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My top 3 blog posts for the first 2 weeks of November

I'm Michael Sliwinski and I'm an entrepreneur who's also the...
.. Founder of Nozbe.com - a time and project management web application
.. Editor of Productive! Magazine - a global PDF publication on productivity
.. and a blogger as well as a producer of a weekly 2-minute Productive! show.

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Are you motivated by the journey? or the destination?

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Myths Of Owning A Small Business

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Germany. Why this country really sucks once in a while.

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The Eight Best Questions About Your Venture You Can't Fool Around With!

via techcrunch.com

THE questions to answer about your venture. Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, online real estate broker, gives excellent answers and insights:

1. What’s your deadly sin?
- You want to be the site people can’t stop using, not the one they should use.

2. Where’s the real money?
- The way to be about your addressable market: not just greedy, but disciplined.

3. What are your unit economics?
- Make sure you hire the right team and invest in its happiness.

4. What are the explanatory events?
- When there are no explanatory events causing revenue growth, you’re just getting lucky.

5. Why can’t you grow faster?
- Most growth limiting factor is probably how quickly one can hire top-notch people.

6. What are the accelerating effects?
- Focus on your most sustainable competitive advantages.

7. What’s your secret sauce?
- Prioritize game-changing features.

8. How do you win?
- The essential job of a CEO is to tell the story about how to win.

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Small Business Social Media – Free, Expansive Advertising

Nikolas Severidt, November 18, 2009

Every business, whether large or small, new or developed, must locate effective ways to advertise.  If you are looking for advertising on a massive scale, completely free of charge, you have found it in small business social media!  Just about every business today, even if they operate out of a physical location, has an online presence.  Many lack the ability to drive traffic to their sites, however.  One great way is to utilize the expansive, complementary venue of the social media.  Instead of counting on friends, family and other local customers, you can expand your reach to all corners of your target market through proper advertising avenues.

There are people out there looking for exactly what you are selling.  It is your job to find them and tell them what you have to offer.  A personal, effective way to accomplish this is by utilizing the vastly popular realm of social media sites.  Yes, you could stick to advertising on television commercials and with pay per click ads, but you will be missing a lucrative market available to you completely for free!  This is the answer for many small business social media men and women who are familiar with these aspects online.  Even if you are not, it is easy to learn.

Small business social media online is something that takes a bit of time to learn, but it is fairly easy and actually very fun to get involved in!  You might choose to set up a Twitter account or Facebook page in the name of yourself or allow a few employees to do so.  You might also decide to simply have the page be the voice of the business itself.  Both are effective approaches that you may want to compare and decide what you think would work best for your specific business.

While you should not rely solely on the ability of small business social media to bring customers to your site, it is one tactic that absolutely should not be ignored.  There will undoubtedly be a need to establish some paid advertising in other places online, but why would you pass up an opportunity to get exposure for free?  You can have great fun personalizing your business in the eyes of your customers and generating loyal customers and fans.  This and other business techniques exist at www.businesssuccesssimplified.com, where the goal is to simplify how you can find success in your business.

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What it feels like to be an Entrepreneur

Somehow, I came across this video in my YouTube favorite’s list.

I’m not sure who first recommended it to me, but I find it amazing how it perfectly describes what an Entrepreneur goes through from starting on an initial idea to finishing with a successful business.

I watched it this morning, and I seriously got an emotional reaction from it. It was a reaction that I think only a small fraction of the 1.5 million people that have seen this video will truly understand.

Here’s how I would break it down:

The first 18 seconds This is the part where you’ve come up with your idea. You don’t know if it will stick, or if it will be successful. You just know that it excites you, and that it makes you feel good, so you dance with it.

About a minute into the video You’re still doing what feels good. It gets a bit tougher. You’ve got a handful of friends and family that are jiving with you and are there to support you, but they’re a little unsure, which makes you a little unsure. You wonder to yourself: Will this idea fly? You keep going, because it still feels good and you’ve gone this far, why not go all the way? You forge ahead with your idea.

The next 30 seconds All of a sudden, things start to speed up. You see strange new faces, smiling, jiving with your idea. They feel good, you feel good. It’s all good.

From about a minute and 45 seconds onwards This is where I almost cried. Seriously. This is the point that every entrepreneur lives for. The part where you’ve got people that truly believe in your idea, and they’ve let go of any reservations and are just swarming at you, because they want to be part of your movement.

At the end of the video You take a step back, and look at how you’ve changed the world. And you say, Yes, I pulled it off. And now, it’s not your idea anymore, it is bigger than that. Time to move on.

This is what every entrepreneur lives for. There are a lot of alternate paths that this video doesn’t show. However, I truly believe that if you stick to your idea and execute relentlessly with dedication, this is the one true path to entitlement.

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How To Build & Run Open Source Companies. Very Honest Talk w Wordpress Matt Mullenweg #TWiST

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Startup pitches - greatest hits

See the best practie of start-up pitches, including Ev Williams presenting twitter, Obama, Mint, Admob and more:

JohnBischke.com - A dozen of the best startup pitches on the web

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Catching the Entrepreneurial Bug : Side-Effects

Its true for startups (one reason I say delay the funding so you're forced to choose this over that, etc).

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