Republished from rankandfilemag.com/first-12-months-as-an-entrepreneur Rank & File turned one-year-old [back in June]. It was quite a milestone for me as a first-time entrepreneur and so I wanted to do a bit of journaling here to document the biggest, most important lessons I have learned during the last 12 months, so I won’t ever forget what the beginning felt like and taught me. Here are...
In October of 1929, the public stock market crashed. Black Tuesday. Bad day on Wall Street. At least for the 16% of rich Americans who had investments in those public companies. As often happens after a financial crisis, the federal government decided to step in to protect a re-occurrence. The result of that, was the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the...
Finding a great name for your startup is a challenge. The following 10 minute video walks you through the process to not only finding a name you love, but also the steps you need to take to ensure that name can be found by others.
Five years ago, while still working on the business plan that was to become Fledge, I helped run a weekend event for “social entrepreneurs” called #SocEnt Weekend. From that came the following video with Brian Howe, co-founder of what was to become Impact Hub Seattle. Reminiscing is often fun. More so when we can look back five years to see what we thought might happen in ten years...
(This is in response to Jeff Bezos’ call for feedback/ideas on his philanthropy) Jeff, If you want to immediately help a few homeless in Seattle, do that. But what about the other 10,000 homeless in Seattle and the other tens of thousands of homeless in other American cities? And what about the billion others who live a life with even less food, less shelter, and less chance of a...
We are told that employees (labor) works for management, that management works for the board, and that boards works for shareholders, with shareholder value being the ultimate goal of business. We’re told a lot of things that are simply not true. That story is common, but not universal. It’s not required by law. It’s just tradition. Another pattern is the employee-owned...
Sure, once you are a successful entrepreneur, life can be fun. But don’t forget to have fun along the way too. Startups are intense. If you pick a startup solving a real problem, it’ll pull you along, rather than require you to push it to the finish line.
Meanwhile… a fun video from two highly successful entrepreneurs:
When ideas are 100 years old, we tend to not only not know their origins, but also think of those ideas have been around forever. So it is with the large, organized philanthropic organizations today known as private foundations. The first of these was the Carnegie Corporation of New York, established in 1911, by Andrew Carnegie, who invented the idea of giving away one’s fortune. That...
I’ve been quoted in a new book, Crazy Good Advice, by podcaster Tony Loyd. You can buy the book as part of his StartSomeGood campaign for Social Entrepreneur. startsomegood.com/socentradio [hr] We need your help to bring Social Entrepreneur to the radio After 150 episodes, we’re at an exciting tipping point with the podcast Social Entrepreneur. We have the opportunity to produce a...
Since 2012 we’ve been waiting for equity crowdfunding. Five years later, we have it, but it’s not working. Back in 2014 we managed to pass the Washington Jobs Act. Three years later, its never been used, caught in the trap of overly onerous regulations. Finally in late 2015 the SEC made it through their rules process for the national JOBS Act, and companies have been using those...
