sheeptrader

Small Business Trends reported yesterday that Six Disciplines is offering a free book (up until July 6th only) titled ‘Execution Revolution’ which discussing execution strategies… what we believe our problems are with our businesses are possibly not what we think they are. This is a great promotion that is hard to pass up. They are even covering shipping!

Get yours here by adding it to your shopping cart, creating a new account, and using the promotion code ‘START’ when checking out.

Once you’ve finished reading the book, I’d really appreciate a small review back here at this post as a comment so that the rest of my readers can benefit from your time. We all benefit when we share information about what works and what doesn’t with each other.

I’d also like to remind you that I’m giving away copies of Guy Kawasaki’s upcoming book ‘Reality Check’ to several winners that share their story about how they dealt with others who discouraged their entrepreneurial efforts. You can read about it in the original post, as well as see what others have said. The deadline is July 1st, 2008, so you only have two days left!

I recently stumbled across a free e-Book written by Michael Simmons and Sheena Lindahl, of Extreme Entrepreneurship Education Corp fame. They’ve been acknowledged by ABC, NBC, CBS, and Business Week for their efforts to reach out and educate budding young entrepreneurs. While their e-Book is mostly written for a college audience, I thought there was quite a bit of value in their message for the rest of us. Here’s a piece of the introduction in their e-Book:

You know who you are. Ambitious, entrepreneurial, goal-oriented, values-driven, persistent, self-starter, etc. You can’t help it either. You can’t help but get excited by the opportunities around you. You can’t help but get excited by your own potential. You know your life will be about big things, although you may not know exactly what those will be yet.

Here’s the thing though. It’s not easy. It’s not easy being you, because sometimes you feel isolated from parents, teachers, and even peers. Sometimes you feel like something is wrong because you feel different than those around you. Furthermore, the people closest to you, the people with the best intentions, often end up being your main critics. They say, “What makes you different?”, “You’ll never make it”, “That’s impossible”, “You’re an idealist.”, “You sure you’re not overdoing it?” They cannot help it.

Many parents encourage a safe path because that’s what worked for their generation. Many teachers encourage the conventional path because that’s what they know. Many of your peers encourage you to relax and take it easy because that’s what they enjoy. But none of these ways of being feel right to you.

Download a free copy of Michael Simmons and Sheena Lindahl’s eBook.

I immediately identified with this message. Most people that surround a young entrepreneur feel like it is their civic duty to let you know that you may not be capable of accomplishing what you’re trying to do. Is this more because they are uncomfortable with the idea, and less that you can’t do it? Is there any truth in what they are saying? Are they just trying to save you face and protect you from failure? If so, they’re limiting your potential. Also, their commentary can often be discouraging. Realize that the only people who are going to be supportive of you are other real entrepreneurs that are willing to acknowledge your ability. Most people are not wired like you are, and this is why they aren’t successful entrepreneurs themselves. They’re not interested in taking controlled chances like you are. They want to play it safe.

The fact that they play it safe isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. You and I need people like them. They’re the fabric of your future company. Rest assured, when you finally do launch that business, and get the funding you were looking for, you’re going to need reliable people to count on, who do like to play it safe — eventually. They’re going to be the ones that keep your business alive, but they’re certainly not going to be the risk takers. They’re not going to be the ones that you recognize for bright ideas and that out-of-the-box thinking that helps to separate you from your competition. Chances are, they’re not going to be your future partners, lenders, or executive team either.

Regardless of what people say, do not let down your enthusiasm. Stop and think for a minute if their advice is useful, or driven by an alternative purpose, even if it wasn’t advice you asked or was looking for. You might find that even in a negative exchange, that they are offering you an opportunity to find an area that you could use some improvement. Take it on as a personal challenge to see if what they’re suggesting might be truthful; but don’t let it stop you or hold your focus for too long. Remember, failing fast has a lot of value, and if you spend too much time trying to perfect what you’re working on, you might miss your targets. You might even lose sight of what your customers want because a colleague of yours said that your idea stunk. What made him authoritative over your ideas, anyway? Who told him he was your client’s representative? You did!

Kelle Sparta recently wrote an article for Startup Spark that seems to resonate with this line of thinking. She acknowledges that employees and entrepreneurs think very differently. You just need to realize that most people are employees (and might very well always be). Her description of the Entrepreneur Mindset seems right on target. It is relieving to find out that others breathe just like you every day, isn’t it?

Tell me your story of ’staying on track’ even when others brought you down and you could win a copy of Guy Kawasaki’s upcoming book titled Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition. It is set to be released on October 30th, 2008 and will be the latest hardcover from Guy Kawasaki, a man who needs no introduction in the entrepreneur space. Enter the contest by Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 by simply writing your story as a comment to this post. Avoid too much brevity, but don’t make it too long either! I will be choosing the winning entry by July 4th by email, so don’t forget to include your email address when adding the comment (don’t worry, I won’t give this out!).

Whether you’re running that top secret stealth-mode startup all by yourself, or have a few angel investors and a team of 12, all startups require their principals to wear multiple hats. It often makes us feel uncomfortable, because we’re always doing something we’re not really experts at! But that’s OK, because it’s our job to get the business profitable, a focusable future, and a home for invested employees… at all costs. We’re willing to jump into any role necessary to get things done. For most of us, we enjoy it, but often struggle with areas we’re not that familiar with.

For example, you might have a Software Engineering background and you are comfortable building a prototype, acquiring some initial funding, and building the first revision of your website. However, you may realize that you have absolutely no background in Design, Typography, and Page Layout, other than some lustful blog reading. This is a tough situation to be in, but you’re not the first.

Here are some more resources to help you figure out how to more effectively perform when wearing the blue, red, or purple hats.

1. 36 Startup Tips from ReadWriteWeb. This article points out some really excellent tips for Startups, including “software engineering, infrastructure, PR, conferences, legal and finance.” It’s a must-read for anyone considering the idea of starting their own business by themselves or with a partner.
2. Creating Web 2.0 Effects With Photoshop from sitepoint. If you have no clue on how to make your company’s logo get that Web 2.0 look, this is your starting point. When it comes down to it, you might not need to hire a graphics designer to set you up for your prototype or first release.
3. The 50 Most Popular Web Design Blog Posts, Resources & Cheat Sheets of 2007 from crestock. Perhaps a little dated (I mean come on, we’re in 2008 right?), this is one of the most consolidated resources that identifies the best website design concepts of 2007. If you’re not worried about looking “too 2007″ then there’s no other place to look. This is also a great way to get introduced into design, and very quickly learn what trends exist.
4. 8 Web Design Mistakes That Developers Make from wakeuplater. Read and catch these mistakes before you do them, because you know you’re really just an amateur designer waiting for the business to make enough money to hire a truly fantastic expert.
5. 100 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Beautiful Art by 3dTotal. Well, this might not directly help you with your business, but you’ll learn a crap load more than you ever wanted about how to actually use Photoshop. Then, you’ll be able to apply what you’ve learned to your future projects.
6. Illustrator Tutorials by Designer Today. Photoshop is great for some things, but it’s not a great tool to create your logo in because it doesn’t scale well. If you need to ever make your logo larger it’ll be pixelated. You’ll want to use Photoshop’s sister, Illustrator. This is just one of the many reasons to use Illustrator.

While most of these resources focused on Web Design, it mostly serves as an example of resources that can help you solve the problem of wearing a hat you’re not familiar with!

Organizing your projects is essential to success. For years, Project Managers have used tools like Microsoft Project and OmniPlan to manage and organize projects for corporations. While these are the tools they use traditionally, there are a lot of limitations to these products, including the fact that contain clunky and unattractive interfaces. If you already understand how to use them, either because you’ve been forced to use them, or because you’ve actually been a project manager, then it may make sense to continue to use them. However, if you’re new to managing projects, or you don’t have time to really learn how to make these tools work for your projects, then alternatives exist that may just prove to drive the success of anything you’re trying to accomplish.

What constitutes as a project?

First, you want to understand what a project even is. In my opinion, anything that requires several tasks to occur is a project. For example, re-organizing your home or creating a spending budget are small projects. Building a website, or even starting a business revolving around building a website is certainly a medium-to-large sized project. Making a phone call to apply for a credit card is not a project. It’s a task. Keep in mind that any major activity requiring successive or related tasks is most certainly a project, and could benefit from some kind of project management.

What is project management?

In simple terms, project management is the act of organizing and managing a project from research (identifying requirements, researching on the web, identifying solutions), planning, to implementation. With projects requiring several people to be involved, this requires managing allocation of these tasks to various people, and following up to ensure the work has been completed. Time management is key, as inter-dependent tasks will be affected by slip-ups. A good project manager can take these sorts of things into account when the research and planning stages begin, to provide time buffers for standard problems.

The reality is, if you’re an entrepreneur, or you’re just trying to solve some problems around your home or workplace, and you’re actual occupation is not project management, then managing your project can be tedious. It can be even more difficult if you’re responsible for many projects that are all important for the success outcome. You’re not a project manager, and you have better things to do with your time than learn difficult management tools, or create one in Excel.

What tools can help with project management?

Thankfully, you’re in luck, because there are a lot of simplified tools that are available today on the web that can help. Most of these services offer a free trial or a completely free account that have limitations on the number of projects or people that can participate. It gives you a good opportunity to get a feel for the services, and actually use them to get something done.

Best Project Planning Services:

• Basecamp by 37Signals
• goplan by Webreakstuff
• unfuddle by Subventurate, LLC

Basecamp

goplan

unfuddle

Conclusion

All in all, if you pick any of these three services, you’re doing yourself a huge favor. You will have a greater chance of project success, and can keep historical evidence of your progress. None of the free accounts on these services are fully functional, but they provide a good opportunity to get a sense of the capabilities and general feel. Now that I’ve found (and used) all of them, I couldn’t imagine running even the smallest of projects without some kind of management tool.

Tags: projectmanagement, projects, tools, web 2.0, success, business, source code

Wow, one company is innovating, and it’s what I like to see. Backed by VC funding, and in development since 2005, Eye-Fi, Inc has developed a product (also called Eye-Fi) that automatically uploads your photos to online photo services and your home computer or network — but get this: right from your camera!

That’s right, this add-on SD memory card is also a WiFi card. It turns any SD-compatible camera into a wireless photo taking machine. It’s brilliant. They’ve managed to merge two distinct features (WiFi and Memory) and make it available for a reasonable cost, $99 to be exact.

I ordered one last week, and just received it today. I popped it into my MacBook Pro, and set up it’s WiFi access, and told it to upload to Flickr and one of my computers. Next, I threw it into a quick point-n-shoot camera, and I was instantly taking photos that uploaded to the web.

These will make excellent stocking stuffers this year for several family members. Of course, if you decide to buy one, use this link, and I’ll get a few bucks

Knowing where to go with your ventures can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. Determination, experience, and learning from other Entrepreneurs are keys to becoming a success. To keep my own business on track, I make a habit to absorb experiences from peers and successful Entrepreneurs by constantly and consistently reading. This gives me the tools I need to make on-the-edge decisions that I wouldn’t be able to make without having prior experiences.

Here are a few great reads that I found helpful:

1. Key Secrets to Being A Great Entrepreneur By Laurie Hayes
Develop your ability to sell very early on. Your product, service, or idea doesn’t make you any money if you don’t know how to market and sell it. This short article touches on it. Quite a few grammar and spelling mistakes, but it’s still an important concept!

2. 10 Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs by Isabel M. Isidro
Meat and potatoes on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Articles like these can give you a very quick way to evaluate your strengths, and spice up your weaknesses. Being an entrepreneur expects that you’re willing to adapt and take on traits and roles that most people are unwilling to.

3. 75 Secrets to Startup
75 tips from Entrepreneur magazine for starting up a business. Thankfully, in this case, the tips are categorized so you don’t need to remember 75 distinct concepts.

4. 5 Secrets of the Authentic Entrepreneur by Aleta Pippin
Five traits that identify true entrepreneurs. These 5 seem to really mean a lot to me. Knowing these can prepare you for learning and growing towards mastering them.

5. 10 Steps to Open for Business
StartupNation is a startup that provides Entrepreneurs some guides and a way to communicate with others. This service was created ‘by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs.’ This particular article identifies 10 things you need to do to open your business.

6. Inventor, Innovator And Entrepreneur Success Secret #2: It’s All About ‘Them’ By James Laughren
A somewhat older article, written in 2000 by a Canadian, but still very relevant to the current day and companies being started around the world. It is important to realize that just because you like your idea, it doesn’t mean it will be a hit. A bad entrepreneur will find oneself in a trap designing products that will never be purchased. Be sure to balance your decision making process against feedback you receive from others.

7. My Odds of Success as an Internet Entrepreneur
Friends, family, and peers may just not trust your leap of faith as much, if at all, as you do. This can become very draining and discouraging! But you need to remember that you’re the one taking the risks, they aren’t. If they had the endurance, vision, and guts that you do, then perhaps it would be one of them starting a venture, and not you! One day, they will very likely regret that they didn’t offer you the support and encouragement that they really should have.

8. Tips for Young Entrepreneurs by Nat Turner
Nat Turner shares some very vital bits of information about things that are important if you are an Entrepreneur. Specifically, he mentions the importance of having a partner or co-founder. I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been saying this for quite some time, but others people that I have talked to lately have disagreed. I’m not certain why people think it should be done ‘all on your own.’ There is a different between ‘getting away from working for someone’ and ‘building a startup with someone.’ I happen to agree with Nat, you can’t do it alone. Businesses are social since they operate in the social world, so sooner or later you’re going to have to work with someone.

There you have it. Next time I’ll go into more details about great online tools for Entrepreneurs. If you’re a huge fan of a particular tool, drop me a note and I’ll be sure to include it.

Which of the following images best describes how you would like your garage to look?

Cluttered

Clean & Organized

For most of us, the answer is fairly obvious: Clean & Organized. For the rest of you that actually prefer clutter, this article will likely make no sense to you, and you might as well stop reading right now!

Clutter is distracting. Contrary to popular belief, it does not help spawn creativity and get the juices flowing (unless perhaps you have had a dry spell in whatever creative function for many months). Your mind has to process every detail, and it is not given a chance to focus and concentrate. Ideas might immediately arise, but never mature since you are already on the next idea. A handful of crappy ideas is not better than perhaps 2 well thought out, matured ideas. In the clutter garage picture above, you would not be able to think in an environment like that (even if you managed to find a little spot to sit). But if you sat down in the clean garage, you might actually be able to feel peaceful. Those of us who have managed to keep our homes and offices by using a system have realized that we are able to keep our sanity, and have increased our productivity as a result. Additionally, without the distractions of clutter and lost things, we’re able to focus on the things that matter to us.

Experiencing the web is fairly similar. Most web sites try to accomplish too much. I don’t blame them when it comes down to it. High server bills, the cost of bandwidth and employees. It’s expensive to run a web based business, so in turn, companies like to maximize their offerings with targeted advertisement channels, Google AdSense banners, and features-galore. Most companies think that in order to see revenue growth, they need to retain and increase their target audience so that they can charge more for advertising. But in order to retain their user base, they add on as many features as they possibly can, betting that it will keep people around. What they don’t realize though, is they are reducing the chances that their users come back when they add too much advertising or too many features; when they clutter their site, it becomes overwhelming, and sore on the eyes.

Here’s an example:

Why is it that the news posting and article on this site takes up only 1/20th of the space? There is so much extra navigation, advertising, and features that the whole purpose of the site becomes misunderstood and hard to find. This is a news site with articles about AJAX, and so the main purpose is article content. Yet they make it so difficult to read the articles. To me, they are saying that their articles are less important than their widgets filled with other cruft. They want me to work to get to the content. Instead, it feels dirty, and it doesn’t encourage my participation. I never return to sites like these.

Luckily, the Web 2.0 movement is about cleaner, more elegant, and simple designs. Many new web sites are taking hold of these concepts, and applying them. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Mobile software is still at its infancy, but it’s still useless overall. I’ll tell you why I believe this, as well as provide some guidelines for mobile software developers to increase their user base and gain loyalty.

Background

Smartphones and Pocket PC phones are now heavily marketed, and more within reach than even 1 year ago. Manufacturers, mobile operating system developers, and carriers such as Microsoft, HTC, Palm, and Verizon have participated in extensive marketing campaigns during this time. Posters and ground mats have invaded subways (often 30 posters at one time).
As these devices are seen as the mobile holy grail of email accessibility, businesses have been the primary target of many of these campaigns.

With the invention of the smaller (but less functional) smartphones, the cost has been dramatically reduced. Smartphones tend to offer more advanced interfaces and capabilities than the traditional clamshell mobile phones, but still provide a simple and reliable phone experience. The more advanced user (technophiles and enterprise customers) tends to purchase PDA-style phones in an effort to combine the functionality of personal/business data management with standard phone functionality.

According to a report by Canalys, in 2005, there were 12,185,600 smart mobile devices shipped worldwide. A year later, 2006, 18,944,310 were shipped. This came to about a 55% growth. Figures for 2007 are still yet to be determined, as the end of Q2 has not arrived yet. The number of smartphones in India are forecasted to double in India.

With all of this growth, and an extensive number of existing applications, I pose the question: Why are Mobile Applications still useless?

Before I address some of the problems, let me clear something up. Some of the existing plethora of applications are actually useful. There are applications to scan and read RSS news feeds, download podcasts, retrieve stock quotes, chat with friends and associates on instant messenger networks, and customizing your phone’s interface. If you can track them down, many of them can be quite helpful, or even fun to use. It would be unfair of me to say that all the hard work put into developing these utilities and games ended up becoming “useless.” Some people even find these things to be nearly perfect. But with that said, in order to see more adoption and growth, some very serious problems do need to get addressed. I welcome other developers to read and address these issues, and follow some basic guidelines when creating new software offerings.

Current problems with Mobile Applications:

1. Most of these applications lack solid and clean design.
   They’re often so clunky and confusing that people outside of geekdom have a problem using them. It has been proven time and time again, that a well thought modern design can tap into a user’s emotion, giving them an enhanced experience. This promotes longevity, loyalty, and simplicity and directly affects the image that consumers have on the company and its products.
2. They’re unstable.
   Most smartphone and pocket pc users have been through this: the occasional or daily soft-resets required to clear out some funky state that is usually caused by a misbehaving third-party application or game, or a conflict between multiple applications.
3. Finding and installing new applications is painfully hard.
   Unless you’re reading mobile phone blogs or digging through huge (and outdated) web-based application directories, you are not aware of the new applications. We’re too busy for that! On-device catalogs that retrieve freeware and commercial applications need to become more useful and prevalent. These are mobile devices that connect to the Internet, so why are we still using our desktop PCs to find and install software for them?
4. Interfaces are inconsistent.
   Each application and game uses a different method of providing menu choices. Some use one of the option keys to present a menu, some rely on tap-and-hold functionality. Others use graphical objects to represent program choices. Still others use no menu at all, and require keystroke combinations. In order to reduce the interface learning curve so that people can spend more time learning the application’s offering, a basic interface consistency needs to materialize. There should be a standardization in how a platform provides access to functionality in an application.
5. Prices are unreasonable for a majority of the commercial offerings.
   Mobile application developers will probably disagree with me, but from a consumer standpoint, applications and games for the mobile platform are ridiculously overpriced. Often, a consumer spends anywhere between $200 and $750 for their smart device. Additionally, they spend money on accessories that the device did not come with in shrinkwrap, such as a leather protector, a cradle/dock, additional memory, charging cables, extended/spare batteries, etc. This often adds at least another several hundred dollars. The device typically comes with a very basic operating system, and requires additional software. Many applications and games are priced anywhere from $20-50 a piece. At this point, these devices become almost equivalently priced to a desktop PC, but only provide a fraction of the functionality. In order to push more sales and increase adoption, mobile software needs to be priced more reasonably. From a developer perspective, time and money is spent on developer toolkits, APIs, training and education, and the investment to borrow/purchase devices to do development and basic QA testing. This ends up increasing the price overall dramatically in order for a development house to make a living. Cross-platform development toolkits, such as the offering from AppForge, will need to come down to a more affordable price tier for small and independent developers. If this doesn’t happen, the platforms will never become standardized, and developers will only focus on the platforms they are familiar with.
6. Lack of creativity.
   As the bulk of even PC software falls under this category, mobile software is not creative enough. For example, there are at least 12 chess games available for the Pocket PC that each try to accomplish the same thing. They all fail in so many ways. None of them have creative interfaces for small screens, and none of them try to introduce new ideas. A fresh outlook on the development of applications and games needs to happen; innovation and creativity need to merge and give birth to new breeds of software. Introduce a new idea, concept, style, or interface.
7. Authors abandon their work.
   Some independent developers spend 1 or 2 years working on a new creation, often times one that actually works. After some time passes, the developer either loses interest, runs out of time due to a day job, or gets discouraged from not making a living from the effort. It is then typical that the developer abandons development of the application and with changes to the platforms, eventually becomes useless or broken on newer systems. There are a lot of applications that have not been updated since 2002, but could benefit from some growth or updating. Sometimes the authors no longer respond to correspondence to their contact information, and typically do not open source their original work. This can lead to end-user frustration, and for software catalogs to be cluttered with stale software.

A Step In The Right Direction

Thankfully, a handful of companies are trying to move things in the right direction. Even with all the controversy attached to the Apple iPhone, just the existence/rumor/announcement of the iPhone has created quite a stir and demand from businesses and consumers for mobile platform developers to create sexy, useful, and easy to use applications. Microsoft has responded to this demand by spinning off and funding ZenZui, a company that has built a prototype platform for delivering high end widgets to the hands of consumers, literally. Whether these particular companies end up with successes is yet to be seen.

Is it my recommendation to independent and small development firms to address some of the issues mentioned above. With improvements to these areas, more users will adopt the mobile platforms and will become more useful over all. The larger companies are taking the lead, and to stay competitive the smaller fish will have to start attacking these issues as soon as possible.

One of the many reasons new business ventures fail is the lack of a well formed team. In 2001, TWC wrote a press release that stated “Some 83% of all business start-ups fail, often because of intrinsic weaknesses in their management teams.” An article on CNN Money mentions that often times “dream teams” lead to failure because of too many all-stars on one team (synonymous with ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’). The opening statement in an article by Ian MacLachlan of Business Team states “The primary reasons for failure are a lack of capital and poor or no management experience.”

While there are a lot of other reasons that a majority of the businesses started fail within 3 years of operation, the leading cause is a defect in the team running the business. It seems that meeting the right people, for the right job, at the right time is painfully difficult. The proof is the fact that these failing teams are the venture killers!

But meeting the right people are difficult. Typically, to find them an entrepreneur must attend user groups, post advertisements for potential position openings, and query an existing social network. Without existing and trusted relationships already established, it is hard to acquire new connections. People want to get paid. And people really deserve to be paid. That hot idea and ripe market just can’t wait for that though; the opportunity slips by. Eventually, if the idea was worthwhile, another company beat you to it.

Why is it hard to meet and build relationships with quality people?

Unlike the days in most everyone’s youth, people are weary of building new relationships. They have wives and husbands, children, pets, existing jobs (”slave” labor), and hobbies; they are comfortable. People who are on the lookout for new connections are critical, and look down on lack of business experience. It is reasonable after all… they’ve been burned by inexperience, negligence, and victims of one-way relationships. Or they’re comparing you to the business owners they already know without getting a chance to see what you have to offer.

Why do so many people feel the need to be a part of every facet of the business?

This is something that has bothered me for a long time. A lot of people feel the need to dip themselves in every aspect of a new business’ responsibilities. Some feel that it is exciting to get a taste of every slice. Others have an ego complex. And still others have no sense of focus.

This is not to be confused with a general understanding and assistance of running a new business (”wearing multiple hats”). Core members of a new small business should definitely work together, lend a hand, and get an understanding of what the other members are involved in, but someone should ultimately own a responsibility. There’s simply no room for everyone to. Different views, opinions, and ideals eventually become a major disruption to what is suppose to be a bonding force between focused and striving founders.

Why is it so difficult to get teams to come together and build a shared agenda or ideology?

Why is it really? Is it because by nature our survival clocks keep us on our toes and lead us to trust (all too firmly) our instincts? Perhaps it is because we are weary of trusting others.

But in order for a business to be successful, a synergy between members is crucial. When a team can come together on a single (but shared) vision, positive growth starts happening. People jive, productivity increases, teams flow. Finding this balance is difficult, and as ever changing as stock market trends and pop culture.

There are answers. Nurture your connections.

Hired hands are a dime a dozen, but often they don’t provide a service-level needed to scale or start a successful business. Nurturing your network is the most beneficial form of building a future team. You’ll build trust and support, and eventually the people around you will want to be part of it all. By lending a hand to people you’ve met, mentoring another entrepreneur, or introducing them to your own network, you are seeding a future business partner (in whatever form that may be).

It takes work, but with persistence (and keeping in touch) you will find that the more quality people that you know will very quickly outweigh the quantity.

The question I propose to everyone is, what are some of your excellent methods of building solid relationships before a venture is even born, so that when the day comes to build a team, everyone is on board?

Welcome to “sheeptrader”. I have had a personal blog in the past, and found that I wasn’t certain anyone would care to drop by a website named after myself. After all, what will I say that is more meaningful than all the drudge and sludge on the net already? Who will really care about my rants and raves, or opinions on technology and business?

Then I remembered how much the people I knew were continually asking me the same questions over and over again. “Time to put up a new blog” I thought!

I intend on refraining from posting “I had lunch at xxxx today” types of posts. They make me cringe. Thoughtful, meaningful, helpful, and educational posts will come out of this little place named after a ewe businessman.

-Kevin Elliott