TechLifeMashup | Entrepreneurs, Social Media, and Technology

What does it take to be an entrepreneur?  I find myself asking this question often as many of you may.  While I don’t believe there is any one thing or set of characteristics that make or break you as an entrepreneur, I do believe there are definite entrepreneurship characteristics that can greatly benefit you as an entrepreneur should you be lucky enough to possess them.  Today, I would like to kick off the first of a three part post on what characteristics one should aim to have if he or she is interested in a career as an entrepreneur.
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Evernote is easily one of my all time favorite applications to come around in the past decade.  Let me start though by saying Evernote has no affiliate program, and I don’t get a single cent for praising this product.  This is simply based on the great experience (like so many others) that I have had so far with the application.  If you’re looking for a tool to help you get organized, be more productive, and have access to your information 24/7, well then keep reading because I’ve got the answer for you along with 5 great reasons why I love Evernote.

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Scribd.com is social community site where users can upload documents of all shapes and varieties to share with the general public.  Scribd has quickly grown in popularity since it’s launch about 3 years ago.  It has since become a great success for one entrepreneur.  For that reason and many more, this week in the spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Trip Adler. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn. …READ MORE »

Starting your own business is essentially what defines you as an entrepreneur.  It’s something anyone with some time and hard work can do regardless of background or location.  I talk a lot on Techlifemashup about the benefits of running your business online, but I recently came across an interesting piece of information that some of you out there might find interesting.    CNBC just finished ranking their 40 best states to open a new business in based on a variety of factors such as quality of life and cost of living.  We’ve got the best 10 for you hear today. …READ MORE »

Gary Vaynerchuk is an interesting recent high-profile entrepreneur.  Some people seem to love him while others find is in your face personality to be a little too intense.  Either way though, it doesn’t change the fact that Gary is a successful entrepreneur by any standard who was able to turn his parent’s small wine business into a multimillion dollar per year business.


As I discussed here a few weeks ago (The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Gary Vaynerchuk), Gary has since gone onto publish a book and become a motivational speaker for hopeful future entrepreneurs.  In the interview below, Vaynerchuk offers some good advice to anyone looking to start their own business and provides some insight into what he feels helped to make him such a success.

Woot.com is online store that offers one new product each day for only 24 hours before ending the sale on a specific item.  The one deal per day business model has since grown quite a bit in popularity and can be seen on several other sites now as well.  For pioneering such a business model and netting over $100 million in revenue during the process, we take a look at entrepreneur Matt Rutledge this week in the spotlight.  We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn. …READ MORE »

Have your own business?  Wish you could save more money than you currently are?  You’re not alone.  Many entrepreneurs who run their own business whether it be from an office or at home, are constantly looking for ways to cut spending without hurting the business.   You may be surprised to hear that this is actually easier then it seems.  Today, I’m going to share my top 5 tips  for saving money on your business.  Not only will you save money, but you’ll be more productive too! …READ MORE »

There were 672,000 new small business start-ups in 2009.  Small businesses continue to grow in popularity as more people continue to turn to this career path.  Events such as a slow economy, job cuts, and better benefits are just some of the reasons people have turned to small businesses for work.  Wondering what types of small business did well, where the best place to start a small business is, or maybe you want to know why some businesses fail and other succeed?  Well,  Focus recently published a very interesting infographic answering these exact questions.  Take a look! …READ MORE »

LiveJournal is a internet blogging and journal platform where users can share and discuss their lives with others as they see fit.  The site was extremely popular in the early 2000’s and continues to remain very popular in 2010 mostly with the younger audiences as is the norm it would seem with most social networking sites these days.  That combined with the sites overall financial success is why this week in the spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Brad Fitzpatrick who created LiveJournal. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn. …READ MORE »

Women entrepreneurs represent about 40% of the private small business space with over $3 trillion in profits per year among them according to a recent article published at biznik. I’ve come to find entrepreneurship to be a much more level playing field when it comes to doing business than the traditional corporate setting for almost anyone regardless of background.  For this reason alone it is no surprise that we continue to see more women-based entrepreneurs entering the small business market.  So I figured I would take a moment to highlight 5 highly effective social networking sites geared towards women entrepreneurs. …READ MORE »