Mentors

Last night we graduated the second group of women entrepreneurs from the ATHENA Power Link program. If you’re not familiar with it, ATHENA PowerLink is a wonderful program that mentors women-owned businesses. At Rollins College, we’re the host of this effort in Central Florida, but the program also exists in 26 other cities across the country through the work of ATHENA International. As I listened to our graduating entrepreneurs talk about their experiences in the program, I was struck by how such a simple concept---mentoring--- can product such huge dividends. I was quoted a few months ago in a story on mentoring in Entrepreneur magazine, and that piece is a reminder to all entrepreneurs that one of the best ways to build a successful business is to have mentors who can provide advice, guidance, and a swift kick to the backside when you really need it.

The First Generation

Marty Rubin, the CEO of Smart City, was on campus today for a lunchtime presentation to our MBA students. Marty touched on some very interesting points relative to the start-up and running of an entrepreneurial company. One point was what it’s like to live through the Black Swan moment in your enterprise. (For information on this, see Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book on the subject.) The other interesting point was that the current group of students in college and graduate school are the first generation to be actively “teaching” their parents. I don’t know about you, but if I have questions about social networking, my phone, iTunes, or any such area of life, I go to my kids. I learn from them about music to listen to, TV shows to watch and movies to go to as well as movies to avoid. My parents on the other hand, until very late in life, never “learned” from me as I learn from my kids. For some interesting and enlightening reading on this generation, take a look at the book, Generation Debt by Anya Kamenetz

Start-Up Town

A good friend of the Center for Entrepreneurship, the CEO of Blue Orb, Pete McAlindon sent over this article from The American by Ben Casnocha on locating a start-up.

How Do You Find Those Darn Ideas

In my classes, students often ask how they can come up with ideas that will be the backbone of a successful entrepreneurial company. In the New York Times today, Mickey Meece’s piece Inspiration Can Be Found in Many Places But You Have to be Looking, addresses that issue with some interesting examples.

I like to think that starting with the problem, or the pain in the marketplace is the right place to begin. But most people need to train themselves to look for that pain. Start looking at your neighborhood and come up with things that don’t exist that you wish did. At first, as you’re training yourself to see the pain, don’t get overly concerned with practicality or cost issues; that can come later. Once you train yourself to look at your world from the perspective of finding a problem and linking it to a solution (pain and aspirin), the ideas will come much more naturally.

Angel Investing

Interesting post in the Wall Street Journal by Kelly Spors on the Five Common Myths of Angel Investing.

In this article, angel investing is really considered in its broadest sense including family, friends (and fools), all the way through to and including angels in formal investing groups. Thanks to the financial mess our country finds itself in, I think the coming year is going to be a very interesting one for early stage entrepreneurs looking for money, because potential angel investors are going to be presented by their financial advisors with lots of interesting opportunities, and investing in companies will be just one of their options. Unfortunately for the entrepreneurs, it will also probably be the angels riskiest option with the greatest potential for the ultimate investing disaster…losing all of their investment.