Do You Have the Entrepreneurial 'X Factor?'

There's a mysterious "X factor" shared by entrepreneurs around the world. Fledgling entrepreneurs reach for it, while the successful seem to wear it effortlessly. But what is this elusive entrepreneurial element? Is it a learned skill, or is it genetic? Can entrepreneurship be taught, or is it something that's just in your blood?

The truth is that while many skills shared by great entrepreneurs can be learned, two elements are traits that entrepreneurs are born with.

The traits entrepreneurs possess

In my experience, the entrepreneurial "X factor" comes down to a dichotomy of two innate traits. The first being creativity, which is the ability to discover and develop viable new business ideas. The second is intuition, or the gift of knowing who will benefit from a new idea and how to sell them the idea.

These two elements work in tandem: They lend the uncanny ability to see around corners and create true vision. If you don't have these two elements, you will most likely not succeed as an entrepreneur. That doesn't mean you can't run a successful business, but it will not be a truly entrepreneurial venture.

And even if you did win the genetic lottery, for this powerful duo to be used to their full potential, they must be harnessed with four other learned skills.

1. People skills. Understanding how to build and inspire a team could be an entire concentration of study within academia. The art of getting people to do what you want them to do requires a lot of practice and many failed attempts before getting it right.

2. Ability to focus resources. Often, entrepreneurial ventures suffer from organizational ADD. Symptoms include the inability to focus on critical details necessary for project completion and the pursuit of rabbit trails. A successful entrepreneur must learn the logic behind building a business and realize when they're over-innovating to the point of wasting resources.

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230873

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11 Reasons 2014 Will Be A Breakout Year For Women Entrepreneurs

While women in the upper echelons of corporate America are singing the same old  tune, “Still No Progress After Years of No Progress,” female entrepreneurs have something to rejoice about.

The number of $10-million-plus women-owned firms increased by 57% — a growth rate nearly 50% more than $10-million-plus firms overall, according to Growing Under the Radar: An Exploration of the Achievement of Million-Dollar Women-Owned Firms.

While the number is still small —  nearly 20% of angels in 2012 invested in women-led businesses — the percentage grew more than 40% from the previous year, according to the Center of Venture Research, which studies early-stage equity financing for high-growth ventures. Even venture capitalists have increased their support of women-led companies. It’s still paltry, but the percentage of VC deals going to women-led businesses was 13% in the first half of 2013. That’s nearly a 20% jump over 2012, according to Pitchbook, a venture-capital research firm.

There is room for improvement, but the U.S. ranked #1 among 17 countries on having the conditions that foster high potential female entrepreneurship, according to Gender-Global Entrepreneurship Development Index (GEDI). These conditions include entrepreneurial environment, entrepreneurial eco-system and entrepreneurial aspirations.

Woo hoo for women entrepreneurs! They will lead the way for women in other sectors to shatter their ceilings. Some of the 11 reasons women entrepreneurs will crack glass in 2014 are common to all women and others are unique to entrepreneurs.

1. Women have the right stuff :

Women make better leaders than men, according to research conducted by Zenger Folkman. “They build better teams; they’re more liked and respected as managers; they tend to be able to combine intuitive and logical thinking more seamlessly; they’re more aware of the implications of their own and others’ actions;  and they think more accurately about the resources needed to accomplish a given outcome,” said  Jack Zenger and Joseph Folksman in Forbes. Women on the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) 50 Fastest Growing Women-Owned/Led Companies in North America know that you have to nurture your staff  in order to sustain rapid growth. That growth doesn’t happen without employees who are willing and able to deliver excellent products and great customer service.

“Two of the traits where women outscored men to the highest degree — taking initiative and driving for results — have long been thought of as particularly male strengths,” Zenger and Folkman continued.

Twenty-first-century leadership skills, such as cooperation, communication, and sharing are more commonly associated with women, according to John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio, authors of The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future. Luan Cox, Crowdnetic, is helping pioneer a new industry, crowdfinancing. She’s working with all the players in the industry to provide the data it needs to be transparent and accountable. Cristina Mariani-May, Banfi Vintners, a family winery, credits her success to her ability to build relationships by listening.

Read more : http://www.forbes.com/sites/geristengel/2014/01/08/11-reasons-2014-will-be-a-break-out-year-for-women-entrepreneurs/

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Want to Turn Huge Startup Profits? Here's Why You Need to Be Patient

What most entrepreneurs don't realize is that a new product takes a long, long time before it’s profitable. Figure about three years -- more than 1,000 days.

The last new product my company took on was a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application. The CRM application was developed by someone much smarter than me and we signed on as a partner to sell and implement the system. We added it to the mix of our existing CRM applications. I’ve done this before. And I’ve learned something: You don’t just add a new product. You invest in one.

For starters, the unlucky person in your company who you’ve volunteered to learn this new product will need to become an expert. This takes a long, long time. It requires sitting for certification exams, attending vendor classes, testing internally and then dipping your toes into the water with a new client, pretending you know what you’re doing, while you struggle to keep your own nausea under control. Because you don’t really know what you’re doing for a while. Becoming an expert in anything takes years, not months.

And becoming an expert requires money -- not just the fee you’re paying to the vendor for the privilege to sell their product (yes, if you can believe it, there is a fee). It’s the additional costs of the certification classes, the training, the seminars, the webinars and the partner conferences you’re required to attend. It’s the cost of time spent learning all this new stuff and the opportunity cost of that lost billable time. It’s the testing labs, the new server, the additional software that needs to be integrated that no one mentioned before.

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229499

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10 Best States for Starting a Business

To encourage residents to start their own businesses, U.S. states are investing in entrepreneur mentorship programs and pumping up their high-tech workforce.

Maryland, Colorado and Virginia are the three states most supportive of innovation, according to the fourth annual Enterprising States report out this week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a Washington, D.C., based business advocacy organization.

The study measured five aspects of policy including exports and international trade, entrepreneurship and innovation, business climate, talent pipeline, and infrastructure. U.S. states were ranked for their performance in each category. Also, the study measured and ranked overall economic climate and growth in each state. Utah earned the title as the top performing state overall for fostering business growth and creating jobs. It ranked in the top 10 of every policy ranking and came in third overall in economic performance.

As part of the report, the Chamber of Commerce prepared an interactive map where you can click on any state to see how it stacks up in each category and why.

Here are the top 10 states ranked for entrepreneurship and innovation, as measured by the number of high-tech businesses in the state, programs that support entrepreneurs, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) job concentration. Each state that made the list has something unique to offer resident entrepreneurs.

Maryland: The Maryland Entrepreneurs Resource List is a networking tool for connecting experienced tech executives with young startup entrepreneurs. The University of Maryland Baltimore County's ACTIVATE initiative, supported by the state's Technology Development Corporation, gives female entrepreneurs over a year of support and guidance as they launch their tech startups.

Colorado: In addition to attracting hikers and bikers, the Western state is a hotbed for high-tech businesses and ranks fourth in the country for the number of new businesses born. Also, it has a relatively high concentration of STEM jobs and in the last two years has bolstered its high-tech workforce with an additional 1,100 software programmers, 840 engineers, and 675 science research jobs.

Virginia: In addition to having the highest concentration of STEM jobs of any state in the U.S., Virginia has been home to the Center for Innovative Technology since 1985. The CIT's mission is to promote technology-based economic growth in the state and is focused on getting money to more entrepreneurs in the very early, seed round of funding.

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226521

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Shaping Crowdfunding 2.0

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has the delicate task of writing guidelines for the next generation of crowdfunding, so that investors are protected and yet preserving its benefits to companies seeking to raise money.

Crowdfunding has been mostly restricted to artists and business owners accepting small donations in exchange for things like tote bags and CDs. But the JOBS Act, signed last month, will let entrepreneurs sell pieces of their business (equity) to non-accredited investors via crowdfunding script. The SEC is expected to release its guidelines early next year.

The crowdfunding industry has its own recommendations for keeping investors safe without handicapping entrepreneurs. Here's a wish-list from RocketHub, a crowdfunding platform which counts small-business owners as its fastest-growing group of customers and plans to roll out an equity-based product in 2013 (contingent on the final SEC regulations).

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223551

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How to Start a Business in 10 Days

With an executive staffing venture about to open, a business loan from the in-laws gnawing at her conscience and a new baby to care for, Michelle Fish was already feeling the pressure. But what really pushed her over the edge was an unexpected communique from the IRS demanding immediate payment of a "huge sum" owed from a prior business in which she was a partner. Poof! Her seed money was gone. "All the spreadsheets, all the forecasting, all the pre planning took a back seat once that bill came," recalls Fish, hearkening back to the 2003 launch of her Charlotte, N.C.-based firm, Integral Staffing.


Jeremy Ostermiller didn't need a letter to know that he had to get his Denver-based media-tech startup, Altitude Digital, into the black fast or watch his future take a dispiriting U-turn. "I knew it had to be profitable," he says. "I had put my last $500 into it, and I definitely didn't want to move back in with my parents."

A lightning-fast rise to profitability by their respective startups spared Fish and Ostermiller from going belly up. Neither has looked back since. Now a decade old, enjoying seven-figure annual revenues and flush with Fortune 500 corporate clients, Integra Staffing is the third-largest female-owned business in Charlotte, according to Fish. Meanwhile, 4-year-old Altitude Digital, which matches online content publishers with advertisers using an eBay-like bidding platform, is on target to generate $20 million in revenue this year.

Chances are, neither venture would be where it is today if not for the strategically sound groundwork laid by its founder prior to and right after launch. Trying to start a business and make it profitable in a matter of weeks isn't for the squeamish. Nor is it always advisable. But it can be done. In fact, we've condensed the process into 10 intense, highly focused days. Call it our DIY accelerator to launching a business.

Read more : http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228659

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