Category: business advice

Bloomberg BusinessWeek could use a business lesson

Posted on admin-donlLeave a commentPosted in business advice, COO, Marketing

I have been a Bloomberg BusinessWeek subscriber since 1975. I’ve also had The New York Times home delivery for over a decade. Both print subscriptions grant my wife and me digital rights access on both of our iPhones or iPads.

In March I decided that I’m so happy with my digital access that I no longer wanted to receive a print copy of BusinessWeek or the NY Times.

New York Times understands that eliminating the print delivery is a huge cost and environmental savings and simply allowed me to change my subscription to digital access only. Doing so drops the rate from $65 per month to $20 per month while still granting access to my wife and me on our individual iPads and iPhones. A simple phone call was all it took and the $480 annual savings almost paid for my iPad.

But BusinessWeek is another story altogether. When I called to change to digital-only service they said I’d have to cancel my print subscription and order a new subscription from the Apple App Store. Read more…

Eliminate the chaos from your affiliate marketing

Posted on admin-donlLeave a commentPosted in business advice, Marketing

SmarterChaos is an affiliate management agency based in Castle Rock Colorado that can help you find partners who will drive traffic and customers to your website. Matt Frary, founder and CEO of SmarterChaos discusses affiliate marketing, trends in internet marketing and offers lots of solid advice for driving and building traffic for your website.

Any entrepreneur and startup needs to build brand awareness, SEO rank and sales. Affiliate marketing is part of a three pronged marketing approach along with Pay-Per-Click advertising and organic search (SEO). Learn from an expert about how outsource your marketing expense to independent affiliates who assume your risk in exchange for commissions based on sales.

Update 2/12/2023 Smarter Chaos was acquired by Digital Media Solutions. For more information go to  digitalmediasolutions.com.  For information on Matt Frary visit Matt’s LinkedIn Page.

Sales tax management made easy with Avalara

Posted on admin-donlLeave a commentPosted in business advice, Finance, Getting Started

Collecting and reporting of sales tax is a complicated task for any company, but a fast growing startup based on Bainbridge Island, Washington is changing all that. Avalara provides realtime automation of sales tax processing for online as well as brick and mortar retailers. The company automates the process of collecting sales tax, preparing returns for state and local jurisdictions, and also manages resale permits for your customers who purchase goods for resale.

Marshal Kushniruk, Avalara’s Executive Vice President of Business Development, is the company’s first hire and is a serial entrepreneur with an amazing track record of success. In his interview on The Free COO podcast on July 19, 2012, Marshal talks about his distinguished career and tells us how Avalara is helping companies eliminate a tedious but necessary task by offering a cloud based automated sales tax system.

Prior to Avalara, Marshal founded The Byte Stuff and Abacus Accounting Software, both highly successful startups. This was a fantastic interview, full of incredible insights and advice for any entrepreneur.

For more information on Avalara go to www.avalara.com

The Founder’s Dilemmas explored

Posted on admin-donlLeave a commentPosted in Biotech startups, business advice, free business advice

Dr. Noam Wasserman, Ph. D., Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School is the author of “The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup“. This is an amazing book that is simply a “must read” for any entrepreneur, anyone who will be working for an entrepreneur, their investors, vendors and customers.

Whether founding a company by yourself or with a team, and whether that team is comprised of friends and family, work colleagues or strangers, you’ll need to be aware of all of the forks in the road and dilemmas that you will face when starting a high-potential startup. Fortunately, this book really covers all the bases and, where Dr. Wasserman is uncertain of a particular dilemma or outcome, he is clear about that as well.

Founders Dilemmas is the result of over a decade of intensive research following the founders of over 10,000 startups in technology and bio-tech. If you are starting any company, you’d be crazy not to read this book. It will really open your eyes and could give you that edge you’ll need to be both king of your venture and rich.

Hear Noam discuss some of his key insights from his work. This is a rare chance to learn from one of the top business professors in the United States and you won’t even have to take a GMAT. Enjoy!


Sponsored Link

The Free COO airs Thursdays at 4:00pm on Spreaker

Biotech incubator QB3 transforming research into new ventures

Posted on admin-donlLeave a commentPosted in Biotech startups, business advice, startup incubators

Douglas Crawford, Ph. D., Associate Director of QB3 and Managing Director of Mission Bay Capital discusses the role of the State of California’s Governor Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovations’ role in transferring academic research into viable startup ventures. QB3, The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences is one of the four institutes and is a conduit for the University of California’s UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and UC Santa Cruz’s biosciences departments.

Learn how PH. D.’s in bioscience are forming venture backed startups on their own or in a partnership with other tech and business entrepreneurs. Hear about the many programs and opportunities open to all entrepreneurs at QB3.

For more information on QB3 and Mission Bay Capital follow these links:
QB3
Mission Bay Capital

For information on the other Institutes for Science and Innovation follow this link:
The Governor Gray Davis Institute for Science and Innovation

The Free COO airs Thursdays at 4:00pm Pacific Time on Spreaker.

Len Lodish discusses how Diapers.com went from zero to $545M

Posted on admin-donlLeave a commentPosted in business advice, free business advice, Marketing

Len Lodish, Vice Dean, Program for Social Impact and Samuel R. Harrell Professor in the Marketing department of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was my guest on The Free COO radio show on May 3, 2012.

Two of Len’s students from Wharton San Francisco’s MBA for Executives program founded Diapers.com while in school. Len was an investor and on Diaper.com’s Board of Directors. He discusses how the company went from a startup to its acquisition by Amazon.com for $545MM in just five years. Here how Diaper.com started in a garage, sourcing supplies from Costco in order to test their theory and market potential. Then learn how their customer service totally delights their customers.

Dr. Lodish also helped two other students get www.milo.com off the ground and sold to eBay.com in less than three years.

In this amazing interview we’ll explore Len’s career, his courses at Wharton, his own fantastically successful startups, his Global Consulting Practicum and how he and his wife complete a 1,000km unassisted tandem bike ride somewhere in the world each year to raise funds for the ALS Association of Philadelphia.

You’ve got to hear this interview end to end.

For more information about Len or to contribute to his annual 1,000K fund raiser visit these links:

Wharton MBA for Executives

Len Lodish’s profile

The Free COO airs Thursdays on Speaker.com. You can also hear replays on Facebook and iTunes.

Vish Mishra of TiE and Clearstone Ventures talks about his career

Posted on admin-donlLeave a commentPosted in business advice, free business advice, Getting Started

Hear this great interview where Vish Mishra of TiE and Clearstone Ventures talks about his career. Starting as an immigrant from India, Mr. Mishra became a serial entrepreneur and founder of companies such as Excelan and Telera. Excelan went to an IPO and was purchased by Novell and Telera was purchase by Alcatel.

Today Vish is a Venture Director at Clearstone Venture Partners and is also a Charter Member and President of TiE Silicon Valley (the Indus Entrepreneurs).

Vish offers tons of great advice for aspiring entrepreneurs from how to chose a product to how to create an executive summary that can be presented to venture capitalists.

You can find out more about Vish at:
TiE Silicon Valley – sv.tie.org/
Clearstone Venture Partners – www.clearstone.com

The Free COO airs on Thursdays at 4:00pm Pacific Time on www.Spreaker.com.