Avoid Making Business Alliances Vulnerable

Unlike many other partnerships found in life, business alliances are not the most natural thing to create. Human beings come together as friends, romantic partners, and co-workers, but businesses are often thought of as adversaries. Despite this general perspective, studies show business alliances often raise profits and generate other benefits for both partners. The only problem is many of these alliances fail.

The Facts About Alliance Failure

Entrepreneurs may be alarmed to learn about the high failure rate of business alliances. Continue reading

How Business Alliances Help Startups Succeed

“8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months. A whopping 80% crash and burn.” According to Entrepreneur there is only one thing you need to succeed as a startup, so don’t panic. “Your startup can still succeed. But it will depend on one thing and one thing only. Customers.”

However, developing your product, bringing it to market, finding customers, and keeping Continue reading

How Value Added Resellers (VAR) Can Help You Find More Hours in a Day

As an Entrepreneur what is the one resource you wish you more of right now? I’d be willing to bet the answer is most likely time. If you’re running low on energy there’s always more coffee, right? But, if you find you just don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done what do you do? You can’t add more hours to the clock.

So how do you free up more of your time? Continue reading

Entrepreneurs: One with the Spirit of Change

There seems to be a growing trend. The number of entrepreneurs is increasing. People, whose life are in an upheaval, discover that their real passions become the fuel that drives their work. This work becomes their source of revenue. There are several reasons for this:

  • Jobs, thought to be stable careers, are no longer jobs to be counted on for life. Continue reading

Business Partners, Joint Ventures and the Win-Win-Win Strategy

Most people are very familiar with the idea of “win-win” in the development of joint ventures. This way of thinking has helped push old world business owners into thinking about the benefits of helping their business partners as well as themselves.

To strengthen business relationships, you need to focus on what would benefit both parties. The result creates more of a unified force. Asking yourself how you can help your business partner will truly make a huge difference in the long-term stability of your venture. A good way to start a relationship is to ask both parties for their Conditions of Success (COS). Then everyone knows what is expected at the end for joint success.

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Looking for Your Next Business Partner

You’re a talented and innovative thinker planning to launch a ground-floor venture. Should you go it alone or bring in a business partner?

As we mentioned in our earlier blog, “Is it Too Much to Ask for the Perfect Business Partner?” a number of business pairings throughout the years have turned into great successes. Primarily because of the skills and traits each partner brought to the pair. However, a lot had to do with the actual relationship between the individuals involved.

Not Everyone Should Be Your Partner

This seems like an obvious statement. However, Continue reading

How Collaboration Can Save Your Small Business

A small business starting up faces a lot of challenges, and many of those challenges are due to limited resources. Small businesses have to find creative ways to establish themselves as legitimate competition for their often much larger competitors, and somehow reach enough customers to not only maintain itself, but to grow as well. It’s a daunting situation, and according to a recent working paper from Harvard summarizes that it is harder for those just starting to succeed. But those that do succeed show an interesting trend in ideas: a lot of the success comes from some form of collaboration, either in the form of funding or in the form of ideas passed on to beginning entrepreneurs from their former employers.  But collaboration can go much deeper and be much more fulfilling than that.

Kimber Lanning’s “Roosevelt Row” in Phoenix, AZ is one inspirational example of how Continue reading

Is it Too Much to Ask for the Perfect Business Partner?

Think of all the famous and successful business pairings there are and have been in the world. People like Ben and Jerry of ice cream fame or Warner Bros. moguls Sam, Jack, Albert, and Harry. There’s Bill Hewlett and David Packard; Richard and Maurice McDonald; and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak from Apple. So what makes a perfect business partner?

According to the Forbes article, “What to Look for in a Business Partner,” writer Melanie Lindner suggests five necessary traits to make a business partnership work. Continue reading

Help for Entrepreneurs is Just a Click Away

Everyone has a dream to make it big with one invention or idea that could change the world. Before embarking on that dream, however, it is important to lay the foundation for your success. Remember, you are leaving the security of a steady paycheck to pursue your dream as an entrepreneur. Therefore, one cannot simply make this huge leap without careful planning and even some soul searching. Continue reading

Now is Not the Time to Hesitate, Now is the Time to be an Entrepreneur

If you’re standing on the precipice of making the decision to become an entrepreneur, it’s time to jump in. There are too many opportunities to wait any longer. And the longer you wait, the harder it is to make that leap of faith.

First, there are a number of experts out there who will tell you about Continue reading