Are You Aroused? The Importance of High Arousal Content for Shareability

Why do people share what they share? Cute cats, crazy twerking videos, touching moments between perfect strangers, silly memes, inspirational quotes? More often than not, it's because these 'sharables' are emotionally arousing.

I know, that sounds dirty, right?

But according to research, we are more likely to share when in a heightened state of physiological arousal. Jonah Berger defines physiological arousal as:

...a state of activation and readiness for action. The heart beats faster and blood pressure arises. Evolutionarily, it comes from our ancestors' reptilian brains.

Though we don't have to outrun predators as often, the reptilian brains remain. Berger studied a group and found those with heightened states of urgency were more likely to share than those in a resting position. Think about when you are most likely to share? When you've just gone to the grocery store and nothing out of the ordinary happened? Or when you have just encountered something that made your heart race? Like seeing a car accident? Or watching a random act of kindness?

In fact, people don't tend to share much at all when they are relaxed and content. They would rather just enjoy that relaxing moment. And when you are sad, you tend to go inwards and introspective. Plus, we don't want to be downers, right?

Berger maps high and low states of arousal like this:

I think of stuff like this as High Arousal:

And, when it comes to anger? How many times have you seen people share misinformation on Facebook about it's 'changing terms'? Yep. Anxiety.

Of course, high emotional arousal is only one of the 6 dimensions of sharability, but it's the one I see spreading most like wildfire. When we laugh, when we tear up, when we gasp, when we coo, when we are surprised (good and bad), when we get excited and when we fear...those are the times we share.

So...how are YOU going to emotionally arouse people with your message? The bar is set pretty high nowadays. Just ask Miley. ;)

by Tara Hunt

Is the Playing Field Even for Women Entrepreneurs 25 Years After H.R. 5050?

Last month marked a quarter-century milestone for entrepreneurship policy that few entrepreneurs were likely aware of, let alone celebrated. On Oct. 25, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Women’s Business Ownership Act. The law, designated H.R. 5050 for the equality it set out to establish for female entrepreneurs, banned discrimination against women seeking business loans and improved access to educational and technical assistance.

It’s hard for someone like 25-year-old Tish Scolnik, an MIT-trained engineer and startup founder, to wrap her head around. But in the year she was born, banks in some parts of the country still required women to have their husbands or other male relatives co-sign their loan applications, no matter how creditworthy they were.
“I can’t even imagine that legislation like that was needed,” says Scolnik, who founded Boston-based GRIT in 2011 to design and produce rough-terrain wheelchairs. Her three-employee company won $100,000 in the 2013 MassChallenge, a startup competition. Of the 128 companies that entered this year, 35 percent were founded by women, including eight of the top 26 finalists.
But for 69-year-old Carol Stein, who founded Nashville’s Cumberland Gallery in 1980, the need isn’t so far-fetched. She remembers having to get her husband’s signature on all the legal documents related to her business. She also hasn’t forgotten the landlord who told her he wouldn’t rent space to a woman starting a business.
“He also turned down two women who ended up opening a bookstore that turned into a nationally known concern. I bumped into him five or six years ago, and he admitted those were the biggest mistakes he had made in his career. That was very gratifying,” Stein says.
Despite the gains that the legislation, and the women’s movement that sparked it, have brought about over the past quarter-century, women have not achieved anything close to true equality in business, says Caryl Rivers, co-author of The New Soft War on Women (Penguin Group 2013). The book argues that although women made tremendous strides through the 1990s, they have been stuck or falling behind ever since in such areas as equal pay and business ownership. It cites research that shows men are almost twice as likely as women to become chief executives or senior executives and are paid less even when they do reach the C-suite.
Celebrating women’s achievements is fine, but focusing on the good without seeing the persistent disparities can be misleading, she says. “When women buy this stuff and start looking at how well they’ve done, they start putting on rose-colored glasses and thinking things are much better than they are. This narrative tends to make the barriers invisible and make women think that if they’re not doing as well as they should, it’s their own fault.”
Indeed, rather than tackling problems such as stubborn pay gaps or the dearth of venture capital for women-owned companies, many women who start businesses worry more about their own shortcomings, echoing Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg’s advice that women should “lean in.”
Sarah Biller, 42, president of financial technology company Capital Market Exchange, cites perfectionism as a major challenge for women, including herself. “I wanted to come to market with a perfect solution,” she says. But “it’s a messy world.” That “tendency to play by the rules and dot every ‘i’ or cross every ‘t’ stands in the way of women all the time,” she says.
Part of that overcompensation may come from knowing, consciously or unconsciously, than women have to outperform men to succeed, she says. “When I’m meeting with peers who are often all men, I sit at the table fully prepared for the discussion, but I see a lot of guys just winging it.”
Andrea Colaco, 27, is the founder of 3dim, a four-employee startup that is developing mobile technology that will allow users to control their electronic devices with independent hand gestures rather than keystrokes or physical swipes on the device. She co-founded the company as an MIT doctoral student in engineering and says that despite her expertise, she finds she is sometimes overlooked in conversations, especially when her male counterparts are discussing a technical problem. “It does happen often, but it might be because I am more hesitant to ask questions, and it takes me longer to get the attention of the speaker,” she says.
Scolnik also identifies communication as a stumbling block, saying she struggles to speak confidently about her wheelchair company when progress is not being made as fast as she’d hoped. “I find myself using the royal we even when I’m talking about something I did on my own. I always want to make sure everybody gets the credit,” she says.
That tendency toward modesty and emphasis on being a team player does hurt women, Rivers says, especially since men are already more likely to be handed credit—and to take it—for achievements made by a group. “The accomplishment is automatically seen as the guy’s, so if women don’t speak up, they risk losing out.”
Despite women’s ongoing struggles, they are making progress, particularly in gaining a voice in decision-making at the highest levels, says Barbara Kasoff, president and co-founder of WIPP (Women Impacting Public Policy), a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of 4.7 million businesswomen and 75 women’s business organizations. “Are we where we should be at this time? No. There are still issues, like not enough women in senior management or on corporate boards.”
To counter that, she says, “there’s a very clear realization that women entrepreneurs fuel the economy and have a strong economic impact. We are unquestionably now at the table for every important economic decision, and that’s a critical outcome.”

From Bloomberg Business Week

Challenges of Starting a Business

What are the major challenges entrepreneurs face when starting a small business from scratch? How do successful entrepreneurs and drop out billionaires handle and solve problems in business? Must an entrepreneur face these business challenges when starting a business?

“Starting a business is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. In mid air, the entrepreneur begins building a parachute and hopes it opens before hitting the ground.” – Rich Dad

If any of the above questions is currently running through your entrepreneurial mind, then I will advice you read on as I trash out the top 10 challenges you will face when starting a business from scratch.

“Without the element of uncertainty, the bringing off of even, the greatest business triumph would be dull, routine and eminently unsatisfying.” – J. Paul Getty

If you are an entrepreneur, then I believe you will be familiar with the challenges associated with the entrepreneurial process of building a business from scratch. But if not, and you dream of becoming one someday; then I think you will find this article worthwhile.

“A business has to be involving, it has to be fun and it has to exercise your creative instincts.” – Richard Branson

I am writing this piece to enable aspiring entrepreneurs prepare in advance for challenges involved with the entrepreneurial process. Please it’s never my intention to discourage or scare you from going into business; In fact, I intend to achieve the opposite. I want you to venture into the business world and start your own business with a feeling of confidence.

“He that is prepared has half won the battle.” – Chinese Proverb

“The biggest challenge you have is to challenge your own self doubt and your laziness. It is your self doubt and your laziness that defines and limit who you are.” – Rich Dad

1. Developing the Vision and Business Idea

“To have a great idea, have a lot of them.” – Thomas Edison

Developing a business idea is usually the first challenge faced by every entrepreneur when starting a business from scratch. Finding the right business opportunity or creatively developing an idea is certainly not an easy task. I call “Envisioning the idea” the first true task of an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, you must possess the ability to see what others cannot see. While others see problems, you must see opportunities.

“There is far more opportunity than there is ability.” – Thomas Edison

But seeing opportunities is just the beginning. The main business challenge is going to be your ability to forge that opportunity into a business idea. I see this as a business challenge because the process of transforming problems into business opportunities is like trying to turn lead into gold. I call it the entrepreneurial process of “Creating Value out of nothing”; a process that brings innovative products into existence. Below is an illustration of how the process goes.

• Identifying a problem > Seeing an opportunity in the problem > Coming up with a solution > Forging the opportunity into a business idea > Integrating your solution into a business plan

“A good businessman must have nose for business the same way a journalist has nose for news. Once your eyes, ears, nose, heart and brain are trained on business, you sniff business opportunities everywhere. In places where people see a lot of obstacles, I see a lot of opportunities. At times, there is something instinctive in me that tell me a business opportunity exist even at a place where others see nothing. That is what makes me different, maybe unique. A good businessman sees where others don’t see. What I see, you may not see. You cannot see because that is the secret of the business… the entire world is a big market waiting for anybody who knows the rules of the game.” – Orji Uzor Kalu

Developing a vision is definitely a business challenge because an entrepreneur must sometimes assume the role of a sorcerer. Let me explain in detail. Most individuals are comfortable with the present way of doing things but it is the duty of an entrepreneur to envision and forecast the future. An entrepreneur must always be ahead of his time or else he will lose his relevance. It is the duty of an entrepreneur to bring into present what is yet to be. It is also the duty of an entrepreneur to bring solutions to other people’s problems. Let me give you some practical illustrations:

“If you want to be rich, you need to develop your vision. You must be standing on the edge of time gazing into the future.” – Rich Dad

a)  In the late 70s and early 80s, while IBM saw increase in demand for their mainframe computers, Steve Jobs envisioned a personal computer in every home and Bill Gates envisioned the need for easy to use software for personal computers. That single vision made Bill Gates the richest man in the world and Steve Jobs the most famous business person of the 21^st century.

“Business is going to change in the next ten years than it has in the last fifty years.” – Bill Gates

b)  The Wright brothers envisioned a flying machine but they were massively opposed because the thought of humans flying was perceived as impossible. Today, the Airplane is a reality.

c)  Back in those days when cars were custom made and exclusively for the rich, Henry Ford envisioned affordable cars for the masses. That single vision made Henry Ford one of the richest men in history.

“You are nuts and you should be proud of it. Stick with what you believe in.” – Trip Hawkins

I believe with these few examples, my point is clear. Developing the vision and idea is the first true task and challenge of being an entrepreneur.

2. Raising Capital for your Startup

After developing your idea, the next challenge you are going to face when starting a business from scratch is that of raising capital. As an entrepreneur, you are the only one that knows business your idea to the core. You are the only one that knows the story of your future.

“Capital can do nothing without brains to direct it.” – J. Ogden Armour

Trying to convince investors about something that doesn’t exist is definitely a challenge. Trying to make them understand that you are trustworthy and equal to the task is not child’s play especially when you are building your first business.

“If you want to know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.” – Benjamin Franklin

There is more to raising capital than just simply asking for money. Most investors want to invest in already established businesses with minimal risk and they want to be sure that they get returns for the risk they took. Most brilliant business ideas never scale through the venture capital stage because the entrepreneur is either not prepared or lacks what it takes to raise the needed capital. Just as my mentor, Robert Kiyosaki says:

“The world is filled with brilliant ideas and excellent products but the world lacks seasoned entrepreneurs.” – Robert Kiyosaki

To overcome the challenge of raising capital, you must develop the ability to sell your idea and vision to potential investors. When I say “sell your ideas“, I mean improving your communication skill and your manner of presentation. In the game of raising capital, you must have a good story to tell; backed by a strong business plan and good persuasion skills. You must know how to pitch angel investors and venture capitalists alike.

“The ability to sell is the number one skill in business. If you cannot sell, don’t bother thinking about becoming a business owner.” – Rich Dad

3. Assembling a Business Team

“Eagles don’t flock, you have to find them one at a time.” – Henry Ross Perot

The third business challenge you will face in the course of starting a small business from scratch is assembling the right business management team. When I talk about a team, I am not talking about regular employees. I am talking about a “strategic round table business team” that will meet regularly to brainstorm on ways to grow your business.

“Individuals don’t win in business, teams do.” – Sam Walton

The process of building a business team starts even before the issue of raising initial start-up capital arises. Remember I said that most brilliant ideas never scale through the phase of raising venture capital. Well; this is where most budding entrepreneurs miss it. Most brilliant ideas and products never get funded because the entrepreneur is trying to raise capital as an individual. A business team is a vital, yet often ignored key to raising venture capital successfully.

“Business and investing are team sports.” – Rich Dad

As an entrepreneur, you are bound to have strengths and weaknesses. That is the more reason you need a business team to cover up or compliment your weaknesses. A team is a necessity for building a successful business. Now finding a business team is just the second hurdle, transferring your passion and vision to your team is the next piece of cake.

“Teams should be able to act with the same unity of purpose and focus as a well motivated individual.” – Bill Gates

It’s your duty as an entrepreneur to make sure your team sees the future you see. They must believe in your possibilities and must also be passionate about making that possibility a reality. If they can’t grasp your vision, if they can’t see the future with you, then they are not worthy being your team.

“My model for business is the Beatles. They were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person; they are done by a team of people.” – Steve Jobs

Your strategic business team should comprise your banker, financial adviser, accountant, attorney or legal adviser and any other specialist that will be of tremendous impact to your business. A question on your mind right now might be “how am I going to pay this team” My answer is I don’t know. You will have to figure it out yourself or better still, you can consider bringing them on board as partners.

“Go to the wolf, consider its ways and be wise. A wolf will never hunt alone; it hunts in packs because it knows the power of team work.” – Ajaero Tony Martins

4. Finding the Right Business Location

Is finding a good location a business challenge? I don’t know but what I do know is that finding a good business location at the right price is definitely not easy. How do you get a location that has a rapidly growing population, good road network and other amenities at a good price? Well, you will have to figure out yourself.

5. Finding Good Employees

“If you own a butcher shop, don’t hire vegetarians. To hire the right people, you have to let the wrong people go.” – Rich Dad

Most writers and managers crank up the process of finding good employees as an easy task. They define the process of finding an employee as simply presenting the job description and the right employee will surface. But I think it’s more than that.

“The competition to hire the best will increase in the years ahead. Companies that give extra flexibility to their employees will have the edge in this area.” – Bill Gates

Business owners know how difficult it is to find a hardworking, trustworthy employee. Most employees want to work less and get paid more. Finding a good employee who will be passionate about delivering his or her services is quite difficult. Finding good employees is a minor task compared to the business challenge of forging your hired employees into a team.

You may have great employees but if they can’t act as a team, they are worthless and will yield nothing but stagnation. A football team may have great skillful players but if they fail to play as a team, their possessed skill is useless.

“Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company’s ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.” – Bill Gates

Employees are your representatives to your customers and the outside world. They are a reflection of your business culture and ethics. If an employee of yours is bad or rude to your customers, it is going to portray a bad image for your company. So you must be careful when hiring employees. Remember the golden rule of business; “Hire slow and fire fast.”

6. Finding Good Customers

The sixth challenge you will face in the process of starting a small business from scratch is finding good customers. Note the keyword “good customers.” In the process of building a business, you will come to find out that there are good customers as well as bad customers. You must be on guard for bad customers. Good customers are really hard to find. A good customer will be loyal to your company and will be willing to forgive you if you make a mistake and apologize. A good customer will try to do the right thing that will benefit both himself and your company mutually.

“Thank God for my customers. They buy my products before they are perfected.” – Henry Ford

Bad customers will always look for loopholes in the company’s policy to exploit and make a few gains. Bad customers will always try to exploit the company’s goodwill and look for ways to rip off the company. Bad customers are responsible for bad debts. Good customers build your business and bad customers will always try to liquidate your business. Just as you fire employees, you must also be prepared to fire bad customers without hesitation. Remember the story of the customer that sued McDonald’s claiming the coffee was too hot.

“You must fire bad customers just as you would fire a bad employee. If you do not get rid of your bad employees, the good employees will leave. If I do not fire bad customers, not only will my good customers leave but many of my good employees will leave as well.” – Rich Dad

7. Dealing with Competition

“In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running. If you stand still, they will swallow you.” – Victor Kiam

Competition is the next challenge you will face when starting a business. Most individuals see competition as a plague but I see competition as a good challenge. I see competition as a benchmark for creativity, the main engine that stimulates innovation and production of quality products at great prices. Without competition, there will be no innovation and without innovation, the world will be stagnant.

“If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.” – Jack Welch

I see competition as a welcomed challenge and I want you to do the same. Competition keeps us on our toes and drives us to constantly improve our products and services. But you must be warned. Competition can make your business lose its relevance in the eye of your customers so you must always be on guard.

“The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all but goes on making his own business better all the time.” – Henry Ford

8. Unforeseen Business Challenges and Expenses

“Smooth seas seldom make good sailors.” – Anonymous

Just as a sailor prepares for unexpected storm, just as a pilot is always on the watch for unpredictable bad weather and thunderstorms, so must an entrepreneur prepared for whatever comes. Unexpected challenges can come in the form of:

• Unexpected law suits
• Inconsistent government policy
• Not being able to make payroll
• Unpaid bills and taxes
• Unexpected resignation of staff from sensitive office
• Bad debts from customers
• Loss of market share
• Dwindling working capital
• Inadequate stock or inventory

“A company’s ability to respond to an unplanned event, good or bad is a prime indicator of its ability to compete.” – Bill Gates

These business challenges, if not handled properly can ruin your plan to build a successful business. Another challenge you must expect is an unforeseen increase in business expenses. If not handled properly, it might result in constant negative cash flow and eventually; business failure.

9. Keeping Up With Industrial Changes and Trends

“In three years, every product my company makes will be obsolete. The only question is whether we will make them obsolete or somebody else will.” – Bill Gates

Change in trends is a challenge you must be prepared for when starting a small business. Trends have made and broken lot of businesses. I know a lot of profitable businesses that have been wiped out by slight industrial changes and trends. A typical example is the Dot com trend, where many established industrial based businesses were wiped out by new web based dot com companies.

“How fast a company can respond in an emergency is a measure of its corporate reflexes.” – Bill Gates

When the Dot com era began, business owners were left with only two options. Either they join the dot com train or they get crushed by the dot com train. Seasoned entrepreneurs know that trend is a friend and are always willing to swiftly adjust their business to the current trend. Keeping your eyes open to spot trends is really a challenge but the big task will be your ability to quickly use the trend to your advantage.

10. Exiting the Business

“In the world of business and investing, your exit is more important than your entry. A good thumb of rule is this; exit before you enter.” – Robert Kiyosaki

When building a business from scratch, you are going to face the challenge of determining your exit strategy. Just as the quote above states, you have to plan your exit strategy before you even start the business. Most entrepreneurs run their business without any plans to exit and even if they have an exit strategy, they find it difficult to implement it.

“Always start at the end before you begin. Professional investors always have an exit strategy before they invest. Knowing your exit strategy is an important investment fundamental.” – Rich Dad

Before starting a business, it is advisable to plan an exit. Lack of an exit plan is the primary reason why most businesses crumble after the death of the founder. An exit strategy is very important to the long term survival of a business. now how do you plan an exit strategy? There are benchmarks you can use to determine your exit from any business. Most smart entrepreneurs will use a certain benchmark as a target and once this specific target is reached, they exit the business. Examples of such benchmarks are:

• Annual sales
• Annual Turnover
• Asset Base
• Market Saturation
• Customer base, subscribers or number of users

Now when it comes to exiting a business, there are three strategies you can apply. You can choose to exit a business in any of the following ways:

a) Turning over the business to professional managers

When your business reaches a certain stage of maturity, you can exit by turning it over to professional managers. In this case, the business still belongs to you but you are not involved with its day to day affairs. You will have to give up administrative role to assume the role of a watchdog. When you exit in this manner, you will have more free time to look at other projects or retire.

b) Selling the business privately

In this case, you are exiting the business by selling it to a private investor. In the business world, it is called M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions). Exiting your business this way means that after the sale and transfer of assets is complete, you have nothing to do with the business again.

c) Taking the company public

The unique thing about this type of exit strategy is that while you are selling your business (in form of shares) to public investors, you still maintain control over the business. Please before you apply any of these exit strategy, I will advise you consult with your attorney or legal adviser. But ultimately, it’s up to you to decide the exit strategy you want to apply; but always remember “your exit is more important than your entry.”

As a final note, I want to state clearly that challenges come only to make you stronger; so don’t faint in the face of challenges. Stand tall; keep moving your business forward and I will see you at the top.

From Top Business Ideas

Do You Really Need a Business Plan?

Starting a business was the last thing on Sean Hackney's mind when he sat down to write a business plan. Hoping to persuade a soft drink company to hire him, Hackney scripted a plan for taking on his former employer, Red Bull North America Inc. But when he showed it to his corporate attorney father and former Red Bull managing director, "they said, 'Don't send this to Coke or Pepsi. Start the business, and we'll start it with you,'" he recalls.
That was in 2000. Today, the 40-year-old is co-founder and co-owner of Roaring Lion Energy Drink, a $6.2 million company in Sun Valley, California. "We've grown the business from a $62,000 investment to the No. 2 energy drink in bars and nightclubs," Hackney says. The company has 32 employees, and Hackney's erstwhile sounding boards are now his investors and co-managers. The business plan he wrote has been through numerous revisions, and today, a regularly updated marketing plan guides the company. Writing the plan, Hackney says, was "absolutely" worthwhile. "I had a lot of stuff in my head that needed [to be] put on paper."
Clemson University entrepreneurship professor William B. Gartner believes business plans are essential. And the SBA notes on its website: "The importance of a comprehensive, thoughtful business plan cannot be over-emphasized." But lately, questions have arisen.
In 2006, William Bygrave, a professor emeritus at Babson College and longtime entrepreneurship researcher, studied several years' worth of Babson graduates to find out how much better those who started businesses with a formal, written plan did than those who didn't. "We can't find any difference,"?he admits. In other words, Bygrave and his team found that entrepreneurs who began with formal plans had no greater success than those who started without them.

For or Against

That's hardly the final word, however. Gartner also set out to study the idea. "Going into the study, I was very skeptical about the value of business plans," Gartner says. But after he and his colleagues looked at data from the Panal Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics, a national generalizable survey of more than 800 people in the process of starting businesses, he found that writing a plan greatly increased the chances that a person would actually go into business. "You're two and a half times more likely to get into business," he points out. "That's powerful."
Gartner's earlier concerns about the necessity of business plans, he says, were that they were "all talk. Our research shows that business plans are all about walking the walk. People who write business plans also do more stuff." And doing more stuff, such as researching markets and preparing projections, increases the chances an entrepreneur will follow through.
For his part, Bygrave doesn't think his research says business plans are a waste of time. "We're saying that writing a business plan ahead of time, before you open your doors for business, does not appear to help the performance of the business subsequently," he explains.
So what would Bygrave like to see instead of a business plan? Attempts to sell the product to actual customers, even if it doesn't exist yet. "Have you talked to a customer?" he asks. "If not, I don't want to talk to you about the business."
Bygrave still thinks plans help, however. Forty percent of Babson students who have taken the college's business plan writing course go on to start businesses after graduation, twice the rate of those who didn't study plan writing. "Even if they don't write a plan," Bygrave says, "they've had to think about how opportunity recognition fits with marketing, building the right team, making financial projections and so on."
And a wide gulf separates having a formal written plan and having no plan at all. "Every business has to start with a plan," says Bygrave, whether it's a mental construction never committed to paper or a more advanced description jotted down on the back of an envelope.

The Money Factor

Skeptics and fans of business plans agree on one point: Securing funding almost always requires a formal plan. Companies funded by friends and family may not need a plan, Bygrave says, but if you go to venture capitalists, commercial banks, government-backed lenders and most angel investors, you will need a business plan.
That viewpoint gets no traction from Daniel Stewart, co-founder of Port Richey, Florida-based Envala. Stewart and his partner funded the small-business software provider, yet Stew-art still put together a business plan complete with financial projections. "We didn't need to because we're our own invest-ors," says Stewart, 38,"but to be a responsible entrepreneur, you have to see things as they are."
A primary purpose of the plan was to evaluate the feasibility of their proposal to sell online automation software to small businesses. So they created three sets of financial forecasts: a rosy picture, a more reasonable one and a disaster scenario. They also placed extra emphasis on describing the corporate culture mission. "We exist to increase satisfaction, productivity and profitability of small businesses," Stewart says. "It was important for us to establish that [early on] when everything is uncertain."

Planning Trends

Plans today no longer need the 20 to 40 pages prescribed by classic planners. "The shorter [it is], the better chance [it has] of being read," says Bygrave, who recommends devoting no more than five pages to income, cash flow and balance sheets. "And don't have any numbers in [there] you can't explain instantaneously."
As tools such as spreadsheets and plan writing software have grown in importance, some critics say business plans have become overstuffed with complex financials that are often backed up by little more than guesswork. "[These tools have] made it easier to produce a business plan," says Bygrave. "But they've produced page after page of financials that basically came out of thin air." As a result, investors today want fewer and better-documented financials.
"No one's impressed by spreadsheets," agrees Gartner. "[It's] the action behind the spreadsheets." By that, he means investors want to see that an entrepreneur has actually examined the market for a product or service, identified potential customers, assembled a capable team, devised a business model and more.
While investors want to see action, they don't want to work for it. A plan today is more likely to be a modest deck of slick, colorful presentation slides than a thick stack of white paper. Digital slides are easier to distribute to a dispersed audience via e-mail and to present to large groups on an overhead projector.
But limit your presentation to no more slides than you would in a paper plan, meaning 20 or fewer. And don't cram a lot of information on a single slide. "Just put highlights," says Bygrave. "[No] more than six or eight lines on a slide."

Planning for the Future

Whether plans today are long, short, elaborate or simple, they still contain the same basic elements they always have. Typically, most have an executive summary, a marketing plan, a management team description and financials (income, cash-flow and balance sheet projections).
The recent studies are hard to ignore because they're based on reasonable samples and were performed by reputable researchers. But business plans show no sign of going extinct. Business plan competitions and college-level business plan courses are more abundant than ever. "Why do people write business plans?" Bygrave asks. "They've been trained to write business plans, so they do. Another cause is that investors or strategic partners insist on it."
Hackney's experience writing the plan for Roaring Lion convinced him of both the benefits and limitations of business planning. Simply writing a plan helped push him to start a business when he had no intention of doing so. But the plan wasn't nearly as effective when it came to identifying and quantifying the risks and opportunities his company would face.
One problem arose when it became apparent he had overestimated the business's revenue potential by about 500 percent. His company's annual sales are nothing to sneeze at, but they are far less than Hackney expected in his plan.
Among other missteps, he underestimated the actual selling price of the company's products. The economic appeal to customers is still strong, but it's not as strong as he'd hoped. Perhaps most important, his plan didn't recognize the amount of financial capital it would require to grow the company, which has made it difficult for him to reach those early sales forecasts.
Like many entrepreneurs, Hackney learned to write a business plan from a book. That, plus feedback and many hashing-out sessions with his soon-to-be investors and partners, produced a plan that was accurate in its basic aim: to describe a business model that would allow him to build a successful enterprise.
Today, Hackney says he'd definitely write a business plan if he started another business. But he'd be much more conservative with his financial projections and de-emphasize the use of them. "I'd make it much shorter," he adds. "I'd deliver the core principles of what the business is founded on in such a way that the purpose would be finding money."

From Entrepreneur 

7 Disgusting Businesses That Could Be Tomorrow’s Mega Money-Spinners

1. Selling outdated food

What’s the idea?

Launching in May 2014, Daily Table, a business founded by US entrepreneur Doug Rauch, will sell food that’s past its sell-by date,cosmetically blemished or food that is excess. All this food will be brought onsite, and the company will cook prepared meals with it. It’s going to be priced the same as junk food. Daily Table will also offer milk, eggs, bread and produce.

“Sell by” and “expiration” dates are just guidelines, say the experts

Problem solved

Most families know that they’re not giving their kids the nutrition they need, but many simply cannot afford to. Rauch aims to make healthy food available for the working poor at the same price as fast food by using expired food.

A recent report from the US Natural Resources Defence Council and Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic says Americans are prematurely throwing out food, largely because of confusion over what expiration dates actually mean. As much as 40% of food in the US – or the equivalent of $165 billion — is wasted, thrown away to fill landfills after spoiling in the refrigerator or pantry.

Innovation

By selling food that is perfectly edible, with recently expired dates, Daily Table will help to eliminate some of the greenhouse gas (GHG) methane, which is given off by the 1,2 to 2 billion tons of wasted food thrown away by consumers in develop countries.

Doug told NPR in a recent interview that the name of the store will be called The Daily Table. The store will mostly sell fruit and vegetables and freshly prepared products. Rauch describes his new store as a hybrid between a grocery store and a restaurant.

2. Lab-grown hamburgers

What’s the Idea?

Dr Mark Potter, who has been working on growing meat in a laboratory since 2008, served his first lab-grown hamburger in London last year. It was then cooked in butter and oil, and served to two lucky volunteers. The technology to grow fat cells is still lacking, making the meat rather high in protein.

Problem solved

Growing meat in a petrie dish may not end world hunger any time soon, but more than one trillion cells can be grown from one cell taken from a cow – enough for ten tons of meat. The burger “lived” in a dish for three months – a shorter period of time than it takes for a cow to grow to adulthood.

Some 40% of the world’s land surface is used for the purposes of keeping all 7 billion of us fed. In addition, the Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that livestock is responsible for about 18% of human-caused greenhouse gases.

Looks like a burger, smells like a burger, tastes (almost) like a burger

Innovation

Potter took muscle stem cells from a cow’s shoulder in a gentle biopsy and grew them in calf serum, with micro-exercise so they wouldn’t be flabby. A total of 20 000 cells were then assembled into a burger, bound with bread crumbs and egg, coloured with beet juice and saffron, and presented it to the public.

3. The New Protein: Eating Insects

What’s the idea?

Eating insects is good for you, apparently. They’re low in fat and are packed with protein. They’re also loaded with iron, thiamine and niacin, more commonly known as vitamins B1 and B3.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation released a report in 2013 which revealed that there are more than 1 900 edible insect species on Earth, hundreds of which are already part of the human diet in many countries. Around two billion people eat a wide variety of insects regularly, both cooked and raw. It’s only people in Western countries who gag at the idea.

Feeding insects to pets is not a new concept either. Population growth, climate change and agricultural and fishing needs are having a great impact on the global protein supply. The move to feed our pets the same as ourselves is adding greater demand for protein. A sustainable solution that is being considered is the use of insects as a protein source for pet food.

Could this be the future of food?

Problem Solved

As the population approaches 8 billion, feeding all those hungry people is becoming increasingly difficult. A growing number of experts claim that people will soon have no choice but to eat insects.

Entomophagy, the consumption of insects as food, is a safe and healthy way to help reduce pest insects without using insecticides. Besides their nutritional value, insects are also abundant and environmentally sustainable. Farming and harvesting insects takes very little water and transport fuel compared to livestock, grains and even vegetables. 50kg of feed produces less than 5kg of beef. The same amount of feed would produce more than four times that amount in crickets. 30% of the world land mass is presently used to graze or raise food for livestock. Insects require much less land. They also convert food into protein much more efficiently than livestock do, which means they need to eat far less, and they emit far fewer greenhouse gases than most livestock.

Plus, gathering and farming insects can offer new forms of employment and income, especially in developing tropical countries where a lot of edible insects live.

That helps to explain why 36 African countries are “entomophagous,” as are 23 in the Americas, 29 in Asia, and 11 in Europe. In the future, insects could help to provide a sustainable food source.

Master Chef: Yummy skewered maggots

Before eating insects, they should be fed on fresh grains for a couple of days. This will clean out anything unpleasant they may have eaten. They can be eaten raw, but it’s safer to cook them and it will improve the taste.

One common rule of thumb you can follow is:

• Red, orange yellow, forget this fellow.
• Black, green or brown, wolf it down.

4. A urine-powered generator

What’s the Idea?

Four young Nigerian girls have invented a generator that runs on urine. The invention was first displayed in Lagos in 2012. A litre of urine can be used as fuel for generating six hours of electricity.

Problem solved

Power outages happen many times a day in Lagos, and not everyone can afford to have a backup generator. It’s possible that the girls’ idea can be applied beyond just power generators, as gasoline-powered internal combustion engines can be converted relatively easily to run on hydrogen.

 Bringing pee power to the people

Innovation

The system separates urine into nitrogen, water and hydrogen. Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen. The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which then gets pushed into the gas cylinder. The gas cylinder pushes hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax, which is used to remove the moisture from the hydrogen gas. This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator.

5. Green-Friendly Burial Options

a. Dissolving your loved ones

What’s the idea?

Unless your loved one has specifically requested a Tibetan sky burial, there are currently two ways of disposing of dead bodies: they can be buried in the ground, or cremated.

However a new burial technique called resomation is being promoted by a group of pioneering Belgian scientists who have developed it as an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional burial methods.

Problem solved

For the eco-conscious, the disposal of the departed poses a dilemma. Both cremation and burial distribute contaminants into the natural atmosphere, particularly cremation which leads to the release of CO2.

According to UK company Resomation Ltd, The introduction of resomation would provide consumers with more choice in deciding how their body is taken care of after death. The energy needed for the process in the form of electricity and gas is less than one-seventh of the energy required for a cremation. In the UK up to 16% of all mercury is estimated to be emitted from crematoria because of the fillings in teeth — resomation produces no airborne mercury emissions. Sterile liquid is safely returned to the water cycle free from any traces of DNA. The introduction of a third means of dignified disposal has the potential to ease the pressure of burial space which, in many countries, is in short supply.

Innovation

Resomation involves placing the corpse in a pressurised container filled with water and alkaline, allowing the body to essentially dissolve, leaving nothing behind but white dust.

b. Going back to the land

What’s the idea?

For more than 20 years, a fascinating consumer movement has been taking place in the UK — natural burial grounds are spraining up across the country. People are buried in biodegradable containers, without formaldehyde-based embalming fluid or synthetic ingredients, and returned to the earth to compost into soil nutrients with a forest of trees marking the spot. It’s an idea that’s taking off in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Europe and South Africa too.

Problem solved

It is estimated that in the US alone more than 60 000 tons of steel and 4,8 million gallons of embalming fluid are buried each year. That is enough steel to build eight Eiffel Towers and fill eight Olympic size swimming pools, according to researchers from Cornell University. The environmental impact of “full-service” burial, including a casket, vault, tombstone, and flower wreaths, is considerable. Most cemeteries now have little space for native plant or animal life. The danger of mercury and particulate emissions from crematoriums is also a concern.

Innovation

People who choose green burials don’t use concrete vaults, traditional coffins with metalwork or any embalming chemicals. Instead, the body is wrapped in biodegradable shrouds or placed in a pine coffin and laid to rest where it can decompose and become part of the earth.

Other options are available for green caskets, often called ecoffins. These coffins can be made of bamboo, pine, woven willow, recycled cardboard and even cord from dried banana plants. Green burials can be less expensive than conventional funerals because they do not incur the costs of embalming and metal or expensive wooden caskets.

7. Using human waste as manure

What’s the idea?

Synthetic fertilisers have helped fuel a food boom over the last century, but they also contribute greatly to climate change. There’s now a growing drive for a return to the ancient practice of using human waste as fertiliser. It’s an idea that is catching on, and it could help to contain our climate problem.

Problem solved

Human waste is full of nutrients. In a year one person produces the equivalent of about 6kg of nitrogen fertiliser, and a lot of phosphorus. Experts say that’s enough to replace a big chunk of the world’s synthetic agricultural fertilisers, which currently cause massive pollution problems when it comes to recycling.

Beyond that, there is the question of saving energy. It takes lots of electricity and natural gas to make synthetic fertiliser, and the process produces huge amounts of greenhouse gases.

In the US, the production and transportation of fertiliser accounts for a third of the energy used for growing crops. Synthetic fertilisers also produce the powerful greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Replacing them with nutrients from human waste could be a great benefit for the plant.

Innovation

Recycling human waste into fertiliser makes a lot of sense, but only if it’s done safely. Sewage needs to be composted for nine to 12 months to let the pathogens die off. The World Health Organisation recommends using gloves and boots when working with human waste. Spreading the knowledge of safe practices could change the way we think about human waste and help to combat climate change.

Don’t waste your waste: China’s farmers have used human manure as fertiliser for thousands of years

From Entrepreneur

Tony Robbins On The Importance Of Being Fearless

Fear. It’s an emotion everyone experiences. We feel it when we think we’re in the presence of or doing something that might cause us pain or injury – physically, financially, etc. It’s what secures us from dangerous things.

But sometimes fear can stop us from doing great things. For example, fear of failure or loss of money often holds people back from becoming an entrepreneur and starting a business.

Fear is one of the many topics acclaimed life and business coach, author and motivational speaker Tony Robbins addresses in his seminars.

You might have already heard of one way he does this: Robbins has attendees walk across burning coals. Yep, you read that right. The goal? To teach people to overcome their fears and take the first step beyond whatever might be holding them back.

Facing the fear

While some have criticised the practice, others swear by it. Even Oprah did it. Her walk – as well as an in-depth conversation with Robbins – was featured on a 2012 episode of her TV show Oprah’s Next Chapter.

“People by nature are trained, almost innately, to be scared of fire and to keep away from it,” Robbins says.

“That is why walking through a pathway of fire is a powerful expression of moving beyond one’s fears. Walking over any hot surface does encompass some risks, but it has been done safely for centuries, and when administered properly can have enormous value as a reminder of what we are truly capable of.”

So, it’s not so much about the act of walking over burning hot coals, but about having people face and overcome something in spite of fear.

Breaking through your limitations

“It’s simply a metaphor for them to break through their fears and limitations,” Robbins says.

“If you look at what holds people back from expanding and deepening the quality of their lives, what prevents them from taking the actions that are necessary to transform their body, relationships, career, business or impact their kids, invariably, it’s fear – of failure, of success, of rejection, of pain and of the unknown.”

In his business seminars, Robbins encourages entrepreneurs to move past fear, in their personal and professional lives, in order to become more confident, productive and successful at everything they do.

“Just like anyone can start their day with a killer workout, find a way to master a craft, find meaning in their work or create a passionate and loving relationship,” he says, “the secret lies in being able to break through the fear and unlock the limiting beliefs to create the life of your dreams.”

From Entrepreneur

Don’t Wait for Motivation. Do This Instead.

Franz Kafka is considered one of the most creative and influential writers of the 20th century, but he actually spent most of his time working as a lawyer for the Workers Accident Insurance Institute. How did Kafka produce such fantastic creative works while holding down his day job?

By sticking to a strict schedule.

He would go to his job from 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM, eat lunch and then take a long nap until 7:30 PM, exercise and eat dinner with his family in the evening, and then begin writing at 11 PM for a few hours each night before going to bed and doing it all over again.

Kafka is hardly unique in his commitment to a schedule. As Mason Currey notes in his popular book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, many of the world’s great artists follow a consistent schedule.

• Maya Angelou rents a local hotel room and goes there to write. She arrives at 6:30 AM, writes until 2 PM, and then goes home to do some editing. She never sleeps at the hotel.
• Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon writes five nights per week from 10 PM to 3 AM.
• Haruki Murakami wakes up at 4 AM, writes for five hours, and then goes for a run.

The work of top creatives isn’t dependent upon motivation or inspiration, but rather it follows a consistent pattern and routine. It’s the mastering of daily habits that leads to creative success, not some mythical spark of genius.

Here’s why…

Daily Routines: The Power of the Schedule

William James, the famous psychologist, is noted for saying that habits and schedules are important because they “free our minds to advance to really interesting fields of action.”

An article in The Guardian agreed by saying, “If you waste resources trying to decide when or where to work, you’ll impede your capacity to do the work.” And there are plenty of research studies on willpower and motivation to back up that statement.

In other words, if you’re serious about creating something compelling, you need to stop waiting for motivation and inspiration to strike you and simply set a schedule for doing work on a consistent basis. Of course, that’s easy to say, but much harder to do in practice.

Here’s one way of thinking about schedules that may help.

Permission to Create Junk

Weightlifting offers a good metaphor for scheduling creative work.

I can’t predict whether or not I’ll set a PR (personal record) before I go to the gym. In fact, there will be many days when I’ll have a below average workout. Eventually, I figured out that those below average days were just part of the process. The only way to actually lift bigger weights was to continually show up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — regardless of whether any individual workout was good or bad.

Creative work is no different than training in the gym. You can’t selectively choose your best moments and only work on the days when you have great ideas. The only way to unveil the great ideas inside of you is to go through a volume of work, put in your repetitions, and show up over and over again.

Obviously, doing something below average is never the goal. But you have to give yourself permission to grind through the occasional days of below average work because it’s the price you have to pay to get to excellent work.

If you’re anything like me, you hate creating something that isn’t excellent. It’s easy to start judging your work and convince yourself to not share something, not publish something, and not ship something because “this isn’t good enough yet.”

But the alternative is even worse: if you don’t have a schedule forcing you to deliver, then it’s really easy to avoid doing the work at all. The only way to be consistent enough to make a masterpiece is to give yourself permission to create junk along the way.

The Schedule is the System

During a conversation about writing, my friend Sarah Peck looked at me and said, “A lot of people never get around to writing because they are always wondering when they are going to write next.”

You could say the same thing about working out, starting a business, creating art, and building most habits. The schedule is the system that makes your goals a reality. If you don’t set a schedule for yourself, then your only option is to rely on motivation.

• If your workout doesn’t have a time when it usually occurs, then each day you’ll wake up thinking, “I hope I feel motivated to exercise today.”
• If your business doesn’t have a system for marketing, then you’ll show up at work crossing your fingers that you’ll find a way to get the word out (in addition to everything else you have to do).
• If you don’t have a time block to write every week, then you’ll find yourself saying things like, “I just need to find the willpower to do it.”

Stop waiting for motivation or inspiration to strike you and set a schedule for your habits. This is the difference between professionals and amateurs. Professionals set a schedule and stick to it. Amateurs wait until they feel inspired or motivated.

From Entrepreneur