Startup Spark

The Carnival of Entrepreneurs - Round 3

by Ben Yoskovitz on December 27th, 2006

It’s time for Round 3 of the Carnival of Entrepreneurs, with a whackload of great, entrepreneurial content. This round, like the first and second rounds did not disappoint.

I’ve highlighted some of my favorites, but I encourage you to check out everything and anything that interests you.

As well, please help promote the Carnival by linking to it! It’s easy to do and your readers will appreciate it. In the New Year I’ll be asking others to host it for me, perhaps in a few weeks once we have a couple more under our belts. If you’re interested, please get in touch.

My Carnival Highlights

• Charles H. Green suggests that you write your next proposal with the client. Charles recommends that you ask the client (well technically they’re a prospect) to write the proposal with you, instead of having you do it on your own and submitting it. It’s a crazy idea…so crazy it might work … has anyone ever triedit?
• Barbra Sundquist presents Top 5 Food Business Trends for 2007. Maybe it’s the season, but I can’t help but be interested in a food-related post. Plus the trends are ironic in a way; from ultra-healthy to ultra-fatty (and yummy.)
• Josh Bickford asks, Is your goal worth of you? Josh wants us to strive for bigger goals, and stop selling ourselves short. I’m all for that. His post merits more discussion, hopefully this sends some his way. Check out the question he asks at the end…it’s a doozy.
• Jack Yoest got to meet Sylvester Stallone. Pretty cool. Plus he does something along the lines of a review of Sly’s latest movie and connects the dots between Rocky Balboa and entrepreneurial success.
• SVB tells it like it is with her lessons learned about entrepreneurship. We all face hardship in our lives, including our entrepreneurial ventures, and SVB is learning the ropes and figuring it all out.

Can I Get Some Motivation With That Holiday Feast Please?

• Steve Faber says success is at your doorstep. He’s not pulling any punches here. You’ll either say “damn straight” or “ouch” when you read his thoughts. So read ‘em and tell him what you think.
• David Maister has a new podcast episode on investing in your career where he focuses on your non-billable time and what you’re doing with it to improve yourself and your career.
• Craig Harper has a list of 35 tips to create and grow your business. The link goes to part one of the series. I really like tip #9.

Money, Money, Money!

• Juuso Hietalahti has a rule you should use when deciding whether to lower your product price. It’s got something to do with beer, so it can’t be too bad, right? Reducing your product price is easy and the common feeling is that it will increase sales, but is it worth it and does it really work?
• Murad Ali introduces us to the Pecking Order Theory of Finance, a straightforward article on deciding how to finance your business.
• Wilson Ng reminds us that passive income is a great way to build wealth. He discusses the Rule of 72 and compound interest. Passive income is an extremely popular subject these days, particularly for bloggers.

Best Business Practices

• Benecia Beyer asks, Are you an organized manager? Good question. The article asks a few pointed questions about your work habits and tries to focus your energies on getting things done.
• Travis Wright introduces us to the book The Next Millionaires by Paul Zane Pilzer. Apparently 10,000,000 new millionaires will be created between 2006 and 2016. A boy can dream right?

The World of Online Entrepreneurship

• Julia Dorofeeva has some suggestions for your website’s logo. Julia’s focus is the dating business, which is huge online, but her ideas and suggestions could apply to any company with a strong online presence.
• John Wesley presents The Next Big Thing: Will It Be You? John’s got some opinions about what makes bloggers successful and a couple of blogging pet peeves as well. He doesn’t like list posts (hope this doesn’t count!) and points a finger directly at Ririan Project for posting unoriginal list posts because of their popularity. A little controversy never hurt anyone, right?
• Lynn Cognito offers up her thoughts on PayPal and their frustrating handling of fraudulent charges. For anyone in the eBay business (or thinking about it) getting some good lessons on PayPal is a smart move.
• Sagar Satapathy presents a list of free CRM tools for home-based or small businesses. I’m not familiar with any of them, but CRM in general is worth checking out and can help a business stay organized.
• Yan presents his Social Bargain Hunting Roundup. He’s looked at a number of bargain-related sites that include social features and presented his review of them.
• Mary Emma Allen reminds home-based business owners that blogging can work for them too. I laughed outloud when I read the question someone asked her about blogs. Great stuff!

I hope you find something here that interests you, and spread the word! Tell your friends, link up to the post, etc.

Next week’s Carnival will be hosted on January 3, 2007 - so get your submissions in!

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POSTED IN: Carnival of Entrepreneurs