Venture

Let's Get Going!

2011-08-13T07:21:00.000-04:00

If you are waiting for the Washington crowd to decisively fix our economic woes, then I'm afraid that you are in for a very long wait.

The food fight atmosphere in our nation's capitol these days will prevent any helpful actions from that quarter for years to come.

But we don't have to wait for politicians to pull us out of economic malaise. Each of us, as individuals, can act TODAY to build a better tomorrow.

Want jobs? Then why don't we work together today to the build the companies, products and services that we surely will need tomorrow.

Each of us can contribute today to one of three sectors we need to create those job opportunities... technologists, investors, and management. We need significant contributions from all three to build successful organizations.

Yes, I know that the people in these sectors really hate to cooperate. Technologists think that 'if you build it, they will surely come'... ignoring the need for money and marketing to make it happen. Investors seemingly are in a perpetual search to cash in on the next 'get rich quick' scheme... ignoring the real need for the long view to build value. And managers seemingly prefer personal greed to group growth. But it doesn't really have to be this way.

I'm in the management camp myself. I know some of the systems and procedures needed to build the next great company.

Are you a technologist? Are you humble enough about your own skills and capabilities to work with an insanely great team of investors and managers?

Are you an investor? Had enough of the ups and downs of Wall Street lately? Interested in building long term wealth by building long term value?

We don't need Washington's permission to build the next great company, but we do need to get to know each other, and get on with the difficult and important job of personal and professional growth.

Are you a doer or a talker? I'm ready to make it happen!

Are you?

I'm sitting here waiting to hear from you...

Finding Startups

2011-07-28T09:59:00.000-04:00

.
Perhaps it is the economy... or the weather... or our culture... or me... or whatever... but I'm finding it tough to locate startups interested in expanding.

The pattern repeats over and over again... someone will suggest an interesting idea, and then disappear, never to be heard from again.

Of course, there ARE startups out there, but I find them to be mentally close minded and "self contained"... "We don't need help!" Oh, really? Let's see how well you take over the world, economically speaking, in a few years! I'm not holding my breathe.

Which is strange... you'd think with all the social tech we have available, it would be relatively easy to find a forming "band of brothers" interested in starting or expanding a business. But it just isn't so. Which is both frustrating to me... and a worrisome sign that the US economy isn't really functioning on all cylinders.

If this pattern persists, exactly where do you think the US economy will be in 10 or 20 years?

Tom Friedman on the Auto Bailout...

2008-12-11T11:21:00.000-05:00

While Detroit Slept

Excerpt...

Our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into a book-store chain on the eve of the birth of Amazon.com and the Kindle. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into improving typewriters on the eve of the birth of the PC and the Internet.

Small (Minded) Business

2008-11-17T10:12:00.000-05:00

Some startup ventures are just intended to be small... and perhaps stay that way and pass away.

In the tech field, it is darn hard to come up with a great new idea, and you must grow like crazy to gain market share before somebody else comes along with a "me too" product and completely usurps your idea and all your customers.

It isn't sufficient to merely HAVE an idea... or an interesting web site... you must also command MARKET SHARE!

Large companies, like Microsoft and Apple, became that way due to clever and sustained sales and marketing campaigns. Can you imagine ANY well respected company adopting the attitude of "We make a a product. People will find it, and if they say nice things about it, we'll "support" them". Kind of wacky, no?

All this is obvious to anyone with a minimal business education, but many web people may know bits and bytes, but not common business sense. Also, many web people are so painfully young... :-)

Thus, I thought I'd share some comments I just received from one startup based in a university community...

"We love evangelists, but we only support organic evangelism. Essentially, if people really like our product, and want to talk about it, we will go out of our way to support them, but we don't pay for people to evangelize on our behalf."

I guess they have never heard of sales and marketing... or maybe it is that they just don't have any money. Either way, not a good sign...

Ready to Launch?

2008-10-17T12:06:00.002-04:00

A Philadelphia area small business advisory firm, Team and Dream, suggests that you ask the following 15 questions before launching a new web business:

1. Does someone on your team have expertise in your target market?

2. Can you talk continuously about your market for at least five minutes?

3. Do you know why you want to build this business and can you explain?
4. Have you refined your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) to be simple enough for your mother to understand?
5. Can you point to others who have been successful with your business model?
6. Will people use your service because its “nice to have” or “must have”?

7. Have you talked to at least three potential clients and suppliers/sponsors?
8. Do you know your top five competitors?
9. How mature is your market?
10. What is your market size measured in total annual revenue?

11. Do you know your break-even point to profitability?
12. Have you allocated at least $2500 for a DIY web business or at least $5000 for one with some outsourcing?
13. Do you have a salesperson, technical expertise, and operations expertise in your team?

14. How defensible is your product/service?
15. Do you have an idea of how you’ll make revenue?
<Good questions!

Brownstone Pizzeria

2008-10-06T10:28:00.006-04:00

If you had opened a retail business after maxing out your credit cards and cashing in your 401K... put in about $170,000... and things were not going very well at all... and the A&E Network brought in a team of experts to help you turn things around... and they made a whole lot of great changes for you... would you continue to follow their advice?

Not at Brownstone Pizzeria in Los Angeles!

This show proves that it really isn't a lack of information that causes small businesses to fail.

Please see this episode... and DO NOT do likewise!

2008-03-09T11:15:00.000-04:00

Startup Metrics for Pirates

The video Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!, focuses on the five steps to startup success: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue (handily put together as AARRR! just for pirates).

Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR! is really great metrics information, delivered in only 5 minutes, though the language he uses is, at times, a bit salty (he's a Pirate, after all, I suppose!).

You can find a copy of his presentation slides here.

2007-11-05T14:24:00.000-05:00

It's EXECUTION, Baby, NOT COST!

I recently sent some ideas to an entrepreneur in San Francisco.

His reply:

Love the ideas but the issue is cost.
Mr. Entrepreneur

President and CEO

My reply to him:

Dear Mr. Entrepreneur:

I doubt it's cost.

I think it is investment capital.

Which is exactly the reason I tell my MBA students
that, over time, foreigners will clean our clock.

We're great at coming up with ideas (like your company)...
but that's only HALF the battle. The real battle is
EXECUTION, and that's where foreigners have the
decided advantage. They are able to see what you and
other entrepreneurs are doing, wait for you to get a
little traction, then invest and out-execute you.

Did you happen to see today that China's biggest oil
and gas company, PetroChina, surged past Exxon Mobil
on Monday to become the world's first company worth
more than $1 trillion, though most of the company
remains in government hands?

Yeah, I know that's different.... natural resources,
and all that... but they don't seem to be having any
difficulty getting investment...

Oh, well... OUR money seems to be going to Iraq... at
what will soon be a total tab of $576 billion, the
Iraq war is second in cost only to World War II.

Go figure... 

Dan

PS You might also see this report about a US venture capital investor:

Web 2.0 Is On The Ropes. . . Kleiner Perkins Has Halted Investments

"We have absolutely no interest in funding Web 2.0 companies," says Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins.

2007-10-25T14:09:00.000-04:00

Looking for a new business idea?

How about COMBINING two existing ideas?

How about combining email AND a flight simulator?

Sounds wacky?

Would YOU fund this idea?

Check out the video... then the web site!

2007-10-22T13:20:00.000-04:00

Want to measure your PR?

Here is a Free Book on how to measure public relations!

Enjoy!

2007-10-19T10:57:00.000-04:00

Brainstorming...

Try ExploraTree!

By the way, if you would like to read books on similar topics, please see:

Techniques of Structured Problem Solving, by Arthur B. VanGundy, Jr.

Tools for Knowledge and Learning (FREE PDF download) by Ben Ramalingam

2007-09-12T16:06:00.000-04:00

New Ideas, Anyone?

Have you come across a fantastic new business idea... perhaps a great new Web 2.0 concept... something that just might shake up the world?

Need some help?

If so, I'm available to consult with you about what it will take to make it happen!

I've "been there" and "done that"... and have no illusions about how difficult this can be, or the heartbreak of trying to work with others. In fact, I spend the greater part of my day trying to get people to actually DO something. Strange, isn't it?

But hope springs eternal!

If you have something in mind, let's talk!

2007-07-02T18:37:00.000-04:00

Making Money With Networks...

Online social networks are HOT! What will separate the winners from the losers?

I happened to catch one of the last episodes of a great radio program called "Open Source" from WGBH in Boston. Sadly, the program itself is being shut down... at least for a little while. Drats!

I heard Larry Weber, author of "Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business", and founder of the W2 Group, discussing the future direction of online social networks. He gave some pointers on how to separate the winners from the losers.

With all due respect to Larry, here is my slight revision and extension of his ideas and remarks...

Social networks are here to stay... and will grow substantially over time.

Technology will continue to develop and offer even more compelling reasons and tools to participate in social networking.

But... all social networks are not created equal! People will increasingly assign an "importance level" to social networks, running from "Must See Every Day"... to "Rarely, If Ever, Monitor".

For example, Tim, who suffers from diabetes and is a Mormon, might have a profile as follows:

Daily - "MUST SEE EVERY DAY" - Separate social networks built around core personal concerns, such as his family, his religion, his work, and diabetes.

Weekly - "MY INTERESTS" - Social networks built around his hobbies, his community, and world affairs

Occasionally - "RARELY MONITOR" - Social networks from the educational institutions he has attended, sports, and the arts.

Almost never - Everything else.

Daily social networking involves sincere and authentic passions. Users are talking to people they know, about highly personal things that they care deeply about. These are not topical conversations, but deep sharing at a very intimate level. "Must See" networks offer a blend of compelling user and professional content and conversations. They allow other users and communities to discover this content and extend the social conversation even further by creating ever larger and larger webs of networks (called the "After Market").

With all this in mind, what could you be doing to enhance social networking... and make money in the process?

2007-06-26T14:42:00.000-04:00

Starting a new Web 2.0 business is a good thing generally, except for...

I admire new ventures! As a matter of fact, I'm look around for a new venture to start myself! But certain business practices definitely drive me nuts!

Here is my list of the 10 things that I don't like about new ventures:

1. Executives with an excessively narrow focus. Sticking to your knitting is great... even admired! What drives me nuts is the executive team that is oblivious to anything else around them... the industry direction... other technologies... other legitimate approaches. Related to this concern is #2...

2. Dumb executives. Winning in a very competitive world is difficult enough without the extra burden of taking direction from dumb executives. This really doesn't mean that every executive must be a Ph.D. What it does mean is that the corporate leadership must be savvy across a variety of disciplines, not just "good coders".

3. Lack of leadership skills. Executives that start businesses merely to increase their OWN incomes and wealth are a big turn off! It may take a village to raise a child, but it definitely takes a team to win in today's business environment. How do executives prove that they can build and lead effective teams? Where and how were they trained? Though not the only good place, military service in a U. S. Army combat arm just might be a good place to start looking for proven leaders!

4. Under capitalization. Merely having a web site does not prove that your firm is properly capitalized! Related to this concern is #5...

5. Rigid adherence to a budget that is unrealistic. Can you predict the future with perfect accuracy? Neither can I, which is why I detest executives that hid behind budget numbers to avoid making ongoing tough decisions. Budgets are great... to a point! But if circumstances change, and new opportunities present themselves, executives need to be nimble enough to take advantage of them... not merely repeat the tired mantra that "It isn't in the budget for this year!"

6. Insistence that all employees live close to one another. What's the chance that every insanely great potential employee just happens to live close to your neighborhood? Not very great, I would suspect. Such a requirement is even more foolish in a Web 2.0 world in which you can tap the very best talent on a global basis! Related to this is #7...

7. Investors that insist you must live close to their own neighborhoods. Similar idea... what's the chance that the best investor for your business just happens to live nearby? Again, in a Web 2.0 world, money can come from anyplace and go anyplace. Look for the "fit" of the investor first, then worry about their mailing address!

8. Executives that ignore all that has gone before. Libraries are full of books about good management techniques and principles. Why must startups constantly "re-invent the wheel" by ignoring proven success principles and techniques? How familiar are executives with this body of "wisdom literature"?

9. Executives who insist that that everyone be exactly like "them". In a complex global environment, diversity (in terms of age, race, sex, national origin, whatever) in a workforce wins every time!

10. Failure to think and act globally. Optical networks exist today that offer up to 100 Gig/sec. bandwidth. In such a world, practically everyone in a developed country can almost instantly interact with anyone else in any other part of the developed world. It isn't a matter any more that you are the best in your village or town at whatever you do. You MUST be globally competitive as compared with the very best in the world, no matter where located!

19 Year Old Starts a Business... Writes a Book

2007-06-06T11:40:00.000-04:00

I'm always amazed by someone who starts a very successful business at an early age... and then compounds his success by writing an instructive new book about his experiences!

Ben Casnocha, recently graduated from University High School in San Francisco, CA, is only 19 years old (can you believe that?), but he has packed a lifetime's business savvy into his new book, which has earned rave reviews...

My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley

Exactly how did he do THAT, you may ask?

In a sixth grade technology elective class, then 12 year old Ben Casnocha was tasked with building a community service web site that was connected in some way to government. Based on the popularity of customer complaint resolutions in the retail sector, he felt that there was a need for service that would resolve citizen complaints about local government. Shortly thereafter he launched an internet company to do just that. That service ultimately resolved the complaints of hundreds throughout the United States. Through this experience Ben learned that some governments were quite good at handling customer requests, and others were not so good.

Based on the interactions seeking complaint resolution, Ben gathered valuable information on the customer support needs of local governments through focus groups and meetings with city managers, IT directors, and other city officials. He embarked on developing Comcate’s first product, a request tracking tool for cities. This commitment to understanding the clients’ needs continues today.

When Ben started demonstrating the early version of eFeedbackManager, word spread about Comcate ’s founder and product and Ben received many meeting and speaking requests. As a result, cities throughout California began purchasing Comcate ’s product.

Six years later, based upon real success in the marketplace and input from a growing and impressive list of advisors, Comcate has dozens of municipal clients, a growing staff, and a record of excellence. This book is the story of his start-up, but also a conversation with his mentors, clients and fellow entrepreneurs about how to make a business idea work —and how to have the time of your life trying!

Also...check out the New York Times review of the book!

What a guy!

2 College Kids with a Plan!

2007-06-02T15:31:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder what kind of web-based business 2 college kids could come up with?

Check out Fantasy Congress!

It's a web-based cross between fantasy baseball and US politics!

I personally wonder if this idea will really have a very large following outside college political science departments, but the two student entrepreneurs have pitched the idea and won 2 separate business plan competitions... and the pair claim 60,000 current online users.

Listen to them describe the concept, (the host blabs about himself for 5 minutes then introduces his guests... finally!)... and make up your own mind.

The interesting observation is... if this pair can do this, what could YOU do?

2007-05-21T10:35:00.000-04:00

Business Plans

Often the first stumbling block for an entrepreneur is writing a business plan.

The task seems so complex... so time consuming... so mathematical... so difficult!

It really doesn't have to be that way, of course...

A business plan, at its heart, is really only a written roadmap explaining how you propose to get from here to there. That doesn't sound so difficult, now, does it?

One of the best ways of writing a business plan is to model your plan on an example from some other successful company.

Want to read over 100+ FREE business plans? Surely you can pick up a trick or two from others!

Looking for a fast, easy way to write a business plan? Start with one of the 100+ free sample business plans available in their entirety. These business plan templates contain realistic sample content for all sorts of businesses. See examples of how to write an effective executive summary, craft a mission statement, and put together accurate cash flow projections, expense budgets, break-even analysis, and more.

Enjoy!

2007-04-25T13:05:00.000-04:00

Can we start a new business here?

When you look around the web, you see many examples of small groups of people starting new web-based businesses. If you pay close attention to my "What Dan is Reading" column on http://bizfacts.ning.com you will find many current examples...

Why should these people be having all the fun? What makes them so special? Do they have supper-human skills unavailable to the rest of us? I think not...

The key is assembling the right team with a diverse set of skills. I believe that my readers have have those skills, or at least SOME of those skills. Why don't we pool our talents and start a new business? If you don't think you have any special skills, you undoubtedly have friends and acquaintances with some of the skills necessary to launch a successful new business.

What do you think will be the next hot startup opportunity?

What special skills do you have to help launch it?

Who do you know that can help us?

2007-04-05T13:16:00.000-04:00

Interested in what Microsoft is doing?.................

Check out the interview with Ray Ozzie, who is coordinating various product groups at Microsoft, with Knowledge@Wharton.

2007-04-04T12:27:00.000-04:00

Industrial Competitiveness and Technological Advancement: Debate Over Government Policy

Interested in what the US Congress is reading these days about industrial competitiveness and technological advancement?

The Congressional Research Service has just published a report on the topic, which is available online.

2007-04-03T11:43:00.000-04:00

I just had to pass this along!!!!

NOBS, the end of the MBA

from Seth's Blog by Seth Godin

[Seven years ago (!) I wrote a column for Fast Company about a different kind of MBA. I've gotten tons of email about it, most of it positive--but I did get one particularly desperate/angry note from a validation-seeking student last week. Coincidentally, I just received this beautiful diploma, suitable for framing, for Dan Limbach, who volunteered to share it with you. We've changed the tuition--it's now free. Very Web 2.0 of us. Inspired by the mail and by the recent full-page magazine ads and web ads of one very well-known business school, here it is again, unedited. Have fun.]

I thought maybe I'd open a business school. This is particularly ironic given my past: No student in the history of the Stanford Graduate School of Business has ever come closer to not receiving an MBA than yours truly.

When I was at Stanford (it seems like decades ago -- probably because it was), I thought that the environment there was terrific, and I truly enjoyed some of my classes. But before the start of my second year, I got an irresistible job offer -- which prompted me to try to go to school and work at the same time. I soon realized that the classes were in Palo Alto, and the job was in Boston. But, thanks to some help from TWA and a bizarre willingness on my part to fly on the red-eye, I managed to commute for a semester. After that, a kindly professor decided to stop the madness and just give me the rest of my credits, so graduate I did.

Despite my less-than-stellar attendance record at business school, I've since found that teaching business is a blast. I taught a class to second-year students at NYU this year and discovered that aggravating 90 soon-to-be-graduating students is great fun. I had so much fun, in fact, that I started thinking about what business school is, what it's good for -- and what it's not good for at all.

As far as I can tell, there are only three reasons to apply to business school. My school, the New Order Business School (NoBS), will focus on excelling at all three.

First, business school provides a tremendous screen for future employers. If you go to Harvard Business School, for example, you are doing a tremendous thing for your personal branding, and you are guaranteed a job interview -- at the very least -- virtually anywhere in the world. When it comes to business, Columbia, Stanford, Wharton, and a few other schools aspire to Harvard's level. And in some industries, they even surpass it.

Just as Internet investors have successfully trained themselves to look past the present and to invest in companies that have a wonderful future, some employers have realized that waiting for someone to graduate from one of these august institutions is a waste of time. Instead of hiring students after they finish classes (which, after all, don't teach why the brand is so valuable), why not just hire people as soon as they've been accepted to business school?

The student who drops out of school after getting in but before beginning classes saves about $55,000 in tuition -- as well as another $180,000 in opportunity cost. Add to that the stock options and a chance to change the world that much sooner, and you can see why this is a no-brainer for all involved.

At NoBS, we offer a special program for just this sort of student. Basically, it's the most exclusive business-school admissions program in the country. We guarantee that only one out of every 1,000 applicants will be accepted to our school. And we guarantee that upon being accepted, every single person will receive at least three job offers -- each with a minimum salary of $65,000 a year.

The fee to have your application considered is $300. After all, as an admissions-based institution -- actually, as an admissions-only institution -- we have to do a great job, so it's $300 well spent.

There are few classes. There is no degree. You apply. You get in (or, more likely, you don't). That's it. We're done. (Oh, and by the way, the profit margins are huge! But you figured that out already.)

Think about the prestige associated with being the one in 1,000. Think about the pride in knowing that you are one of the few people smart enough, motivated enough, and crazy enough to apply to a school that exclusive. Stuck in a dead-end job? Work like crazy on your GMATS and your essay, and you too may be able to break through the clutter of applicants and become a NoBS standout.

The second reason that people go to school is to build a network. This is another way of saying that there's a social insurance policy among students. If someone in your class actually becomes successful or lands a powerful job, the rest of you have someone to go to for favors or even cash.

It's sort of astonishing how powerful networking can be. One investor I know gives preference to companies whose staff includes an alumnus of Camp Tahigwa. Employees don't necessarily have to have attended Camp Tahigwa at the same time that the investor did -- so long as they know the same camp songs.

At NoBS, we offer a concentrated program, half of which focuses on just this sort of networking. Rather than waiting for networking to occur through random osmosis -- through unpredictable events like working on a project together in Cost Accounting 101 -- students at NoBS gather for two weeks every six months to engage in some intense team building. They row crew. They play chess. They build houses for the disadvantaged. They stay up all night putting a VW Beetle on the roof of Larry Ellison's home.

The third (and least important) reason to go to business school is actually to learn something. And this is where traditional business schools really fail. The core curriculum at business schools is as close to irrelevant as you can imagine. If you and I were trying to create a series of courses that would all but guarantee that upon graduating, students would have no useful knowledge about how to do business in the new economy, today's business-school curriculum would be a great model for us.

So eliminating the curriculum may be a great idea. But sooner or later, the illusion of a thriving, useful institution will fade if a business school doesn't offer any courses. Ask people who are thriving in today's economy to name five things that helped them succeed, and they'll probably come up with a list like this one.

1. Finding, hiring, and managing supergreat people

2. Embracing change and moving quickly

3. Understanding and excelling at business development and at making deals with other companies

4. Prioritizing tasks in a job that changes every day

5. Selling -- to people, to companies, and to markets

There are other skills that might show up on the list -- for example, balancing a life for the long term, working with venture capitalists and other sources of funds, being creative, and understanding the impact of new technologies -- but this is a good starting place.

Now take a look at the core curriculum for a $55,000 MBA. You'll find virtually no focus at all on any of these five issues. My MBA students at NYU had never taken a selling course, they had never been taught how to give a presentation, but they were experts in cost accounting, in understanding manufacturing efficiencies, and in applying the Black and Scholes Option Pricing Formula.

People in the real world buy how-to books to figure out how to succeed. So the NoBS curriculum includes only courses that are worthy of being the subject of a best-selling book. And whenever possible, the authors themselves teach the courses. (In fact, my facetiousness aside, you can learn 100% of the MBA curriculum at home, in a month, just by reading books. I'll go one step further: I can condense an hour of class presentation into 10 book pages. If you can discipline yourself to read, you can free up two years of your life for the good stuff!)

The last thing to consider about business school is that in many cases, precisely the wrong people attend. Instead of filling their classrooms with people who are too kind to go to law school, business schools ought to find people who are already in the business world, but who are panicking because they don't know as much as they want to know. Instead of looking for people who are working two mind-numbing years at a bank while waiting to get into a top institution, schools ought to seek out entrepreneurs who are champing at the bit to get their businesses started.

There are two kinds of people who don't belong in business school: the talented folks who are in too much of a hurry to spend time studying and the dull ones who don't have anything better to do.

The paradox, of course, is that the best people aren't prepared to leave their life behind for two years. They're in a hurry.

So at NoBS, students only need to attend classes for four weeks every six months. The rest of the school runs online for two hours every day. And the MBA is completed in less than a year.

During the four weeks of live stuff, we all fly to some off-season ski resort with excellent food, decent rooms, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Classes run from 8 am to midnight, three days a week. The rest of the week, students teach one another from real-life anecdotes. Sharing life experiences prepares people for the arrival of unexpected events.

The "faculty" isn't really a faculty at all. There are no PhDs in the bunch -- not one. Instead, our teachers are compelling public speakers, the kind of people who get standing ovations. People like Zig Ziglar on selling, Tom Peters on embracing change, or Regis McKenna on public relations.

Sound like a powerful experience? Totally nonaccredited. No bureaucracy. One dean. Drop out if you want. Do it for the learning, not for the grades. Everybody is as motivated as you are. Get it over with in just nine months. Walk out with a great credential and 100 lifelong friends.

Is NoBS yet another bizarre thought exercise on my part? Probably. [for the irony-impaired: yes] Depends on how many of you mail your nonrefundable $300 deposit to PO Box 305, Irvington, NY 10533. Send it by midnight tonight -- before you forget!

NoBS is worth considering. Before you go to business school, before you decide that a fancy MBA is the one thing standing between you and success, you ought to think really hard about why you're going and what you're going to learn.

And that, of course, goes double for any company itching to hire the latest freshly minted MBA. Perhaps instead of letting a 300-year-old institution do your screening for you, you should start your own business school. Bring in 100 kids. Put them through the real curriculum in four weeks. Keep half, and pay the other half a year of severance (or have them lick envelopes until they find another job).

It's easy to forget that business school is a thoroughly modern phenomenon -- that it's not rooted in the ancient canons of Shakespeare or even Madame Curie. Most modern business schools were founded in the 1960s. Their time has come and gone. So say good-bye, and mail your $300 to NoBS. That address again...

2007-03-29T12:30:00.000-04:00

Guardsman, bride wed by video conference

By AMY FORLITI
Associated Press Writer

AP Photo/Jim Mone

Technology Video

Multimedia

	The Toll: Coalition Casualties Since March 2003
	Four Years: AP Journalists Look Back
	Iraq and Vietnam: Contrasting Protests
	Land Mines From Iran-Iraq War Sold on Black Market
	Iraqi Outpost Tests War Strategy
	Iraq's Toll Felt Across U.S.
	Iraq's Forgotten Halabja
	Iraq's Power Woes

PHOTO GALLERY

Latest photos from Iraq

First in a Series...

2007-03-12T17:25:00.000-04:00

This is the inaugural posting about a topic near and dear to my heart... starting a new venture!

For whatever reason, this seems to be a tough thing to do. It requires several ingredients to get right, such as:

1. the right business segment

2. the right technology

3. the right funding

4. the right partners and employees

I never thought for a moment that this would be a particularly difficult task, but I have learned that it is a really hard thing to do...

I'll share my inner most thoughts about all this in subsequent posts.