Categories: Small Business Ideas

New Dyslexia Documentary Explains Entrepreneur Link

Posted by: Nick Leiber on May 12

In 2007, Julie Logan, a professor of entrepreneurship at Cass Business School in London, released the results of a study of 102 entrepreneurs in the U.S. showing that 35 percent...

What Local Stock Exchanges Might Look Like

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 26

Last month I mentioned that one big idea I expect to see take shape in 2010 is local investing: a way for ordinary investors to direct part of their savings...

Malcolm Gladwell Punctures the Risk-Taker Myth

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 13

Malcolm Gladwell's piece in this week's New Yorker (subscription required) deflates the conception of entrepreneurs as risk-takers. The entrepreneurs who succeed, he says, get ulcers worrying about potential losses and...

Big Ideas for 2010

Posted by: John Tozzi on December 31

What big ideas will change small business and entrepreneurship in 2010? I'll start with two that are on my radar. New ways to finance social ventures. Right now profit-making enterprises...

The Top 10 Small Business Stories for 2009

Posted by: Nick Leiber on December 29

The ongoing effects of the recession meant another mostly blah year for small businesses, with entrepreneurs reporting slumping sales and restricted access to capital among their biggest roadblocks. While we...

The Book On A Small Business Merger

Posted by: Stacy Perman on October 12

What do you get when you pair one independent bookselling legend with another venerable institution? The answer comes in the form of the recent announcement that 115-year-old Vroman’s (based in...

How a Smart Grid Will Spur Energy Entrepreneurship

Posted by: John Tozzi on October 06

BW's Rachael King explains the details behind a buzzword we hear a lot now, the smart grid. In essence, the smart grid would do for power what the Internet did...

Startups, Innovation, and the Auto Industry

Posted by: John Tozzi on September 30

Maryann Keller argues in a column that the future of the auto industry won't come from entrepreneurial startups or from global consolidation of automakers. Here's her grim conclusion: [T]he future...

The Art and Business of Bookbinding Continues (sort of)

Posted by: Stacy Perman on September 29

To accompany my interview with Savile Row tailor Richard Anderson, earlier this month we offered up a slide show displaying 20 different industries like bespoke tailoring that have survived the...

Bill Gates's Asymmetric Approach To Risk

Posted by: John Tozzi on September 14

As a follow-up on our recent discussions of how entrepreneurs think about risk, I want to flag this book excerpt on Tim Ferriss's blog. In a new book called Leap,...

Slow Money, Local Business, and Social Capital

Posted by: John Tozzi on September 10

Could slow money help your business? CNN Money has a good story by Helaine Olen today about local businesses raising money from their customers. It's an idea our own David...

Two Risk Profiles of Entrepreneurs

Posted by: John Tozzi on September 01

Following up on yesterday's post about how entrepreneurs approach risk, I spoke with Steve King today about two different types of small business owners with different risk profiles. On one...

Entrepreneurs and Risk

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 31

How do entrepreneurs feel about risk? I've been thinking about this a bit in light of recent evidence that suggests people who work for themselves feel more secure than those...

One Entrepreneur’s Approach to Recession Relief: Sir Richard Branson Says: Give

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 24

Laid-off? 401(k) flattened? House Foreclosed? That’s no reason not to have a day of fun especially if it’s on Sir Richard Branson. The mogul behind the global Virgin Group is...

When Twitter Ain't Running, Ain't Nobody Running: Business Lessons

Posted by: Nick Leiber on August 07

This is a post by guest blogger Jonathan Ezor. On Thursday, August 6, 2009, the microblogging service Twitter was hit with a dedicated denial of service (DDOS) attack, an Internet-based...

Next Generation Networking?

Posted by: Amy Choi on June 11

Entrepreneurs with the Big Idea are always looking for the Big Break. Two small business owners in Boston have decided that a meeting with Richard Branson, eclectic entrepreneur extraordinaire, will...

Sibling Business Partners

Posted by: Stacy Perman on June 08

I'm working on a story about business partnerships and am interested in talking to individuals who have gone into business with their siblings. Do you have a business with your...

Your Goals? Forget Them.

Posted by: John Tozzi on May 06

Should you trash your goals? This piece from the Boston Globe (via 37 Signals) outlines the risk of relying too much on goals. GM set a goal to regain 29%...

Selling Used Stuff: A $9 Billion Market

Posted by: John Tozzi on April 16

Stores that sell used stuff -- second-hand clothes, old records, antiques, and other vintage items -- did $9 billion in business in 2007. That's according to numbers released today by...

Recession hits everything. Even the funnies.

Posted by: Amy Choi on April 01

Brenda Starr, girl reporter, was laid off this weekend by her newsroom boss B. Babbitt Bottomline. She's not alone in her comic axed-ness — office cubicle mainstay Dilbert was fired...

The Amish Workforce and Small Business Part II

Posted by: Stacy Perman on January 08

In August, I blogged about what appeared to be a growing trend among small businesses: the use of Amish workers. As a result of a number of factors, among them:...

Spanx For Men?

Posted by: Stacy Perman on December 23

That is exactly how the British-based Equmen are touting their new line of high-performance brand of men’s underwear. Using compression technologies Equmen’s singlets, tees and long-sleeves boast that they improve...

A Job Matchmaker for the Newly Laid-Off Masses

Posted by: Stacy Perman on December 18

Reader Scott Barham wrote in response to my recent story What Layoffs Meant for Small Businesses: "It's true there is a lot of talent available for hire at the moment...

Good times at the ‘Savor the Success’ party

Posted by: Colleen Debaise on December 10

Earlier this week, I attended an event sponsored by Savor the Success, a social network for female entrepreneurs. And in a holiday season marked by pessimism, this one provided some...

The Future of Tourism in an Economic Downturn?

Posted by: Stacy Perman on November 20

With everyone cutting back on luxury items and non-essentials and companies slashing workforces, benefits and perks, a couple of clever entrepreneurs have introduced a spare hotel for lean times. Enter...

What Are You Doing for Global Entrepreneurship Week?

Posted by: Nick Leiber on November 14

The upcoming Global Entrepreneurship Week (Nov. 17 through Nov. 23) is a series of events meant to encourage young people around the globe to think creatively and turn business ideas...

CraftNetwork: Making fair-trade sustainable

Posted by: John Tozzi on October 16

Yesterday I got a chance to chat with Chris Benz, founder of fair-trade exporter of artisan-made goods CraftNetwork. (Benz got in touch from Indonesia, where he's based, after we wrote...

And the Recession Will be Green…

Posted by: Stacy Perman on October 07

I often get all sorts of interesting pitches in my inbox. Many try targeting their pitch to current events. So it was with great, um, bemusement that I read...

$200,000 for the business plan that keeps young talent in New Orleans

Posted by: John Tozzi on October 01

A New Orleans nonprofit is offering $200,000 to the business idea that can retain the networks of talented young people who came to help rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina....

Bon Appetit Recession Style

Posted by: Stacy Perman on September 22

According to an item in New York magazine, some of the city’s tony eateries are paring down along with the economy, lowering prices and offering incentives to fill tables...

Another craft marketplace for artisans

Posted by: John Tozzi on September 17

Stowe Boyd points us to CraftNetwork, another craft marketplace connecting developing world artisans with customers around the world, along the lines of the World of Good eBay store I mentioned...

Is Small the New Big?

Posted by: Stacy Perman on September 10

It used to be way back in the day, that consumers shopped for their produce, meat and fish at a variety of individual purveyors. Then came the small grocer and...

eBay: fostering entrepreneurship in developing countries?

Posted by: John Tozzi on September 03

Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb reports on a new eBay marketplace for green and fair-trade products called World of Good. It's a partnership with the organization of the same name,...

Outsourcing: the New (Old) Amish Workforce

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 19

The WSJ published a story Friday about consumers hiring Amish contractors and subcontractors to build homes for folks who are not part of the strict conservative Christian sect. The...