Tag: Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC)
13 Surprising Startup Challenges
QUESTION: WHAT ARE SOME CHALLENGES YOU DID NOT ANTICIPATE WHEN DECIDING TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS? Question by: Ashley CASH FLOW IS A COMMON STRUGGLE “We started with clients from day one, so we’ve always been profitable, but one thing we didn’t think about when we started was cash flow. Many profitable businesses experience famine and [...]
Top 15 Biggest Perks of Entrepreneurship
QUESTION: WHAT IS THE BIGGEST PERK OF OWNING YOUR OWN BUSINESS? Question by: Ashley LIFESTYLE OF CHOICE “Some people value creative freedom above all else. Some value work/life balance. Still others have their eye on the big bucks. For me, success is the ability to be picky about the projects I take on while still making [...]
5 Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurial MBAs
For entrepreneurs, business school presents a unique set of choices and opportunities that can drastically alter a founder’s chance of success — for better or worse. I founded Troop ID while I was an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School in February of 2010. And while today we employ 17 people and sign up nearly 1,000 new [...]
What One Skill Do All Entrepreneurs Need to Succeed?
Question by: Ashley PERSEVERANCE “Cash will run low, clients won’t close, team members will leave, the product will have bugs, and the roof will fall on your head. There will be times when you seriously consider quitting. I’ve been there. But perseverance and dumbfounded self-confidence pushed me forward. Without perseverance, you’ll never reach success. “ [...]
What I Learned From Raising a Series A
Recently, we announced a $5 million Series A round of financing. We started raising this round and talking to investors in late fall of last year. As you can probably imagine, going through this process involves taking a step back from the day-to-day work and looking at our overall strategy and evolution. Fundraising forces you to [...]
15 Tips To Do More Focused Work (Even When You’re On The Go)
QUESTION: HOW DO YOU STAY FOCUSED WHEN WORKING ON THE GO — IN AIRPORTS, CO-WORKING SPACES, STARBUCKS? TIME YOUR WORK SESSIONS “Set a timer for thirty minutes and commit to not doing anything else during that time. No phone, no email, no Facebook. Setting a timer frees your mind to focus on the single task at [...]
13 Ways to Manage Your (Hectic) Schedule And Stay On Task
Question: How do you keep yourself on task/maintain productivity with a hectic work schedule? TURN OFF THE DOPAMINE DRIP “Let’s face it — we’re all addicted to email. If you want to get stuff done, turn off your email. Close your social media feeds and web browser too. You’ll be amazed at what you get [...]
“Stopping Out” Of College to Start Up? 3 Ways to Prepare
Many college students are beginning to question whether or not a college education is really worth the thousands of dollars — if not hundreds of thousands — that they are shelling out every year. Although many parents squirm at the thought of their children dropping out or “stopping out” (taking a break from college for [...]
The 6 Startup Stages Entrepreneurs Must Face
As far as I can tell, there are six stages in almost every startup life cycle. But to get to the last stage — a successful exit — founders have to overcome a lot of hurdles. They must solve a real problem for their customers, scale successfully and have the right people on their team [...]
12 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Give Back and Do Good
Question: What’s one way your business is giving back to the community (or globe generally) that you’d recommend to other entrepreneurs? Question by: Ashley VALUABLE VIRTUAL REAL ESTATE “As a small bootstrapped startup, we don’t have enough money to make meaningful monetary donations to the nonprofits we support. Instead, we donate to them by doing [...]
