The Entrepreneurial Mind Blog |
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Welcome Message  |
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| We've Moved |
| The Entrepreneurial Mind has moved. Nothing has changed other than our address. After almost five years of blogging we had started to outfgrow our old digs. So decided it was time to make a move. It is the same blog... |
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| VCs Have Regional Flavors |
| When first entering into the world of VC funding entrepreneurs often overlook in the importance of understand the local "flavor" of VCs. VCs tend to be more geographic in their investing -- they tend to favor deals closer to home.... |
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| Entrepreneurship as Tool to End World Poverty |
| The Social Equity Venture Fund (SEVEN), just launched a competition to develop new indicators and models for investment in emerging market small and medium-sized enterprises. The competition is open to everyone, and is offering $50,000 in funds awarded for the... |
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| So Why the Long Face, Professor? |
| For many years I have been the optimist. The enthusiasm that I experienced in my daily interactions with entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs was contagious. The data that was showing a shift to an entrepreneurial economy gave me so much hope... |
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| Small Business Owners Are Hunkering Down |
| I have been writing my advice to entrepreneurs on what they need to do to weather the current and near future economic storms. But just what are they all actually doing? A new poll from NFIB offers some insight. Here... |
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| Venture Capital Going to Shore Up Later Stage Businesses |
| One of the best barometers of the economy is the behavior of venture capitalists and angel investors. The stage of investment is one key to follow. When they shift to later stage deals as they have the past few years,... |
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| Your Business Should Match Your Lifestyle |
| My column in this week's Tennessean: When people use the term "lifestyle business," they usually are referring to something small and even part time. I would argue that every business should be viewed as a lifestyle business. If you choose... |
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| The Two V's of the Good Entrepreneur |
| Many of you know about the Four P's that make up a marketing strategy -- product, price, promotion, and place. Those of you who read this blog regularly or have had me in class also know about the Three M's... |
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| Leadership and Failure |
| Over the years I have become more comfortable using my missteps and failures as lessons and examples for my students. Of course, they seem to love to hear the success stories. But they need to learn that hardship, challenge and... |
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| Inflation Heats Up |
| The inflation news released today is not good news. We had a 1.1% increase in the CPI in just the past month, according to a report released today by the US Department of Labor. This is the kind of double... |
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| So Many Good Blogs, So Little Time |
| Ben Cunningham sent along a link to a great blog called Church of the Customer that focuses on building customer relationships. Nothing could be more important in these uncertain economic times. The blog authors offer a variety of helpful inform... |
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| Pay Attention to Changing Preferences |
| Once again Walmart has its finger on the pulse of American consumers. Just when inflation is kicking in and the economy softens they are seeing strong growth. How? They are listening to the customer. They are marketing aggressively and focusing... |
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| Seller's Remorse |
| When we were in the process of selling our business our attorney did a wonderful job of preparing us for much of what was ahead of us. One of the things he mentioned more than once was that we should... |
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| Entrepreneurial Principles for Principals |
| I am winding up a short trip to Baton Rouge, LA. Yesterday I conducted a workshop on how entrepreneurial practices and principles can be applied to educational organizations to a group of aspiring school principals. It is a pilot program... |
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| What, Me Worry? Inflation and Debt |
| My post yesterday got a comment questioning why business owners are so worried about inflation and its affect on debt. During periods of high inflation, many small business cannot keep pace with higher costs. Their profit margins will shrink as... |
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Welcome Message |
Welcome ICSB members to my blog The Entrepreneurial Mind
I am honored to be one of the featured blogs that is linked to by the new ICSB website.
My blog focuses on small business and entrepreneurship. About half of my posts offer information and advice for entrepreneurs, including many posts on business planning, entrepreneurial financing, ethics, managing growth, exit planning, and family business. The other half of my posts examine public policy issues that impact small businesses and entrepreneurs. I try to take a pragmatic approach to all that I write about, as I have spent almost as much of my career as an entrepreneur as I have as one who teaches and writes about entrepreneurship
I started writing this blog in 2003. At the time I did not even know what a blog was. I had just started in my new position as the Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. The thought was that blogs might offer a new way to promote Belmont. In many ways I was probably the last person they should have chosen, as I am not at all a “techie”. In fact, my students have referred to me as the “Luddite blogger” due to my resistance to new technology. But, I thought that a forum that allowed a more free and unstructured approach to writing about entrepreneurship would be fun.
Over the years my traffic has grown. The Entrepreneurial Mind is now one of the top 100 business blogs in the world. I attract 15,000-20,000 visitors every month. My readers include entrepreneurs, academics, students, public policy folks, and many who are just fascinated by the growing entrepreneurial phenomenon around the globe. Although I am based in the US, about 10-20% of my daily traffic comes from around the world, with regular visits from every continent.
I have been a member of USASBE and ICSB since the 1980s, including the time I left academics to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors. I was Program Chair of the 2005 ICSB Conference held in Washington, DC.
I hope you enjoy my blog and all of the others that will soon be added to the blog roll of ICSB. Please feel free to post comments at the site and to pass along ideas for me to write about.
Jeff Cornwall
Belmont University |
