As a serial entrepreneur, I often find myself wanting to invest and build multiple businesses and almost anything triggers an avalanche of ideas. Being a serial entrepreneur is a tremendous gift and with it comes a blessing of energy and creative ideas, however, these ideas are often so frequent and interesting that they tend to leave me unfocused and disciplined.

I started looking at other serial entrepreneurs around me and I started to notice that my problem was actually quite common among them. With great ideas comes great distraction it seems, and I’m beginning to believe that serial entrepreneurship leads to serial failure without discipline. What I offer is a few ways to stay focused to ensure that your business is successful, it’s my hope that the discipline I’ve learned over these past few years help refine you into the successful serial entrepreneur you were called to be. Whether it’s focusing on a key component within a single business or the serial mindset of committing to one idea and following through before jumping onto the next. With a bit of work to really integrate these tidbits into your thought process, you’ll no doubt find yourself more organized and accomplished.

80% isn’t finished

If you’re thinking you can get by with 80% and walk away, then you’re pretty much saying “I’ll take the 20% chance of failure.” See it through.. 80% is good, and may require less of your time, but doesn’t mean that it’s ready to walk away from unless you’re okay with the gamble of losing it. Great ideas are always stacked up, but commit to one before starting another.

Schedules aren’t just for Enterprise

I work with a lot of freelancers and they often chuckle at me when I say “let’s schedule that in” because to them, business is the freedom to define your own schedule. I laugh in return because I remember the days of freelancing and waking up a 2pm some days and having no routine. I still believe in freedom and flexibility, and manage to make the best use of my time by focusing it. I schedule what hours I’m going to work each week and I book about 20-30 hours a week. Shocker! I work less than most freelancers, however, when I’m working its 100% in the zone and focused.. I don’t blog, socialize or play games during that time and because of that I get more done in those hours than most do with a 40+ hour work week.

Wait your turn

Everything has demand.. Your client is calling you.. The world is facebooking and tweeting.. Your friends want you to come out to the bar. All these things have importance in some priority, but don’t look over that key word, priority. Without it, you’re a mess. Make a list of your priorities and make sure whenever two or more things beckon for your attention that you pull out the master list and don’t deviate from the order. This one thing will refine your character and make you feel far more accomplished.

Everything from learning another language, to classes to meetings are being done via the Internet. So why not a conference? Video conferencing has been around since the 1960′s World Fair. It has been utilized only among large companies for the most part. But what about the beginning entrepreneur? What is the great importance of this method of communication? What could be used to aid in the commercialization of this service? These question plague the buzzing minds of many but solutions are plenty.

Sometimes people do not have the means to meet with clients face to face. Especially when you are a beginning Entrepreneur or if your company is web based. The next best thing would be a video conference. This still allows for a more personal way of communicating without breaking the bank.

Add-on web cams have been the main source of many video conferences for many years now. The only down side is that most of us have no open USB ports for this addition. Any many of these devices are pretty laggy and has a low resolution and almost makes it not worth the trouble. For the record there are good ones out there. I just have never been a web cam type person. Read the rest of this entry →

It is the age of gadgets. We are in an area where if you hesitate you’ll be left in cyber dust. The beginning entrepreneur is caught in a difficult battle between those who refuse to move with the times and the ones who are only interested in the “what’s next”. So what do you do and how do you do it?

There is no way around it. You must be progressive in your presentation in order to be successful. The way you can persuade the stubborn is by slowly upgrading your services. This way you can keep them interested while not interfering with the integrity of your service. This should allow for an easy transition without the potential of losing a valued customer.

Now, on to the good stuff! You’ve pleased your clients with traditional ideas, so how do you wow those who are into the now? Well good thing 2010 is the year of the tablet. These mobile devices allow for mobility and are extremely eye catching. Your choice depends on what you believe is essential in your line of work and for your client. Read the rest of this entry →

The true definition of a Small Business is a business that is independently owned and operated, is not dominant in its field of operation, and meets certain standards of size in terms of employees or annual receipts. The purpose of this post is to give people a few statistics on small businesses, as well as hopefully impact your impression and interest in small businesses.

The effects of small businesses on the economy

1. There are over 20 million full and part-time home-based businesses in the United States.
2. Nearly 750,000 tax-paying, employee-hiring businesses are started every year.
3. Small Businesses create 75 percent of the new jobs in the United States.
4. Of all non-produce businesses in the United States, almost 97 percent are considered small by the SBA standards.
5. Small businesses account for more than 50 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
6. About 80 percent of all Americans get their first job at a small business.

Although there are so many small businesses that open every year, many studies say that a third of them fail in the first four years. Another study says roughly 60 percent of them fail within the first six years! So I am going to continue with some reasons why a lot of them fail so you can think through these things.

Why small businesses fail

1. Testing the Waters: Plunging in without testing on a small scale.
2. Pricing: Underpricing or overpricing goods or services.
3. Marketing: Understanding how much time it will take to build a market.
4. Money Starting with too much capital and being careless or too little and going under.
5. Experience: Going into business with little or no experience in the industry or market.
6. Management: A lot of small businesses go out of business because of poor management.

As a small web development company, we had to run through this list to make sure we were starting our business on the path of success. This is how we met each of these requirements to ensure our success, maybe these models will help you in your venture as well.

We started with (and you should as well) experience. All of the employees in Chosen come from a design, marketing, or development related background and know their talents well. This is crucial as more web related businesses begin to spring up, many do not have the background, experience or skills needed to develop high quality applications, and portfolios can be very misleading. To ensure that our employees are competent, we have them get certified for specific technologies via Brainbench, as well as blog and host seminars to share their skills with others (studies say the best way to learn is to teach). Once we had done this with our core team, we knew we had the experience and knowledge base to move to the next step. Read the rest of this entry →

I was on the phone with my friend last night who is an Hardcore YoungGoGetter & Entrepreneur. Our conversation peaked at him asking me for a little workout advice. Excited to help, I swiftly went through some of my old notes & composed a bit of research on the body-type he was trying to build. But then something hit me…and it hit hard. This guy is an entrepreneur to the core. There is no way he has enough time to properly eat and workout. Read the rest of this entry →