TechLifeMashup | Entrepreneurs, Social Media, and Technology

Small businesses play an important role in the business world today generating more than 60% of all new jobs in the past 15 years!  There’s no doubt that many new entrepreneurs just starting out are going to have a good number of questions regarding small businesses such as the rate of failure, rate of success, average growth rates, and the list goes on.  For these reasons and more I decided to post this very informative infographic on the facts of starting a small business, which I think will answer many of those questions for entrepreneurs just starting out: (click image to enlarge)

Source: Grasshoper

Gowalla is a location-based social networking service where users can track friends, check-in to places, and get rewarded for exploring the locations around them.  If you’re familiar with Foursquare, then you already pretty much know what Gowalla is all about.  The increasingly popular services has surpassed 150,000 users and $8.4 million in venture capitol as of 2010 with no signs of slowing down.    For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Josh Williams in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn. …READ MORE »

Entrepreneurship is the backbone to societies across the globe.  It’s through all these small business startups (both online and offline) that billions of dollars in revenue are generated and millions of jobs are created.  It might come as a surprise to many that there currently isn’t any type of official day set aside to recognize the bold hard work of this work population.  Grasshopper is a web software company who designs software with small business in mind, and they are the ones behind a growing effort to make November 19, 2010 National Entrepreneurs’ Day across the country.  Whether you’re an entrepreneur yourself or just someone who appreciates all the hard work and positive impact these folks make,  I would strongly encourage you to take a look at entrepreneursday.org and participate in signing the virtual petition get this day made official.

Kayak.com is a meta travel search engine style website that provides the user with the best possible travel deals available online at a given time.  The travel site has since gone onto become a household name similar to Google or Facebook.  It’s not surprise though at such a complex startup would require the assistance of additional fellow entrepreneurs.  For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Paul English in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn. …READ MORE »

Aaron Patzer of Mint.com created a free online personal finance management system for the everyday person who wants a simple way to manage their finances.  Mint has since seen massive mainstream success, was bought recently by Quicken, and now continues to grow doubling nearly every several months with no sign of slowing down.  Aaron quit his job when he was 25 to venture into entrepreneurship full time.  The journey was long and hard, but he came out of the other end of the tunnel as a successful entrepreneur.  This past Thursday, Aaron Patzer did a Q&A session with online participants answering everything and anything with regards to how he started his business, how he promoted it, and many other great questions any budding entrepreneur could greatly benefit from hearing.  So pull up a chair and take the next hour to get the REAL answers  to all those questions you’ve had about starting your own business.  Check it out here:

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Sometimes we forget that every successful entrepreneur starts at ground zero when launching a new business.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember a time when the likes of entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates weren’t the mega successes they are today.  Knowing that almost all entrepreneurs you read about today came from a place outside the world of entrepreneurship can really help to humanize your own journey to starting your own business and help ground your thoughts in reality instead of making them seem like a distant dream that is too far out of reach.    That’s why I wanted to share a very interesting (and amusing) infographic, which highlights the first jobs of some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs so that you can see how they did in fact come from a very similar place to where you may be right now:

Source: Grasshopper

Spotify is a peer to peer music streaming service that has seen significant growth in the past few years.  Not only does Spotify offer online services, but the service can be used through your mobile phone and desktop as well.  In an age when services like Pandora and Groove Shark continue to rise in popularity, it’s no surprise to see additional competitors stepping out into this growing market filled with hopeful entrepreneurs.    For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Daniel Ek in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn. …READ MORE »

I’m sure you’ve heard location is everything.  That couldn’t be more true when trying to start your own small business.  Foot traffic for any offline business can make or break your long-term success.  That being the case, selecting an optimal location for your new business to assure you get the high volume of targeted traffic you’re looking for is mission critical to say the least.  So wouldn’t be nice to know what the current list of top cities are for someone looking to start a small business?  Well, entrepreneurs you’re in luck!  Here now are the 2010 top cities for entrepreneurs looking to start a new business based on a variety of different factors:







Source: Grasshopper

Quality SEO development and keyword research is vital to the success of any internet entrepreneur or blogger.  While there are a variety of other factors that come into play when creating a successful business, I think we all can agree that no traffic means no one knows about you exist.  This sole fact makes the importance of SEO keyword research immensely important.  Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income blog recently did a live walkthrough demonstration on how to develop and build out both on site and off site SEO for your website from start to finish.  It’s highly detailed and covers all the basics.  So if you’re looking to learn more about SEO, be sure to check out the tutorial video below (embedding disabled – click video to watch):

I should note that the SEO training video above uses a tool called Market Samari, which I recently bought and have come to rely on heavily.  It is a fantastic tool that makes SEO and keyword research much easier.  Enjoy!

Pandora Radio is a online music service that provides recommendations automatically to the user of similar music based on their previous selections.  The popular music service has grown significantly since its launch years ago and recently has seen huge growth from the mobile market space it has begun to penetrate.   For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Tim Westergren in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn. …READ MORE »