Entrepreneurship
Inc.com | by Aaron Patzer | October 2009
Aaron Patzer launched Mint.com as a user-friendly alternative to Quicken and other personal-finance software out there. Little did he know that just two years later, Intuit, which makes Quicken, would fork over $170 million for his website. So how’d he do it? [Read more…]
FastCompany | by Kaihan Krippendorff | October 12, 2009
When something works, people grow fixated on it. They stop looking for alternative options. And this fixation creates an opportunity for those willing to reconsider the accepted approach. The company I introduced last week, Rosetta Stone (RST), hasn’t been satisfied with the fact that its products work. Instead, it continues to challenge the norm. [Read more…]
Inc.com | by Darren Dahl | May 2009
The first thing you notice when you walk into the Chicago offices of Total Attorneys, which provides software and services to small law firms, is the number of people on their feet. Every morning, the company’s 180 employees gather around the office in groups of five to 10. Close your eyes, take in the often raucous banter and laughter, and it’s easy to mistake Total Attorneys’s headquarters for a college cafeteria. But these meetings, which last for about 15 minutes, are more than mere employee chitchat. They are intended to create what CEO Ed Scanlan calls controlled chaos.
The inspiration for the gatherings comes from a process for designing software called agile development, which aims to promote flexibility, speed, and teamwork. But rather than limit participation to software engineers, Scanlan has deployed agile development concepts companywide, in a drive to make the seven-year-old business act more like the start-up it once was. [Read more…]
Acton.org | by Anthony B. Bradley | May 6, 2009
Necessity is the mother of invention, said Plato, and the truth of the proverb has been borne out once again. Necessity is generating entrepreneurial energy amid America’s current economic crisis, according to a new study by the Kansas City-based Kaufman Foundation. The study reveals an increase in business startups during 2008, as the recession was taking hold. The rise is consistent with similar previous trends, such as the boomlet occurring after the tech bust of the 1990s. Throughout human history, a nation’s best resource in time of crisis has been the unleashed creative and entrepreneurial spirit of its citizens.
According to the study, U.S. entrepreneurship rates increased for lowest-income-potential and middle-income-potential types of businesses from 2007 to 2008 but decreased for the highest-income-potential types of businesses. In other words, the highest growth rates were among necessity-inspired everyday Americans. The entrepreneurial spirit embedded in all human persons has been stirred in women and men at all levels of society. [Read more…]
by Chris Banescu –
In today’s turbulent financial times and difficult economic conditions, a lot of unjustified criticism and unwarranted accusations have been laid at the doorstep of capitalism. Many in the mainstream press and academia, a majority of politicians, and a large number of Americans have jumped on the bandwagon and unfairly blame capitalistic principles for the huge mess that we are in. Such widespread confusion evidences a misunderstanding by many Americans of how value is actually created in society and what capitalism really represents.
All societies, in order to prosper, grow, and take care of its citizens must create new value to sustain its economy and support an expanding population. Common sense and experience dictate that there are only three (3) possible ways for anyone in life to have, create, or obtain value (monetary or economic) or acquire any assets (property) to be able to live or sustain oneself or one’s family: [Read more…]
Inc.com | by Joel Spolsky | February 2008
Why the most important innovations are often those that appear to be fatally flawed.
I could fill a pretty long book with all the stories of times I thought that an idea was stupid and could never work, only to discover that, in fact, it was pretty inspired. The two bad calls that I’m most proud of? That’s easy: eBay and Wikipedia. [Read more…]
Inc.com | by Mike Hofman | January 2008
How companies just like yours mushroomed into powerhouses in their industries. A conversation with Keith R. McFarland.
How do you create a breakthrough company? Where do you start?
First, I’d say that it’s not about being in a hot, sexy market. It’s not about having the coolest, hippest product. We came up with an index of companies that grew to a certain level both in terms of their annual revenue and in terms of their financial performance, compared with the rest of their industry. [Read more…]