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The Resource Center has all the info you'll need From content to user feedback, the resource center has the information you need for every level of the entrepreneurial process.
Most people are motivated more by the work they do and the environment in which they work than by the money they earn. Therefore, the compensation and reward systems you offer to employees should include both monetary and non-monetary ideas.
A growing economy constantly creates new job opportunities in new sectors, but also displaces and even destroys existing jobs. The workforce in an entrepreneurial economy must always evolve as well. Government efforts to protect jobs are often misguided, hindering growth and new job creation. Pro-growth workforce rules should instead focus on developing worker skills, allowing maximum hiring and layoff flexibility, and focus adjustment efforts on getting displaced workers into new jobs as soon as possible. Small firms employ half of all private sector employees and create 60-80 percent of net new jobs in the U.S., according to the SBA. Labor rules are one of the largest barriers to entrepreneurial ventures. The World Bank’s cross-country comparison of labor regulations shows lower job creation where workplace rules are more rigid. Labor rules must move beyond the early 20th century framework of management versus labor and encourage new firm formation as well as a dynamic, not static, worker.
For aspiring and active entrepreneurs, financing growth isn't always a matter of taking readily available funding. In this article, Jeff Gordon, who founded two companies in the decade since graduating from college, says the entrepreneur really seeks the best "engine" for fueling growth, which isn't necessarily money. He offers tips for choosing from an array of monetary and nonmonetary options.
Founder Bob Beyster describes his highly successful approach to recruiting, retaining, and rewarding top performers--a culture of employee ownership. This is a core strategy for growing SAIC, an entrepreneurial, employee-owned, high-technology corporation.
Entrepreneurs should cultivate relationships with outsiders who can offer support and advice, even though "mentoring," as it's often called, is typically considered an instrument of corporate career-building. In this insightful article by an entrepreneur who founded a non-profit organization to pair owners of young companies with seasoned business owners, the author advises entrepreneurs to seek help from peers as well as superiors and from several outsiders rather than a single guru.
As the cost of new technologies plummets, even small manufacturers can turn.
Venture capitalists play a critical funding role, as entrepreneurial ventures move into the big leagues, but the price these investors extract is often too high. Entrepreneurs should consider the relationship analogous to marrying a mail-order bride and proceed accordingly, according to this comprehensive and entertaining article by two women who co-founded a software company. Tips include advising company owners to build trust with VCs and, until that is established, dealing with them in a way that allows for "a reasonable balance of power."
Venture capitalists aren't the vultures they're said to be. They're just investors, and the key to dealing with investors is having a relationship, according to this witty exchange between the author and her construct, the Everyman-entrepreneur, who discuss financing at a typical gathering for entrepreneurs.
Building a company means creating an "entrepreneurial corporate culture," according to this article by a big-company supervisor turned entrepreneur. The best "entrepreneurial" cultures borrow worthy tactics from the Fortune 500, while discarding those that constrain productivity, says the author. Included are tips for what to take and what to leave behind.
Doing business in the rough-and-tumble arena of underdeveloped countries involves adhering to global business basics, such as researching markets thoroughly, while coping with surprises, writes a veteran international entrepreneur who first took his company overseas three decades ago. In entering the "emerging markets," entrepreneurs need to keep close tabs on how (and if) they will be paid, as well as on local managers overly eager to make sales.
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