Blogtipping is a great way of finding blogs – particularly those that you might not know about. The concept is simple:

Pick 3 blogs you like.
Post 3 things you like about each one (on the 1st day of every month.)
Post 1 tip for each one.
Contact Easton Ellsworth to let him know you’ve participated – since Blogtipping is his baby.

In January I asked you to suggest some of the best entrepreneurship blogs. Just to be safe, I asked twice. There were plenty of great submissions, but digging around I decided to highlight 3 that you might not have noticed, but are …read more

Welcome to the 8th edition of the Carnival of Entrepreneurs. So far so good! We continue to get a great turnout of articles from a wide range of people – stay-at-home entrepreneurs, students, veteran business folk, serial entrepreneurs and more.
The combination and mix of writing is what makes the Carnival so interesting.
A couple notes:

Please continue to support the Carnival by linking to this post (especially if your article appears below) or link to the index page of Carnivals where I list them all. Each week I get quite a few new submissions, which means people are posting about it …read more

Ian Landsman is founder, programmer, chief marketing officer, evangelist and bookkeeper for his 1-man software company, UserScape. (Actually, I’m not sure he does the bookkeeping anymore…) UserScape currently has one product — HelpSpot, which Ian describes as user centered help desk software.
I’ve admired Ian’s work for years – he’s active in the software development community and outspoken on how he believes software companies should be built to succeed.
I hope you’ll all find the interview interesting. We jump around quite a bit – from software development to marketing to entrepreneurship. For those of you developing software applications, this is going to …read more

Big companies are notorious for providing poor customer service and responding in monotonous, corporate speak to problems. Many of us accept that as truth and move on. But we shouldn’t. There are plenty of lessons to be learned…
Recently a friend of mine, Paul McEnany went into a Kohl’s department store in Dallas, Texas and was shocked at the condition of the store. He snapped some pictures and wrote a fairly blunt but meaningful post about it.
A few other bloggers, including Christina Kerley at CK’s Blog got wind of the situation and started writing about it as well. CK encouraged Paul …read more

Face it, almost no one sticks to their New Year’s Resolutions. We lie to ourselves. Often it results in lying to others as well. It’s really not healthy or productive.
Although we’re already halfway through January (where’s 2007 going?!?!) it’s still as good a time as any to look at our goals.
In fact, you should be assessing goals constantly. Goal setting isn’t a time-specific activity. You don’t have to set goals only at certain times – be it at the beginning of a new year, every quarter, every month, etc.
Steve Pavlina points out that setting goals is about improving your present …read more

It’s time for another Carnival! As the Carnival rolls into town I want to thank every participate and promoter of the Carnival. It means a lot to me and to others who get a bit more awareness, buzz and traffic to their blogs.
For the past few weeks I’ve been running the Carnival here. Starting in February we’ll send it out into the wild entrepreneurial blogosphere and let others have fun with the hosting duties!
You can check out past Carnivals with the links provided in the sidebar to the far right.
Enjoy!
My Personal Highlights

GP, a new innkeeper in Montana, gives us his …read more

Without customers you have no business.
That sometimes gets lost in the excitement of starting a new business. People want to build the next cool thing. People want to get funding and buy Aeron chairs. People want to strategize, plan and meet. People want to dream.
Nothing wrong with that, but where’s the revenue coming from?
What?!? We need revenue? Aside from the few examples of companies that barely had any revenue or were losing money hand-over-fist and still sold for millions of dollars, most of us have to go out and earn a living, and yup, we even need to turn a …read more

Before you start your business you should have your exit planned. Not everyone agrees with me but that’s what makes life interesting, right?
In my opinion, Wikipedia’s definition of an exit strategy is flat out wrong as it pertains to business:
An exit strategy is a means of escaping one’s current situation, typically an unfavorable situation. An organization or individual without an exit strategy may be in a quagmire. At worst, an exit strategy will save face; at best, an exit strategy will peg a withdrawal to the achievement of an objective worth more than the cost of continued involvement.
(That 2nd sentence …read more

Put your money where your mouth is.
OK.
After a great discussion about the power of microcredits and microloans I decided to find some worthwhile causes at Kiva.org.
Kiva.org allows you to donate small amounts of money to entrepreneurs and business owners in need around the world. At this moment, most of the opportunities are in Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Togo. I’m guessing it’s because the loan partners (i.e. credit unions, funds, etc.) that support and manage the loans in those countries are the most active with the project.
These entrepreneurs need the money. They’re trying to improve restaurants and clothing shops, buy some cattle …read more

I’m declaring 2007 the Year of the Entrepreneur.
Here’s why:

It’s becoming less and less expensive to start a viable businesses (primarily in the technology/Web world mind you.)
We’re not in a bubble just yet. 2007 could be a boom year.
Entrepreneurs are becoming more socially conscious than ever.
Many of us learned valuable lessons through the Web 1.0 bubble bursting.
Entrepreneurs (and small business owners) continue to drive the economy.

There are plenty of people raising flags about Web 2.0 and the bubble bursting again. And without a doubt there are many plain old stupid businesses out there. And I’m not taking away from the people …read more