TechLifeMashup | Entrepreneurs, Social Media, and Technology

Entrepreneurs always want to be part of the next big thing.  Knowing what trends or industries are on their way up and on their way out so to speak is a crucial part of becoming a successful entrepreneur.  You don’t want to start a business in a industry only to find out months later that the reason you are failed was because everyone else had already moved onto to the next latest and greatest.  To help you stay ahead of the curve, I present you with the top 7 growing super trends in entrepreneurship that will help you find your next niche (click to enlarge):

Source: Techrunch

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.

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

Pamela Slim is a career coach who focuses on helping people take the leap from corporate employee into the world of entrepreneurship.  She is also the author of a book titled Escape From Cubicle Nation, which I highly recommend to anyone just starting out or thinking about starting their own business.  Pam gave a recent presentation titled Who Do You Think You Are?, which focused on becoming the authority of your niche business and using that to build your success.  The thing I really love about this presentation is that Pam Slim takes the time to show how she went from a low traffic blog to a huge success both online and off.  Enjoy and have a great weekend!  Happy 4th!

Chances are if you’re an entrepreneur or you are working to become one, you didn’t get much help from your childhood education.  Most schools focus on preparing you for a job or working for someone else instead of offering the idea of starting your own business and working for yourself.  Entrepreneurship is severely undervalued in our current education system.  Cameron Herald talks about growing up and being raised to become a entrepreneur.  It’s a great discussion that really shows what all of us are capable of, and why entrepreneurship as a career needs to be more present in our school systems.  Check it out here:

Entrepreneurship has grown in popularity of the past several years as more dreaming hopefuls take the plunge into their first business startup.  Location is often a topic that is heavily discussed when opening a new business for a variety of reasons.  I’ve often been curious though about the number of entrepreneurs in one part of the world versus the other.  I’m always looking into travel and open to the idea of moving somewhere completely foreign and new should the right opportunity present itself.   So for all those who are curious about the levels of entrepreneurship in other countries, I wanted to take some time today to share with you this interesting infographic I found the other day on that exact topic:

(click image to enlarge)

It was actually quite surprising to see just how many more entrepreneurs their currently are roughly in the United States versus other parts of Europe.  I would have guessed it to not be so skewed in one direction.  The numbers continue to increase across the board though, which is great news for all entrepreneurs out there!


Source: Grasshoper.com

How to Change the World is a productivity blog, which offers a new modern approach to productivity both in and out of the workplace.  The entrepreneur behind this ever growing popular blog has also written several books including one titled The Art of the Start, which is one of his more popular books covering entrepreneurship and starting your own business.  For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn. 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. More »

Anyone who dreams of being an entrepreneur knows the importance of education.  Most colleges have lacked any type of entrepreneurship education program or degree leaving any would be entrepreneur to teach themselves in most cases.  Despite the poor level of support in the past though, it looks like things are finally changing as the upcoming generation of college bound students will have much more of a selection when it comes to majoring in the field of entrepreneurship.  However, we all know nothing is created equal, which is why we bring you the top 10 schools for college bound entrepreneurs. More »

It was 9:30pm the other night and I was too tired to read like I usually do.  So I was flipping through the local TV stations for something (anything) to fall asleep to.  To my surprise, I struck gold and found an entire hour special on entrepreneurs who made it big with their ideas.  The special interviewed and documented the journey of four different upcoming entrepreneurs.  Some of you might be familiar with two of the people in the special: Tom from Tom Shoes (The guy who gives a pair of shoes away for every pair he sells) and Rick Bayless (founder of Frontera Foods).  Now what was special about this show was that it actually showed a lot of the nitty gritty behind the scenes work that goes into pursuing a business idea. Many of us (myself include) dream of starting our own business and seeing our great idea come to life.  The problem often times is how do I actually go about doing it?  Where do I find an investor?  How do I go about pitching my idea?  What are the actual first steps I need to do to make this happen?  Well, read on to find out about some helpful tools that should help answer these burning questions. More »