Why Female Entrepreneurs Should Stop Procrastinating and Make Their Ideas Happen Now

Let's face it: The startup field is still a boys' club. From founders and CEOs to investors and acquirers, we often see men in leadership positions. Women start fewer companies and raise far less in venture capital, but some of that is starting to change. There is more support for female founders than ever before, and they and their ideas are finding more paths to success. Here's why this year will be the best yet for entrepreneurs who happen to be women.

You can afford it now. 

Quitting your job to launch your big idea requires fewer tough choices in 2014. You're probably hoping to test your ideas without spending your life savings. Fortunately, business accelerators and incubators exist in every major city and many smaller ones, too, offering sizable investments in new companies. In Los Angeles alone, there are more than 15 accelerators. From 2006 to 2011, the TechStars network expanded from one U.S. city to a network of 25 accelerators around the globe. And some of these backers are dedicated to growing female-led companies. Non-traditional sources of startup capital are also available through strategic activities of large companies such as Target, which offers lucrative prizes for breakthrough ideas that support its businesses.

You can also better keep your day-to-day expenses in check. More affordable co-working sites means more cheap and flexible workspaces for companies on the rise. Just 20 percent of U.S. computer science students are female, meaning that the chances of a female entrepreneur being able to do her own initial programming are lower. Free services like Wix help you program a basic site to give your idea higher visibility. In addition, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the days of relying on your employer to provide health insurance are over. This year's plans include free services for women such as Pap smears and well-woman visits, and no one can be denied insurance based on pre-existing conditions. Assuming you'll take a pay cut to start your own company, there's a good chance that going forth on your own will actually lead to lower health insurance premiums, since with a lower income you may qualify for government subsidies. Goodbye, expensive COBRA!

Barriers to funding are coming down. 

According to research by Google, women-led companies have a 35 percent higher return on investment and are 12 percent more profitable than male-led companies. This may be why smart investors are backing increasing numbers of female entrepreneurs. There are also more female investors in 2014 and more female-led venture capital firms, including newly formed Aspect Ventures and Cowboy Ventures, each with veteran female VCs at the helm. Given the tight network of mostly male funders in Silicon Valley and beyond, new networks forming around these female investors may offer more opportunities for women to successfully pitch their companies.

Dread the idea of pitching to angel investors? Good news: Even though women still have a small piece of the angel investment pie -- 13 percent -- their share has more than tripled in the past decade, up from 4 percent in 2004. The number of female millionaires is growing twice as fast as that of their male counterparts, and angel networks like Astia's Angels are cropping up to invest exclusively in women-led companies.

The country is getting behind you. 

From the appointment of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to the multiple initiatives to advance women's economic interests, the current administration is arguably the most female-friendly yet. President Obama is focused on supporting women in the workplace, and what's followed is an atmosphere of female inclusion like never before -- which means better opportunities and a level playing field for female-driven startups.

Academia is also stepping up to provide more study of female leadership. Harvard Business School, a leader in global business leadership education and resources, has committed to doubling the number of cases it publishes with female leaders as protagonists.

All that's missing is the next big idea. 

So what's stopping you? If it's funding, the horizons are broadening. If it's support, don't fool yourself into believing that you're alone in a sea of men. Check out Springboard Enterprises, Beehive Holdings or Golden Seeds -- all organizations focused on funding, training and cultivating women-led businesses.

Do you have the next big idea and the guts to follow it through? If so, 2014 may just be the year you make it happen.

From HuffPost

5 ENTREPRENEURS THAT GOT FIRED AND GOT THE BEST REVENGE: SUCCESS

THESE LEADERS HIT THEIR PERSONAL LOWS--AND IT WAS JUST WHAT THEY NEEDED TO ACHIEVE BIG SUCCESS IN THE NEXT STEP.

Getting fired might not be the most ideal way to learn a lesson, but the drive that comes later may be exactly what some people need to elevate into heights of success they could only reach after a bad burn.

Once it happens, there are two things you can do: you can either mope around feeling ashamed and defeated, or you can take the opportunity to become the best version of yourself you’ve ever known.

Some of the most successful business leaders today are those who walked out with that pink slip and seized their opportunity.

IN THAT FAILURE THERE WAS ALSO AN EDGE--THE DESIRE TO START OVER, AND TO DO THINGS BETTER THE SECOND TIME AROUND.

The late Steve Jobs once told a group of Stanford graduates that “getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to [him].” Like Jobs, after businessman Mark Cuban was fired, he, too, became a beginner again, but this time, for his own company.

Wall Street powerhouse Sallie Krawcheck became a leading example for professional women everywhere by rising quickly back to the top of the financial world after losing her executive job at Bank of America.

Here are some leading examples that show there’s certainly life after the pink slip:

Photo by Peter Foley, Bloomberg via Getty Images

SALLIE KRAWCHECK, OWNER OF 85 BROADS

She’s one of the most powerful women on Wall Street and made a name for herself as chief executive officer at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. and later Citi wealth management business division. This year, Krawcheck was named one of our most creative people in business, but even this influential woman didn’t escape a very public ousting as head of Merrill Lynch’s global wealth management division in 2011.

Krawcheck tells Fast Company about that period of time that initially felt like “a punch in the gut”:

I certainly knew I wasn't in the new CEO's ‘inner circle,’ but my prior career experience had been that good business results, delivered in the right way, win out. On that day, Merrill Lynch was in substantially better shape than when I was brought in two years prior.

I was given 20 minutes from the time I was told until the announcement went out; I wasn't able to reach my father by phone, so he learned about it on TV. Perhaps counter-intuitively, this treatment made my leaving the company easier; it was a hard truth that I had been spending more time with these folks than with my own family, and the job had been receiving the majority of my waking attention.

Over time, I recognized I had been given a gift, which became more obvious when both of my children later experienced health issues, and I was able to give them my full time and attention. And, on the professional front, it taught me to look at business opportunities through the lens of the broader positive impact they can have, given the trade-offs we are forced to make in pursuing them.

In 2013, Krawcheck bought professional women’s organization 85 Broads and has increased the company’s revenue by more than 100% since.

MARK CUBAN, OWNER OF DALLAS MAVERICKS, CHAIRMAN OF THE AXS TV CABLE NETWORK AND A “SHARK” INVESTOR ON ABC’S PITCH SHOW SHARK TANK

We see the outspoken investor every Friday night on ABC’s Shark Tank, but Cuban wasn’t always the successful businessman we know today. In the early 1980s, he was sleeping on the floor of a tiny apartment in Dallas with five buddies and working as a salesman at a computer store.

The job paid him $18,000 annually, plus commission so when Cuban got an opportunity to close a $15,000 deal where he was going to make $1,500, he went for it and asked a co-worker to cover for him at the office.

The next day, Cuban was fired.

Instead of wallowing in misery, Cuban used the experience as a determining factor to never work for anyone else.

“I was thrilled to death,” he says. “My worst fear was that I would have to stay.”

That’s the thing--sometimes you know a job isn’t right for you, but unless something traumatic changes the way you think about business, you might end up staying in a bad job just because you didn’t know any better.

Less than a decade after receiving his pink slip, Cuban sold his first company MicroSolutions and made around $2 million.

Image: Flickr user TechCrunch

KATHRYN MINSHEW, FOUNDER AND CEO OF THE MUSE

Before her successes at The Muse, Minshew had another company--one that she had put her entire life savings into--only to discover one morning in 2011 that she had been locked out of the system by her former colleagues.

She tells Fast Company about the events that occurred after:

I sometimes joke that, when I lost my first company, I spent the next three weeks alternating between the fetal position and the whiteboard. Those days were unbelievably awful, and I felt completely humiliated in front of the team I'd recruited and my friends and relationships. I couldn't believe I had failed so utterly.

And yet, in that failure there was also an edge--the desire to start over, and to do things better the second time around. That's where the whiteboard came in. After the first few days of utter dejection, I started thinking coherently again.

With my cofounder Alex, who was in the same position, we started chipping away at a very dangerous idea: what would we need to consider starting over? Eventually, the answer became concrete enough that we felt we were capable. A few days later, The Muse was born.

A few months later, Minshew’s company raised more than $2 million in venture and angel funding.

ABTIN BUERGARI, FOUNDER AND CEO OF MODUS EDISCOVERY

When Buergari was in law school, he was hired by a company to conduct “electronic discovery,” which meant digging through emails, instant messages, and other documents to discover useful information for litigation.

When one customer asked Buergari to find documents as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, Buergari asked his boss if he could try specific technology which would sift through the documents quicker. His boss turned down his offer since “electronic discovery” is meant to be expensive and for use by lawyers. If Buergari cheapened and quickened the process, he would also drop the value of the services and his boss did not want their e-discovery process to be cheaper, says Buergari.

Instead of agreeing, Buergari persisted and even offered to quit and become a consultant instead so that he could try out the new technology. That’s when his employer decided to fire and sue him, which led him to drop out of law school, live off of credit cards and, of course, start his own company.

"When everything is hard ... you just have to stay strong. That's when you know you can be a leader that drives a company forward," he says.

Last year, Buergari’s company was listed on Inc.’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies with $18 million in sales and 1,120% growth in the last three years.

ANTHONY SALADINO, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO OF KITCHEN CABINET KINGS

Like Krawcheck, Saladino also describes his experience as “a hard punch to the gut,” but without being fired, this former “Mr. Nine-to-Five” would have never forced himself to fall forward into entrepreneurship.

Still the experience was tough and Saladino thought, at the time, that it was the worst day of his life. It turned out to be the first of many better days, he says:

A few hours after the initial shock was over, anxiety set in. Mistakenly, I did not have a substantial savings safety net, so with the sudden loss off of income I was very concerned with how I was going to cover my monthly bills. The worst part of my firing was that it was not because of poor work performance or budget concerns. I was fired only because the owner of the company who was a family friend, had a personal issue with someone in my immediate family.”

With my back to the wall and no financial assistance coming from anyone, I was left with two options. Feel sorry for myself and sulk, or go out there and make it happen. The very next day I sprung into action. I vowed to never have my fate in someone else's hands again. I was going to start my own company and control my own destiny.

The path of the least resistance was to leverage my existing contacts, knowledge, and skill-set and open an e-commerce company selling kitchen and bathroom cabinets nationwide.

Today, I look back on that day as one of the best things that ever happened to me. I learned that life is all a matter of perspective. Bad things will happen to everyone, but it is how you respond which separates the winners and the losers.

From Fast Company

When “Scratch Your Own Itch” Is Dangerous Advice for Entrepreneurs

“Scratch your own itch,” is one of the most influential aphorisms in entrepreneurship. It lies behind successful product companies like Apple, Dropbox, and Kickstarter, but it can also lead entrepreneurs predictably to failure.

This approach to entrepreneurship increases your market knowledge: as a potential user, you know the problem, how you’re currently trying to solve it, and what dimensions of performance matter. And you can use this knowledge to avoid much of the market risk in building a new product. But scratching your own itch will lead you astray if you are a high-performance consumer whose problem stems from existing products not performing well enough – in other words, if the itch results from a performance gap.

Building a company around a better-performing product means competing head-on with a powerful incumbent that has the information, resources, and motivation to kill your business. Clayton Christensen first documented this phenomenon in his study of the disk drive industry, and found that new companies targeting existing customers succeeded 6% of the time, while new companies that targeted non-consumers succeeded 37% of the time. Even with a technological head start, wining the fight for incumbents’ most profitable customers is nearly impossible.

An itch can result from two very different sources: existing products lacking the performance you need, or a lack of products to solve your problem. In the former case, you already buy products and will pay more if they perform better along well-defined dimensions. In the latter, products don’t exist at all or you lack access to very expensive, centralized products and so make due with a cobbled-together solution or nothing at all. It’s the difference between needing another feature from your Salesforce-based CRM system and spending hours and hours tracking information in Excel because you can’t justify the expense of implementing Salesforce in the first place.

Consider, for example, two successful companies that at first seem to result from performance-gaps: Dropbox and Oculus VR.

Dropbox began with the difficulty of backing up and sharing important documents, and developed a system that was easier to use than carrying around a USB stick and less expensive than paid services like Carbonite. Dropbox didn’t just set out to offer superior performance; it targeted an entirely new customer set that wasn’t using existing solutions, with a business model that would undermine the incumbents’ most profitable customers. Dropbox’s business model made head-to-head competition with incumbents unlikely, since the Carbonite’s of the world sensed that they would earn less off of their best customers if they offered a free service.

Oculus created a virtual reality headset designed to be a hardware platform, primarily focusing on gaming – and recently sold to Facebook for $2.3 billion. Although envisioned as a platform that would enable any kind of virtual reality application, Oculus was created with hardcore gamers in mind. Unlike Dropbox, Oculus’s first customers would have been the most profitable customers of existing game platforms, giving incumbents like X-Box and PlayStation a strong incentive to emulate Oculus’s technology to retain their best customers and make them even more profitable.

Oculus, of course, was wildly successful. But only because Facebook felt that, despite being developed with existing customers in mind, the technology would be appealing to non-gamers for the purpose of messaging and social networking. Facebook bought Oculus to rescue it from a flawed strategy by shifting its focus from high-end customers to non-consumers.

Oculus’s founder set out to scratch his own itch by creating a new gaming platform, one that targeted a customer set of hardcore gamers who were already served by incumbent firms. Dropbox’s founder scratched his own itch by creating a product aimed at a new set of customers, who weren’t being served by incumbents. The difference matters greatly in terms of a company’s competitive position.

Before founding a business around a problem you face, first understand whether that problem is a performance gap or a product void, by asking the following questions:

• How am I currently solving this problem?
• Do other products exist that solve this problem?
  • Do they provide good enough performance, or is there still a performance gap?
  • Are they too expensive to use? Are they centralized and do they require special expertise?
• Would this product make any incumbent’s existing customers more profitable?

Ultimately, if your product would make an incumbent’s best customers more profitable, you should steer clear: Facebook won’t always be there to bail you out.

From Harvard Business Review

How Entrepreneurs Can Read to Lead

Being a leader is tough. On a daily basis you face all sorts of unexpected problems that no one trained you for.

How do you balance the demands of your business and family? How do you persuade your allies to believe in your mission? How do you deal with anger, frustration and pain? How do you attract financial support or deal with a difficult patron?

Sometime in the last 5,000 years somebody probably went through a similar problem. Chances are good that someone else deftly handled a management problem similar to the ones you face everyday and wrote down the wisdom gained after successfully navigating those waters.

That’s the wonderful thing about great books: They provide access to the wisdom from the vast human experience of the past and business leaders can turn to that knowledge for guidance.

In other words, you can read to lead. 

Some managers pick up the popular books sold at the airport rather than reading what can really push them to another level: the classics, biographies, the underground bibles and books containing wisdom passed through the ages. Try reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations instead of Outliers or Tyler Cowen’s Average Is Over instead of Lean In.

Here are some strategies to take your reading to another level:

1. Find the time. Make reading a priority, just like eating three meals a day, working out and spending time with the family. It should be part of the job, part of life, not an extra.

Carry a book at all times. There will be constant opportunities to crack it open, for example, when traveling or in the waiting room. Don’t let anyone say reading is not important work because it is.

Being in a position of leadership means you can set your schedule. Do you really need to sit in on that conference call? What about that TV show you watch but don’t really like? Replace these activities with something that's a better use of your time: reading books that make you better.

2. Read books beyond your level. Reading to lead requires treating your brain like the muscle it is and tackling subjects with the most tension and weight. Push ahead into subjects you’re not familiar with and wrestle with them. Shy away from the easy read. 

Use tricks to quickly get up to speed and attack tough books: Ruin the ending. I almost always go straight to Wikipedia and spoil the ending. Who cares? Your aim as a reader is to understand why something happened. The what is secondary.

This frees you up to focus on (a) what it means (b) and if you agree with it. Reading the first 50 pages of the book shouldn’t be a discovery process. Figure out if the author is right and how you can benefit from it.

With every book I read, I try to find my next one in its footnotes or bibliography. This is how you build a knowledge base in a subject and trace a subject back to its core. Just keep a running list through Amazon’s Wish List service (here's mine).

3. Don't read like you're in school. You longer have to memorize facts just to show you actually did the reading. Remembering the countries that participated in a certain battle isn't as important as the lessons the generals learned. So forget everything but that message and how to apply it to your life. Dates, names, pronunciations only matter in how they provide context for the lesson at hand. They carry little value otherwise.

4. Look things up. If you’re properly pushing yourself, you’re going to come across concepts or words you’re not familiar with. Don’t pretend to understand. Use a reference tool. I like to use my Dictionary.com or Wikipedia app on my iPhone to look stuff up. With military history, a sense of the battlefield or the countries involved is often necessary. Wikipedia is a great place to grab maps and to help understand the terrain.  

5. Take notes. On the right side of the page, I tag the pages I have highlighted with important passages on. On the top of the page, I mark if there is a concept I need to research or a book suggested. Tape is cheap but the time it will take you to otherwise flip back through the book to track something down is not.

Before you close the book, go back through and reread all the marked passages. This puts them back in your memory and let’s you walk away knowing the crucial hits of the author’s message. With these flagpoles you will be able to go back through and remember the details if necessary, like knowing the chord structure of a song.

In Old School, Tobias Wolff talked about how he used to retype the works of classic authors when he felt uninspired just to feel what it was like to have that profoundness flow out of his fingertips. That is why I keep my version of a commonplace book, a central file for quotes, anecdotes, observations and information encountered. I’ve been compiling it for almost four years and have nearly 15,000 words typed. Not only will it inspire you, but this process will help you remember the key ideas. As Raymond Chandler once said, “When you have to use your energy to put those words down, you are more apt to make them count.”

6. Keep an anti-library. In the The Black Swan Nicholas Nassim Taleb wrote that only an amateur walks into someone’s library and says “Have you really read all these books?” A good library is filled with unread books, an “anti-library.”

Don't think of reading as a contest to fill up a library or office to show friends or peers how smart you are. Stash an anti-library at all times of books you have yet to read, a constant reminder of how much you have to learn.  

7. Connect, apply and use what you read. Many merely put a book back on the shelf after finishing it and move on to the next important task. Yet Plutarch said, “I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience of things.”

Use what you read to experiment with your work and business. Try out a great quote at a meeting or a memo. This not only forces you to recall it but also adds meaning and context to whatever you're working on.

Articulate and analyze what you're reading. It’s the only way to take the sparks of thought in your brain and turn them into a coherent understanding that can be applied to other things.  

Analogous thinking, when thinking from one domain is applied to another, is incredibly powerful. It’s how the real creative breakthroughs happen. But it requires having an interest in something and the initiative to try to translate it.

As Seneca said, “What we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application -- not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech -- and learn them so well that words become works.”

Some our greatest leaders practiced similar strategies in their quest to read to lead. 

Frederick the Great was said to ride with the works of the Stoics in his saddlebags because they could “sustain you in misfortune.” 

Reading to lead can help you make the creative breakthroughs you seek or the solution to a dispute at work. 

From Entrepreneur

Student entrepreneurs get assistance

Representatives of global marketing agency R/GA shared insights with entrepreneurial students at Blackstone LaunchPad MSU in March. / COURTESY PHOTO

Blackstone LaunchPad landed in Montana last summer with the announcement that Blackstone Charitable Foundation would bankroll business incubators for student entrepreneurs on the campuses of the state’s two biggest universities.

“We’ve got a place on the MSU campus Strand Union Building, actually in the cafeteria,” said Rob Irizarry, director of Blackstone Launchpad Montana State University. He’s happy with the venue. “Everybody has to eat — it’s location, location location.”

Irizarry and Launchpad’s staff of four work with people “all along the arc of their entrepreneurship with questions about their projects. ... We take them wherever they are and help them along at their own pace.” He called it a guiding sort of relationship.

There is some space to work, computers and networked printing, but the LaunchPad is not now a typical incubator where a tiny company takes residence until it has the wherewithal to find and pay for professional space of its own.

The Bozeman location opened in November, but “we started in earnest with the new semester Jan. 9.” He said LaunchPad at MSU has worked with 150 students, so space considerations would make it hard to actually house start ups in the location. “Over the summer there will be less traffic, we should be able to put more emphasis on those start ups.”

LaunchPad also boasts a high-end TelePresence video-conferencing system.

The project was made possible by a three-year grant totaling just under $2 million, through the charitable arm of The Blackstone Group, a New York private-equity and investment-banking firm.

The money is not completely earmarked for the incubators on the two campuses, though.

Over the three years, LaunchPad at the University of Montana and MSU each will receive a total of $622,800, said Pam Haxby-Cote. She is Blackstone LaunchPad’s regional director based in Butte’s Headwaters RC&D. Her regional director’s office gets a total of $437,750 as host agency and administers the Montana grant, distributing the money to the two campus operations, as well as producing marketing materials and raising funds, especially for the time three years out when the LaunchPads must be self-sustaining to keep operating.

Haxby-Cote, Irizarry and Paul Gladen, LaunchPad director at UM are paid $70,000 a year each. The rest of their allotments go to staff, facility build outs and other incubator costs, she said.

Another $316,000 of the total grant goes to LaunchPad at the University of Miami, where the program was developed. The Florida location provides training for LaunchPad directors and ongoing support for LaunchPad locations around the nation.

Besides Montana and Florida, Blackstone LaunchPad has multiple locations in:

• California.

• Michigan.

• Ohio.

• Pennsylvania.

Headwaters and Miami receive progressively lower amounts of the grant each year as they have bigger upfront costs. MSU and UM LaunchPad funding rises from $182,500 in the first year to $231,400 in the final year, she said.

“People like this program,” she said, “LaunchPad helps provide opportunities for our young people so they don’t have to go somewhere else,” to get a company going or find a good job.

Irizarry said entrepreneurs working with LaunchPad MSU include traditional software start ups, a handful of software gaming start ups, and eight young companies with physical products, including some in the hot arena of 3-D printers.

The incubator uses a couple of layers of assistance, he said, starting with staff and also working with “venture coaches,” mostly within the state, acting as a “mentoring network. These mentors will have something to (share) having done work in that world and been successful.”

LaunchPad clients may be working through their financial models, and the incubator connections can introduce them to local sources of funding, he said. “They may need seven figures, then we can reach outside of the state.” He said LaunchPad also works with the angel-fund network and individual investors in Bozeman. Angel funds exist in most states as a pool of funding contributed by private investors. Kalispell-based Frontier Angel Fund aims to help companies in Montana and the Inland Pacific Northwest.

The Blackstone money infusion will be used to “spin up” the LaunchPad, Irizaary said. Some of that will go to salaries, and some will pay for activities such as events where expert speakers will appear or for start up weekend events on the MSU campus. “Our mission is to become self-sustaining.”

From Great Falls Tribune

10 Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are an idiosyncratic group of people. Each one has found success in his or her own way. It’s difficult to duplicate the results.

Success takes hard work, dedication and, most importantly, the drive to keep going when it feels like everything is against you. Following these principles will keep you in the right mindset to grow your small business.

1. Do the work.

Every great entrepreneur isn’t afraid to get his or her hands dirty. They put in the hours and learn how the industry operates. They don’t hide in the office.

2. Don’t give up easily.

To quote Winston Churchill, “Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” Many entrepreneurs share this belief. They realize that achieving something meaningful is hard work, and it may take a few flops before something soars.

3. Be wary of success.

If business is a race, entrepreneurs don’t have the same finish line as the other runners. They set their sights farther ahead. And when they reach that point, they might go a few more miles.

4. Start with a market need.

Since new ideas are plentiful, they are not worth very much. Instead, entrepreneurs begin with a need, where they already have a market—the people who need what they have.

5. Don’t Set Out to Be Rich.

If your objective is to get rich quick, you are likely to cut corners. Entrepreneurs aren’t out to be rich; they are looking to build something that lasts. Wealth is the byproduct.

6. Be brand savvy.

A brand is your mark in the industry that distinguishes you from your competition. An entrepreneur can tell you how they different from their competition at the drop of a hat.

7. Understand the trap of financing.

Many believe that entrepreneurs start their companies with millions of dollars in financing. This simply isn’t true. Successful entrepreneurs are more strategic. By taking small steps, they only need to sufficiently finance the first steps in order to accomplish the next steps.

8. Build a team of experts.

An entrepreneur learns to delegate early. Micromanaging creates obstacles. The company will never grow, if it is designed for only one person (the founder) to manage it effectively.

9. Play to strengths.

Entrepreneurs focus on what they do best. Wherever there is great innovation, there is a dreamer and an operator; an “idea man” and someone who turns those ideas into reality.

10. Read to be inspired.

Entrepreneurs learn from other entrepreneurs. They also look for inspiration wherever it might hide. Successful entrepreneurs are willing to pick up a book (or read a blog) and unearth the available treasure.

From Business2Community

Mozambique: Agreement Signed to Assist Women Entrepreneurs

Mozambique's first Lady, Maria da Luz Guebuza, and US Ambassador Douglas Griffiths on Friday signed a memorandum of certification to implement the African Women's Entrepreneurship Programme (AWEP) in Mozambique.

AWEP is a programme launched by former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in 2010, intended to assist women entrepreneurs across sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the State Department's website “approximately 30 women entrepreneurs from across Africa arrive in the United States each year to attend professional development meetings and network with U.S. policy makers, companies, industry associations, nonprofit groups, and multilateral development organizations. The three-week program allows the AWEP participants to share best practices, discuss common challenges and learn about the global economy and factors that lead to long-term business growth”.

Maria Guebuza, who has agreed to sponsor AWEP in Mozambique, said “only with training and capacity building that meets the challenges of a growing and technically competitive business market can we have more women entrepreneurs, creating more jobs and more income generating activities”.

Griffiths claimed that AWEP offers women a valuable space to gain access to resources and expand business opportunities, as well as disseminating information about the tools available for women business people.

“Although African women are already producing all kinds of products, this programme can help them prepare their goods and services for the international markets”, the ambassador said.

He added that AWEP seeks to inspire the next generation of young women to become the motors of development of the private sector which Mozambique will need to create more employment and prosperity for its citizens.

He recognised that Mozambican women in business face the same obstacles as women in other parts of the world in access to bank credit, in hiring the best staff, in dealing with high transport costs, and in facing discrimination.

Women should thus help each other, he said, and build strong networks of cooperation that can promote and encourage other female entrepreneurs.

At the ceremony, the Minister of Industry and Trade, Armando Inroga, said that Mozambique exported 77.4 million dollars' worth of goods to the United States in 2013, notably previous and semi-precious stones, fruit, tobacco and fisheries produce.

He added that AWEP could help improve the business environment for Mozambican women entrepreneurs “since we have areas of activity with a high female participation and with potential to export to the American market”.

From All Africa