a modern, upscale Mexican experience, and it was started by a former graduate student of mine and her chef husband.  Now you would think that downtown Los Angeles would be hopping on a Friday night, but no.  You could find more people at upscale restaurants in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on any night of the week than you'll find at the terrific restaurants in downtown Los Angeles. 

Last month Kathy posted on the topic of where to start your business, citing a recent Fortune Small Business and Kauffman Foundation report titled "Best Places to Launch." While Kathy (and Fortune and Kauffman) certainly have a point -- that some areas of the country may be better than others to start and grow a business -- I think there's more to it than that.