50 Signs You Need to Start Your Own Business

An entrepreneurial type reads the signals and suddenly realizes it's time to make the leap and ready a launch.

If you’re sitting at your desk, daydreaming about starting your own business, this is the article for you.

You already know that launching a company can be an intimidating process requiring tons of hard work. But the question has been lingering with you day and night. Maybe you're just unhappy with your current position. Perhaps you've always dreamed of opening your own shop or consulting firm. Or maybe you just need a drastic change in you life.

9 Lessons You Won't Learn in Business School

More and more in Silicon Valley, we’re seeing less and less of an interest in pursuing MBA programs. It seems every week a new story highlights the opportunity costs of these programs, the unemployment rates for its graduates (though less than 5 percent of Harvard's class of 2012 was unemployed three months after graduating) and the celebrated entrepreneurs who didn’t finish college let alone a graduate program (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg).

Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media, Moment by Moment

Many people have questioned the sudden rise of “personal branding.” Why do we care so much now and why the emphasis on the topic?

While in some cases we can thank reality television for turning ordinary people into authors, product developers, spokespeople and marketers, the truth is that the concept of selling yourself has been around for decades.

Tight Budget Launch Dilemma - Outsource or DIY?

As a self-funded entrepreneur, you start off as little more than a freelancer but, eventually, you are unable to do everything. You can’t design and manufacture a product from beginning to end while building a media company to promote yourself and a stylish, intuitive ecommerce platform.

A self-funded entrepreneur almost always must come up with the product idea and its unique selling proposition, then define your unique position in media space. Beyond that, it all depends on what your particular skills are. You should outsource some of the following:

How to Find the Absolute Right Mentor to Steer You to Startup Success

When I started out in business I had bravado, a visage of courage and a swagger like I knew what I was doing.

I soon found out that I had virtually no idea what I was doing and that I was either going to stick with the "fake it till you make it" mentality or I would adopt the "know it to grow it" approach.

Well, I went with the second option and I'm thankful every day for having had the courage to check my ego at the door and ask for some help, insight and guidance.

4 Tips for Attracting That Bit of Luck Every Entrepreneur Needs

Sometimes, as the adage advises sagely, a little luck is the best plan. Here are four things you can do to increase the likelihood that good things will come your way. Each one is designed to put you in a better position to advance toward whatever is your goal

Turning Crisis Into Opportunity: 5 Ways to Deal With Hardship

Entrepreneurs face obstacles from the moment they wake up in the morning, whether they're trying to satisfy investors, struggling to meet payroll, dealing with unexpected complications or delivering a new product to market.

Of course, not everyone is cut out for these rough seas. But some individuals stand out as being particularly well-suited for dealing with what investor and advisor Ben Horowitz calls the “hard things.”

Going From 'Least Likely to Succeed' and Charting a Path to Prosperity

Success is a loaded term. For some it is measured purely in money and how much one earns. For others it is determined by the happiness and longevity of interpersonal relationships. For most, however, it is a combination of factors, some tangible, some less so.

As an immigrant of Pakistani descent who moved to the United States as a kid and worked a series of odd jobs to help my family make ends meet but never graduated college, success is defined by how well I and those whose lives I’ve touched have maximize the opportunities around us.

3 Push Notification Strategies to Increase App Engagement

Mobile push notifications can engage your users when your app is not in an active state.

Because most users don’t go back to apps after using it once for lack of engaging content, push notifications are vital.

There are many forms of engagement through push notifications. Try one or more from the following based on your app and its customers:

5 Ways to Create More Mental Space

We live in an information-rich, time-poor world. Here are five simple ways to unclutter your mind, think more clearly and boost your effectiveness.

Today's hyperactive and attention-demanding world makes reflection no easy task. Nonetheless, we still must find a way to carve out "mental space" so we can think clearly, plan, reflect, dream. Peter Drucker expressed the value of reflection years ago even when the world was not so information-rich and time-poor.

He said, "Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action."

How Social Media Can Reinvent Your Staid, Old Sales Tactics

Twitter and Facebook are disrupting your brand's traditional marketing efforts. Here's how to adapt.

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half." --John Wanamaker, late 1800s.

More than a century ago, the founder of Wanamaker's department store uttered those words (or so the legend goes). A pioneer of merchandising and sales, John Wanamaker knew advertising helped drive purchases, but the why and how remained a mystery.

Money Is Not What Makes Successful Entrepreneurs Tick

Fact: a very high percentage of startups fail. They might run out of money, and they might very well bankrupt their founders in the process. Despite the odds, more people are jumping onto the entrepreneurial bandwagon.

Brutal Lessons From 4 Failed Startups

With thousands of startups worldwide building new products, it’s no wonder 75 percent of them fail. It’s actually a good thing because startup birth and death helps the ecosystem overall. Entrepreneurs can learn as much from mistakes as successes. Poor management, ineffective marketing and team stress are some of the many reasons why companies fail.

5 Tips to Creating a Successful Content-Marketing Campaign

The phrase “content marketing” is all over the web these days. Content has become a conglomeration of many things: webinars, blog posts, videos, social network shares and more. It sounds like a great idea. If done right, a well-executed digital campaign will yield considerable benefits for both established businesses and entrepreneurs. Such a strategy has the power to position a business as a topical authority and establish the owners and executives as experts.