RALEIGH, N.C. – Nickia Baker said she believes an innovative program for people who have been in the criminal justice system and cannot get hired for a job has changed her life. “I woke up this morning feeling like I hit the Powerball, because not only am I doing what I love, it doesn’t seem […]

When I first graduated from business school, I worked briefly as a contractor for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). It was there that I began to realize how many resources are available to entrepreneurs, yet are not widely known within the entrepreneurial community. Here are a few of my favorite hidden gems: 1) SCORE. Previously […]

Obviously, a hallmark of communicating is meeting people where they are and relating to them from their perspective. Entrepreneurs usually have personality types like everyone else. There are certain traits that they have in common and if you identify these traits, you can work and communicate with them more effectively. 1) Think like a customer. Entrepreneurs get […]

Subway was founded in 1968 in Bridgeport, Conn., by Fred DeLuca, who recently passed away. I was raised in Milford, Conn., which is about a 10-minute drive to Bridgeport. I’m not sure how many Subway stores there were by the time I was 8 or 10 years old, but I would imagine it was a pretty […]

Doing business is actually running a real business and producing economic value by serving real customers, generating revenue and making profits. Playing business is acting like you are running a business but without actually doing business. The purpose of this article is to distinguish between the two, which is not always easy to do, particularly in […]

When you start a business, you are more embarking on an adventure than running a business. It’s hard to put my finger on it, even though this idea is stated a lot in literature, but the traditional business principles and even the way you look at business are not applicable to startups. A startup is […]

I often wonder if, on balance, being an entrepreneur was a good choice in my life. People frequently discuss the downsides of entrepreneurship by citing the risks and costs involved, such as the amount of time you have to put in and the possibility of losing your net worth or your credibility. These are worthy considerations but, to […]

On my first day of class in fifth grade, my teacher told us not to worry about school because robots would be doing everything by the time we became adults. I liked her immediately. Recently, there’s been speculation by notable technology entrepreneurs that the development of fully functioning robots and the “coming of age” of artificial intelligence will mean fewer […]

This article is a lesson in how to start a business the right way, based on a case study of my friend, Tom Mercaldo. I’ve known Tom since we were eight years old and we remain friends to this day. He started his entrepreneurial career later than I started mine, but his approach was dead-on. He […]

Can a company expand geographically to new areas? In my experience, the answer is “not easily” unless the company is a retail or consumer-based company, where the expansion represents new locations to sell goods or services. Several times in my life as an entrepreneur, I’ve gotten to the point in my businesses that I wanted […]