So after falling asleep watching television half-way through writing this post (I took a break – it makes sense, trust me) – I wake up to find it is 6AM Monday morning. Crap…

Here’s what you missed:

Road Show for Young Entrepreneurs Award
Asian Young Entrepreneur awards. This takes place in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Brunei.  I know there some people from Malaysia who are reading this – look into this awards show!

Mentorship Project for New Entrepreneurs
I’ve decided India is totally into entrepreneurs.  Half of the articles I find are about Indian entrepreneurs, and more power to them.  India is becoming increasingly supportive of startups, and this mentor project proves it.

Calling All Germans
Become the entrepreneur of the year!

New Entrepreneurs Video Section in YEA
Videos of entrepreneurs, mentors, and anything else relevant is going to be posted in this video section.  Okay – so I did some searching and I couldn’t find their video section… the link took me to the audio section.  New web site issues?  Probably – well, stay posted anyways.

Branson Helps South Africa
“Renegade  Billionaire” Sir Richard Branson encourages young entrepreneurs in South Africa.  This is the kind of stuff I love to post.  Branson goes to S. Africa – instead of throwing money at the government and telling them to “make your people successful,” he is actually guiding the people in the right direction to start their own businesses.  At least SOMEONE has his priorities straight.

Teens Find Success Early
As opposed to late?

Post from: EveryJoe

Sunday Young Entrepeneur Links

So you’re applying for colleges and you don’t know what to look for. You applied to your state schools and every other outlying school you can imagine – and hey, what do you know, you got accepted into all of them! Well before you choose the most prestigious of schools, let’s talk things over.

You’re going to college to improve your skills as an entrepreneur. So what does your degree mean? Not too much since YOU are the first employer of your company.

But Jim – how do I pick the right college for me? How do I know what the best college is?

Simple – talk to people. Ask students, professors, friends, parents, neighbors, the President – absorb information. Remember, you are stuck with whatever school you choose.

The only criteria you want to focus on is the effectiveness of the professors. Screw the campus aesthetic – we’re talking about the fate of the rest of your life here! I go to a pretty decent engineering school, but some of the professors seem to just be there for the paycheck. Many of the schools that are considered prestigious are only notorious for their incredibly high failure rates. This often doesn’t mean the expectations are high, but instead qualifications for teaching may be low!

As an aspiring young entrepreneur, it is YOUR JOB to absorb as much information as possible. You need to know every single facet of starting a business, raising capital, and everything that revolves around it by the time you are out. An education will get you there, but a degree from an expensive school may not. Weigh all of your options, ask as many questions as possible, and best of luck to all of you applying to schools!

Post from: EveryJoe

What to Look for In Colleges for Young Entrepreneurs

Post from: EveryJoe

Identifying Your Audience – Part 5 – Ages 30-49

Oh… and office joke commercials are supposed to be funny (even though there is nothing funny about an office… not even when you joke around about it – Office Space is the only exception). Anyways, here’s a recent Budweiser commercial:

Post from: EveryJoe

Identifying Your Audience – Part 4 – Ages 20-35

Babies do not have a bank account. They do not have money, nor do they have the power to reason with their parents… so why would you market to them?

Who is your market for this product? The brothers and sisters? The uncle? Of course, it is the parents. Every business has this problem – even politicians do – to whom do we market this product?

As a young entrepreneur, you have the advantage of knowing the young audience. Marketing methods differ greatly between generations. People often don’t know the full potential of their product or service and isolate entire groups of potential customers. While we are on the topic of babies, this is a representative article of what I am talking about.

Identifying the wrong market can end a business faster than it began. Marketing is expensive – do testing to figure out WHO you are selling your product to. Who will be actually BUYING it? What are they into? I wouldn’t make banner ads for a product directed towards people in their early 20’s – they have grown up trained not to click banner ads. Over the course of this week, I will be discussing the methods of marketing for different age groups – what turns groups on… and what turns groups off.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Identifying Your Audience – Part 2 – Marketing to Kids.

Post from: EveryJoe

Identifying Your Audience – Part 1 – The Intro

I’ve been noticing that abbreviations and misspellings are becoming more and more prevalent throughout the younger community. It became mainstream when I was a teenager (I am currently 21, for those who don’t know), so I even grew up during this whole mess. Some of my friends aren’t even able to carry on a serious conversation (online) without constantly misspelling words and using abbreviations – not because they want to type efficiently, but because they see that language as some new standard and see nothing wrong with it.  I have even had people ask me why I capitalize the first letter of my sentences!

The point of effective communication is to speak a common language that is understandable, readable, and repeatable. Should this be the new standard? Should formalities be shoved aside to save space on paper? What if everyone actually understands it well?

Many young entrepreneurs like to break new ground and be that “renegade boss.” Does this stand a chance at becoming a new office standard with this upcoming generation? i mean srsly guyz! wtf???

Post from: EveryJoe

da fate of gud grammer

Original Article from CNN.com

This is an article on how to create true profit. It even has a true profit calculator! Basically the article talks about taking risks and weighing investment options. I found this article to be very boring, but at least it has a calculator!

The title is IsraelNetSphere Panel and Advice to New Entrepreneurs. This article is posted on ExeedTechnology.com.

Aside from the author’s atrocious grammar, the panelists apparently made a few good points. Just to give you some Cliff’s notes, here’s what you should do while trying to gain venture capital (during meetings):

• Be prepared
• Practice
• Listen
• Persevere

That’s the article in a nutshell.

This is an incredibly interesting article from the Wall Street Journal. It discusses the non-monetary value of online businesses. It discusses new methods of networking with other entrepreneurs that have the potential of replacing the in-person networking strategies. Can online networking replace in-person networking? To a certain extend, I believe it can. However, there is still a greater form of legitimacy when meeting in-person as opposed to online. This article provides platefuls of food for thought. What are your thoughts?

Post from: EveryJoe

The Sunday Young Entrepreneur News

For those of you who just got here, “Oh Crap Situations” will be a weekly Saturday installment that includes situations you may one day face, as a young entrepreneur. This week’s situation actually comes from a real situation from one of my favorite restaurants in Atlanta – R. Thomas Deluxe Grill. Part of the reason I like this restaurant is because they didn’t put an “e” at the end of “grill.”

Digression aside, here’s the situation. You bought a lot in a VERY nice location. You decide to plop a restaurant on it. You follow? The restaurant takes up about 1/5 of the lot. Since you need parking, you only have about 30 feet in front of the building left as kind of a yard. So you fill the kitchen with all sorts of cooking equipment – a giant grill, sinks, a small lobby area, and some room for seating. You have the whole thing almost completely set up until you find this gigantic juicer that does everything imaginable. It stores, creates, and ejects any type of smoothie you want, but it would take up 90% of the seating room (this thing is big). You don’t want to open your restaurant without it, but you have nowhere to put it! What do you do?

Post from: EveryJoe

Oh Crap Situation 2