An article in the April 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review discusses one of the biggest challenges in managing and growing a 21st century business -- namely getting business stakeholders (employees, clients, partners, and vendors) -- to actually do/deliver upon what they promise.

The article has a number of incredibly salient points for the modern manager/entrepreneur, including:

A great article on SmartMoney.com outlines the path to wealth of the majority of the nation's pentamillionaires -- those with net worths of greater than $5 million.

In a recent New York Times article entitled Some Unrest Is Bubbling Beneath the Top Tier author Matt Richtell shares a key issue faced by venture capital firms -- satisfying limited partners.

Limited partners are the firms that invest billions of dollars in venture capital firms so that they can then invest in high-growth ventures.

Words That Work is an interesting new book by Dr. Frank Luntz. The premise of the book is that the way words are used can influence and motivate the way people connect thought and emotion, and thus influence them to take desired actions. These principles can be used for new and emerging ventures to attract customers, investors, partners, and to better manage employees.
In the book, Dr. Luntz discusses ten rules of words:

Flat Daddies is undoubtedly a cool new company.

Flat Daddies are full-size printed posters of parents who are serving overseas in the military. Flat Daddies (or Flat Mommies) are free to children who are directly affected by the military deployment of a parent. Others can purchase them for $49.50.

The free Flat Daddies are supported by donations from individuals, companies and organizations, and anyone can donate money on their website at http://www.flatdaddies.com/.

I recently read an excellent blog entry called Failing Cheaper, which discussed, among other things, the flexibility required by new ventures and the decreased amount of capital it now takes to launch a venture.

The entry begins by pointing out that some prominent recent ventures started out doing very different things. For instance, PayPal started out as a service to beam money through Palm Pilots. Likewise YouTube was originally a video dating site.

Recently I attended an iBreakfast event in New York City. The featured speaker was Roger Aguinaldo, an M&A expert from M&A Advisors. Roger posed a question to the audience regarding the best sources of capital for a startup.

People shouted out their answers. Venture capitalists. Friends and Family. Angel investors. Banks. Etc. Etc.

While Roger wrote all of these answers on the board, he said that each of these answers weren't in his top three places to get initial investments.

A question recently came up regarding whether a founder can re-pay themselves for some of their initial investments in their business once an outside investment is achieved.

According to the 2006 Angel Market Analysis released yesterday by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire, in 2006, the angel investor market experienced steady growth. Total angel investments reached $25.6 billion, which represents an increase of 10.8 percent over 2005. According to the study, 51,000 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding in 2006, a 3 percent increase from 2005.

In the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams," a corn farmer hears voices telling him to build a baseball field. The voices say, "If you build it, they will come."

Unfortunately in the world of startups and technology, often people build it, but no one comes. The missing element for these ventures is effective marketing. If no one knows about your great invention, website, or product/service, no one will use it or buy it.