Garage Entrepreneurs

We’ve assembled some top tips for young entrepreneurs from a few of our dedicated members. We asked them: What would be your best advice for a young, passionate entrepreneur or would-be entrepreneur? Joe Ornato – Founder, Ornato Group Create a backstage process.  Write down all the steps that it will take to give your customer the ultimate experience.  Natural sales people tend to “do” what they “know” intuitively, without getting into a well-defined process.  Building a process allows for: consistency, duplication, […] Continue Reading Best Advice for Young Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs experience failure an average of 3.2 times before finally being successful. From working with many entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs, I believe a major factor in not being successful the first time is not truly knowing yourself. Every year I update a personal inventory as part of my overall personal strategic plan. This strategic plan is separate from the strategic plan for my business. Having an updated personal inventory is helpful when I need to make tough decisions as an entrepreneur. […] Continue Reading Three Self Assessments for Young Entrepreneurs

Laurie Hawkins is an energetic, world-class Certified Business Coach and leader, with an extraordinary range of business expertise. Laurie is the owner of Hawk Inspired, FocalPoint Coaching. As a FocalPoint certified coach, Laurie can transform your business, as well as your professional and personal life through long-term, one-on-one coaching – the most effective method in which to affect lasting business improvement and skill development. Eric: Laurie, tell me about yourself and your business background. Laurie: I have spent twenty years in […] Continue Reading Garage Entrepreneurs Interview with Small Business Coach Laurie Hawkins

Recently we’ve been receiving quite a few member requests for more information on how to manage the online presence of a new business. A major component of that online presence would be building a website. To help our members, we asked expert Avery Swartz (www.AverySwartz.com) to write a TWO PART series on Website Tips for Entrepreneurs. Avery is an award-winning print and web designer. Avery works with entrepreneurs to ensure that their message is conveyed simply, clearly, and elegantly through their […] Continue Reading Website Tips for Entrepreneurs Part Two

Recently we’ve been receiving quite a few member requests for more information on how to manage the online presence of a new business.  A major component of that online presence would be building a website.  To help our members, we asked expert Avery Swartz (www.AverySwartz.com) to write a TWO PART series on Website Tips for Entrepreneurs.  Avery is an award-winning print and web designer.  Avery works with entrepreneurs to ensure that their message is conveyed simply, clearly, and elegantly through their […] Continue Reading Website Tips for Entrepreneurs Part One

In my experience, I’ve observed two very different “types” of entrepreneurs.  Let’s call them Generals and Explorers. The Generals start with a given set of means (military training, political power) and seek to identify the best way to arrive at their goal.  The entrepreneurial Generals begin with a set of means: their abilities, their education/experience, and their networks (who they know) and use this set of means to come up with new ideas/solutions to problems.  They start with a goal (to […] Continue Reading Are You an Explorer or a General?

The absolute best way to find a good idea is to look for a good idea. As an EIT (Entrepreneur-in-Training), you need to realize that a great business idea will never just ‘fall into your lap’.  In my experience, and from speaking to successful young entrepreneurs, you must actively partake in an ideation process. There are many places that you can look for a good idea, but some of my favorites have been included in a past post that I wrote on Entrepreneurial […] Continue Reading Young Entrepreneurs: To Find a Good Idea, LOOK For One!

If you’re a business student (or a future business student), you’re no doubt familiar with the 4 P’s of Marketing: Price, Product, Placement and Promotion. I’d like to talk about the 4 P’s of Entrepreneurship: Passion, Persuasiveness, Patience and Pain Threshold. Passion: One common characteristic about all entrepreneurs is that they’re passionate about what they’re doing. If you’re a young entrepreneur starting (or thinking about starting) a new business, you need to be able to live it, breathe it, eat it […] Continue Reading The 4 P’s of Entrepreneurship

I recently had a chance to interview entrepreneur and Canadian native, Ben Yoskovitz, Co-Founder of Standout Jobs and the man behind ‘Instigator Blog’. Ben has been an entrepreneur for 12+ years in the Web space, working extensively in web and software development. I had a chance to ask Ben a few questions about his experiences as an entrepreneur. Eric: How did you start out as an entrepreneur? Ben: I started my first company in 1996 while I was still at McGill University. […] Continue Reading Interview with Co-Founder of Standout Jobs, Ben Yoskovitz

I started working on my first business when I was 18 years old. I have certainly learned some valuable lessons since then through my experiences and I am still learning. There have been many ups and downs but deciding to create my own job and become an entrepreneur is one of the most rewarding decisions I’ve ever made. If I could go back in time and give some advice to myself when I was starting my first business, these are the […] Continue Reading 10 Lessons I Learned from My First Startup