Posts Tagged ‘Strategy’

Tips for small business: Dear applicant, please show me what I need to see

Mike | March 7th, 2011

Last week I wrote about the pain many small businesses experience when hiring new employees: the effort involved, the cost, the time and the risk. I suggested 10 things employers can do to ease the load and make the process smoother, less risky, and (hopefully) more successful. Today I want to speak to the job [...]

Read full post »

5 things that suck (about hiring new employees) and 10 things companies can do about it

Mike | February 28th, 2011

We hear all the time about the importance of hiring the right people and the expanding universe of advice can be overwhelming; hire slow and fire fast, only hire the “right” candidate; ask probing questions; check all references; blah blah blah. For a small business with constantly-strained capacity it can be incredibly difficult to post a [...]

Read full post »

Small business and startup issues: net neutrality and H.R. 1

Mike | February 21st, 2011

Small businesses which are built on the Internet and dependent on it for their livelihoods are threatened by an amendment to the spending bill passed by the House last week. The amendment introduced by Oregon Representative Greg Walden, specifically prohibits the FCC from enforcing its Net Neutrality rules, passed late last year. These rules would [...]

Read full post »

10 things that entrepreneurs can learn from dogs

Mike | February 7th, 2011

Some months back I wrote a post about how, as entrepreneurs, we have much to learn from our kids. Lots of you chimed in about your own experiences and about how much you, too, have learned about business from children. Well, as I was pondering what to write about this week, our family dog, Epee´ [...]

Read full post »

Lean Marketing: Public Relations strategies for small businesses and startups

Mike | January 31st, 2011

One of the least expensive and most effective ways that small businesses can grow is through the strategic application of public relations. PR can be executed on a modest budget, and the awareness and word-of-mouth that can be attained is priceless for a small company. PR is typically a mix of social media, community participation, [...]

Read full post »

Traveling lean: tips for small businesses and entrepreneurs

Mike | January 17th, 2011

(Fortunately) we don’t have to travel a great deal here at crowdSPRING; we do the bulk of our communication with partners, funders, and customers over the phone, via email, or on Skype. However, when we do travel we are ever constrained by our limited travel budget, over-extended scheduling, and our pesky insistence on convenience,  creature [...]

Read full post »

Three economic trends for 2011 (fueled by startup goodness)

Mike | January 3rd, 2011

2011 is going to be a great year for entrepreneurs – even better than 2010. The past year saw startups on the rise, an increase in venture capital funding (both in real dollars and numbers of companies funded), a resurgence of IPOs, and the rise of David against Goliath, as best represented by Groupon’s spurning [...]

Read full post »

10 random online resources for Entrepreneurs (2010 version)

Mike | December 27th, 2010

Seeing as how it’s the end of another year, I thought I would take a shot at a 10 best list of my very own. But instead of focusing on just one category of thing, I am going to mix it up and make it about various resources any entrepreneur might benefit from. Tools, blogs, [...]

Read full post »