Vistas: Geri Stengel’s Blog: Entrepreneurs

Innovating for Positive Social Change at the Earliest Stage

Social innovation doesn’t just happen; it needs to be inspired, encouraged, and nurtured if it is to prosper and be effective. Such support can – and now does – come from many sources:

Use Your Edge: 4 Trust Factors That Attract Customers to Small Businesses

Most Americans – 71 percent – trust small businesses more than they trust their government, their preacher, their teacher, or the nightly news, according to a very dense report issued in April by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. 

Small Business Network Builds for Members and Community

Ellen Shepard runs a network for mostly mom-and-pop stores in a neighborhood of Chicago. She's focused on a mile-long stretch of one of Chicago's main streets.

Instead of being taken over by big-box and chain stores – they did try to move in – the Andersonville neighborhood has become a dining and shopping destination for Chicago residents, in part because the neighborhood businesses worked together to preserve their small-town feel.

Gladwell Ignores Most Entrepreneurs to Make Points About a Few

A recent article by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, The Sure Thing: How entrepreneurs really succeed has me steaming!

Gladwell's thesis is that entrepreneurs are not daring risk takers – they only bet on sure things, he says – and that they are predators. As an adjunct professor who teaches entrepreneurship at The New School and as a successful serial entrepreneur myself, I say that's a bunch of malarkey.

It's Not a College Degree That Counts, It's Your Experience

Wow! Having a college degree and an alumni network are not as important to successful entrepreneurs as everyone thought. What really counts is hard work – we knew that – experience, and your professional network. Also not so important: investor advice, alumni networks and government help.

You Can't Be Socially Responsible Without Ethical Standards

A strong sense of ethics is essential to social enterprises, corporate social responsibility, and any business, small or large, that wants the respect and loyalty of their customers. Ethics is an important part of doing well while doing good, so Ventureneer has joined forces with Business Ethics, the Magazine of Corporate Responsibility.

Entrepreneurs and Nonprofit Execs Have Style, Learning Style That Is

I talked a bit about learning styles in my recent blog, "A Successful Entrepreneur is a Student Entrepreneur." Let's take a deeper look at that; it's important. To be successful, an entrepreneur or nonprofit leader must keep up with technology, trends, economic fluctuations, etc.

What Entrepreneurs/Nonprofits Execs Need to Succeed

The video is the work of creative director Janet Giampietro, with motion graphics by Gestalters, llc. and audio production by Al Fritsch.

I also want to give another shout out to Grasshopper whose video, Entrepreneurs Can Change the World, inspired this one. They used a video to inspire interest in starting a company or nonprofit (yes, for me nonprofits are as entrepreneurial as for profits). Ventureneer uses its video to let small business owners and nonprofit executives know that they can’t do it by themselves and assistance is available if you know where to look.

Every small business and nonprofit leader needs outside assistance so share the video with your network as reminder to them to continual build their support system.

Not into naming things, I’d still like to hear from you. Tell me what you think about the video and who's in your support system.

 

 

Research Confirms Entrepreneurs Turn to Networking for Help

Over the past few weeks, Ventureneer has been conducting research to find out about the use and impact of resources among small business owners and nonprofit leaders. I’m still digesting all the information for the full report, Use and Value of Resources by Small Business Owners and Nonprofit Leaders: A Survey Conducted by Ventureneer, but I wanted to start sharing some of the insights. 



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