I was conducting a small business marketing presentation today. During the presentation I indicated that the practitioners should be building their businesses using some form of video. I received “heavy sighs” and “rolled eyes”. One of the participants indicated that “everyone is saying we should be using video in our marketing but [...]

Some people study the market, find an opportunity, and start a business. Others find a product they like, buy a gross of it, and declare themselves in business. But really, they’re not. An entrepreneur who simply follows their muse and sells whatever they find fascinating doesn’t have a business, in my view. What they have is a [...]

Name: Lucas Sommer, 25 Founded: Audimated Corp., 2010 Business: A web service providing independent musicians and their fans the tools to make money with music. Location: Miami, Fla. Lucas Sommer of Audimated Corp. Until this summer, longtime guitarist and songwriter Lucas Sommer had been operating a music studio in Miami assisting fellow independent musicians with [...]

During the earliest stages of starting a business, the last thing you should concern yourself with is writing lengthy plans or long-winded executive summaries. It’s time to kill the traditional business plan in favor of a realistic, practical tool: a one-paragraph startup plan. You might think there’s no way to write everything there is to [...]

Bre Pettis, co-founder of MakerBot Industries Photo courtesy of the company With a shock of gray hair, oversized glasses and a messianic zeal for the future, Bre Pettis looks more like the host of a sci-fi movie channel than chief executive officer of a small manufacturing company in a gritty Brooklyn neighborhood of bricks and [...]