by Martin Zwilling | shared from Paperblog

I’m a big fan of mentoring in business, and have been at different times on both the contributing and receiving end of the process. These days, I seem to often hear from entrepreneurs who are struggling to find a mentor, or complaining about their lack of effectiveness. Like any other relationship, it takes work on both sides to make mentoring work.

by Martin Zwilling | shared from PaperBlog

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” Many entrepreneurs stumble at this point, losing the deal or most of their ownership, by having no answer, saying “make me an offer,” or quoting an exorbitant number.

by Yaro Starak | shared from Entrepreneurs Journey

Last week I began the process of looking for funding for CrankyAds.

by Dani Fankhauser | shared from Mashable

Before you take money from a venture capital firm, you'll agree to a valuation — how much your startup is worth. That valuation will also affect how much of your company you own. Optimizing for a higher valuation can sometimes mean owning less of your company, so strategies for each founder can vary widely.

How a valuation is determined, investors say, is more an art than a science. There are standard factors that will be considered before putting a price tag on a startup, but the biggest factor turns out to be demand — how many other investors are vying to put money into your company. That said, there's a lot an entrepreneur can do to influence valuation (aside from, you know, building something that's valuable). The more investors you pitch to and the better you are at telling your story, the more interest you'll generate, which will drive up your price.

shared from SBOmag

When President Obama signed the JOBS Act last year, he made it possible for individuals to invest in a wide variety of small businesses, projects and dreams. Crowdfunding is booming. There are more than 600 platforms dedicated to the fund-raising phenomenon. More than $1.7 billion has been raised for projects on these sites and $900 million in the U.S. alone.Some of the platforms include: Kickstarter, RocketHub, GoFundMe, IndieGoGo, Kiva, buzzentrepreneur and MicroVentures.

If you haven’t looked into crowdfunding to help start your business, market your hot sauce, or develop your invention, you are missing an opportunity that could help you establish your venture or work of art.

Motivational giant Zig Ziglar uniquely explains the importance of self-esteem. Hear how this master communicator was taught to believe in himself as a small child, as he was raised by his widowed mother.

Contributed by Rey Beltran, Manila

The economic turnaround being experienced by the Philippines is one opportunity any business-minded individual must seize.  And seizing it he and his partners did.  Homer “Homerun” Nievera is one of the enterprising entrepreneurs, nay, technopreneurs, behind Bazinga Inc., a digital entertainment and solutions company poised to become a major player in the digital industry.

Along with two other technopreneurs (the young yet seasoned businessman Bren Chong and tech guru Jay Villarante), Nievera’s expertise as a revenue and business development expert is definitely an asset for the startup company as he has always been at the forefront of start-ups.

Corey Quinn is Vice President of Business Development at The Search Agency (http://www.thesearchagency.com). Here he shares the entrepreneurial secret to leveraging your time and money. These tips will help entrepreneurs use their time and money efficiently.

by Dustin Colter | Shared from Questgroups.com

How do you know if you should join a startup or not? How do you sift through all the calls, the emails, the LinkedIn invites, the recruiters and the sheer amount of data thrown at you each and every day, to read between the lines of all the noise and say, “Yes, I really like this technology or team behind the façade of foosball tables, free food and beer, and radical stock options?”

Article originally published on All Top Startups

The first 12 months of your business can determine the success or failure of it. The National Venture Capital Association estimates that 25% to 30% of venture-backed businesses fail. According to recent research by Shikhar Ghosh, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, if failure is defined as failing to see the projected return on investment—say, a specific revenue growth rate or date to break even on cash flow—then more than 95% of start-ups fail, based on Mr. Ghosh’s research.