StartupNation Blogs

On a recent appearance on The Big Idea with Donny, I was one of three people on a panel. It was our role to help people fed into the show via satellite and phone.
It’s a huge challenge to be in the hot seat and be ready to fire away with valuable advice. But it’s thrilling, [...]

For those of you who run a business or are trying to get one off the ground, I bet you’ve had a run-in or two with a crisis of some kind.
It may have taken the shape of a loss of data, or a short-fall in needed cash. Perhaps it was a lawsuit or a personal [...]

As if we didn’t know it, the New York Times wrote today,
“Banks struggling to recover from multibillion-dollar losses on real estate are curtailing loans to American businesses, depriving even healthy companies of money for expansion and hiring.”
Yep, tough times. We all are well aware of the fact that everyone’s getting more conservative including customers, vendors [...]

I made a public promise on this week’s telechat with Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. The promise was to use the techniques that Dan recommends at a very high-powered sales presentation that I was to give yesterday to a big potential partner.
Well, I did [...]

Huh?
I subscribe to a daily ‘Word of the Day’ email from Merriam-Webster and the other day the word was grubstake.
grubstake \GRUB-stayk\ verb :
to provide with material assistance (as a loan) for launching an enterprise or for a person in difficult circumstances
Apparently, the word gained footing during the California gold rush, and yes it’s actually [...]

Catch 22.
You have a terrific idea for a profitable small business. You need some startup cash to get it rolling. Or maybe you’ve started your business and an influx of cash will take it to the next level.
Problem is, you haven’t been in business 2 years yet so banks aren’t likely to give you a [...]