Advice (and Money!) For Entrepreneurs

By Zack on July 28, 2009

One way to avoid working a job you hate is to create your own job. Entrepreneurship can be exciting, rewarding and especially, difficult. Alex Lindahl at College Mogul has a great roundup from a recent entrepreneurship event that features some very useful advice from some successful entrepreneurs and Venture Capitalists. I found this piece of advice particularly interesting:

"Start with a need in the marketplace opposed to finding a technology and then finding a need later." They took this approach with one of their recent portfolio companies, AltaRock. While doing research, the GPV team discovered that drilling oil holes is very expensive. Each one costs about $10 million and takes 4 months to drill. "There's gotta be a better way to do that." Explained, Ben. They discovered a solveable problem first and then went to universities and researchers to see if anyone was working on a new technology that could be applied to reduce costs.

Part of any successful business, in any industry, is recognizing a need that you intend to fill. It's no different when starting your own. Start with the conflict or the problem that needs to be solved, and then develop the solution.

I guess another very big problem with starting your own company is money. Well, Careers That Don't Suck points us to this $100,000 Grant contest for aspiring Entrepreneurs. The competition will be stiff, I'm sure, and involves writing an essay detailing your plans. The deadline is August 14, so be sure to check out this link for the details.

Journalism students go to Iraq, old people steal your jobs and cell phone etiquette, today, in The Links ...

The Chronicle of Higher Ed Notes That U of Alaska J-students Will Be Heading To Iraq: Talk about on-the-job training. "Three undergraduate students and a professor leave this week for Diyala Province in Iraq, where they will spend nearly a month embedded with U.S. troops. They plan to eat, sleep, and travel alongside members of an Alaska-based Army Stryker Brigade Combat Team, while filing daily articles for news organizations and for their student newspaper, The Sun Star."(via Romenesko)

Ere.net Reports That Old People Are Stealing Your Jobs: The gist: Older workers (54+) are getting laid off and having difficulty finding comparable jobs. Their solution: take entry level jobs. Since they have more experience and are willing to work on the cheap, many companies have been hiring them, leaving entry level recent grads in the dust. There are a lot of implications for this, and the Ere.net article is a good source to find out how and why they tukk yer jobs.

Christine Hassler Discusses Cell Phone Etiquette: "This morning I walked into a public bathroom in an airport lounge and as I sat down on the porcelain throne, the woman next to me started speaking. At first I assumed she was asking for a friendly "help a sister out under the stall toilet paper pass" but I quickly realized she was not talking to me at all - she was on her cell phone." The same thing happened to me last week. I freaked out! Anyway, cell phone etiquette is useful for the office, in class and in job interviews, too. Learn it.

"Money, Money, Money" courtesy borman818 via Flickr Creative Commons