social media - Owners View

First Looks Forum eye-opener for a first-time entrepreneur!

October 29, 2012 By Marcos Gomez 1 Comment

It was a great experience meeting and talking with SXSW Interactive Festival director Hugh Forrest

I’m taking a different approach towards starting up my own self-sustaining business. What long-time and successful business owners were able to offer me, a musician by trade, at the Business Success Center (BSC) and Texas Entrepreneurs Networks (TEN) First Looks Forum in October was an eye opener.

I compose, perform, teach and am currently a student at the University of Texas, and am also about to graduate soon. I have a tough time balancing the aforementioned and trying to get higher paying gigs. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Building, Business Development, Business Management, Events, General Testimonial, Marketing, Networking, Planning & Vision, Social Media Tagged With: Business Mentor, Business Success Center, DanielMGomez.com, First Looks Forum, full-time student, Hugh Forrest, Internship, Mentee, music, music student, musician, recent graduate, Self-sustaining musician, social media, SXSW Interactive Festival, Texas Entrepreneurs Network

Crowdfunding Trends

July 4, 2012 By Jan Triplett Leave a Comment

Worth reading if you’re considering investing in or using crowdfunding for your business.

Crowdfunding, is also known as hyper funding, crowd financing, and equity crowdfunding.

We think of social media as a marketing tool. But Chase Bank and LivingSocial have related it to crowdfunding. They offered 12 $250,000 grants that included social media services. Just to be eligible for the grants, they required applicants to prove that they have operationalized social media into their business model. The proof: get 250 facebook votes in a specific amount of time.

With help from our clients and colleagues we got 324 votes in three weeks. Not bad. And, thanks for your help.

Crowdfunding or crowd funding is defined in Wikipedia as “the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Ideas, Funding, Government Legislation, Resources, Social Media Tagged With: Chase Bank, crowd financing, Crowd Funding, Crowdfunding, Crowdfunding Legislation, Equity Crowdfunding, facebook, House of Representatives TARP Subcommittee Hearing on Crowdfunding Legislation, hyper funding, Jeff Jacobson, JOBS Act, Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, Kickstarter.com, LivingSocial, Scott Steinberg, SEC, Security and Exchange Commission, Shark Tank, Sig Ueland, social media, The Crowdfunding Bible

3 Ways Business Grants Have Changed for Good & 3 Ways to Prepare

June 19, 2012 By Jan Triplett Leave a Comment

Look out world, here it comes. You read it here first. After a “gazillion” years of how business grants work, the world has changed. Maybe for good!

Who did it? Chase Bank and LivingSocial. (In full disclosure we are going after this grant. We want to use the money to take our Owners MBA™ for existing business online, add ebooks, apps, and include special segments for veterans, rural business owners, and owners who are disabled. We also want to create an owners community as we did for our Entrepreneurs’ Association in the 1990′s.)

Why did they do it? It depends on whom you ask.

What’s different? [Read more...]

Filed Under: BSC Customer, Business Ideas, Business Trends, Funding, Marketing Strategy, Networking, Owners MBA Tagged With: Austin Business Journal, Business Grants, Business Success Center, Capital Factory, Chase Bank, eligibility, Entrepreneurs' Association, Grants for for profit companies, Jason Meeker, Jaxzen Marketing, LivingSocial, Mission Small Business, Networking, Online Coupons, Online Marketing, SBIR, social media, The Stage Alliances

3 Networking Skills Every Introvert Has

August 31, 2011 By Jan Triplett Leave a Comment

Networking skills are not the exclusive property of extroverts. Introverts have them, too.

Not the belle or beau of the ball? Don’t do well in groups? Are you kind of shy or just hate playing the networking game? You can still be a great networker. The best part is, you don’t have to and shouldn’t change you.

Networking Rules

You do have to play by the rules. Networking is a balancing act; give and take. It’s not just about sales or prospecting. Although these can happen. You can also use it for finding friends, jobs, fun places to go or avoid, and a million other things. Think about it as a combination of a “net” which gathers things in and keeps things out and a lot of hard “work”. Believe me, it doesn’t come easy to extroverts either although it may seem that way.

: Rodin’s “The Thinker” could have been named “The Introvert”. Photo by James Whitesmith.

How Introverts can use their strengths

But you can play to your strengths and get great rewards. What are those? Most introverts I have known are great gathers of information and deep thinkers. When I did a session on Networking for Introverts at SXSW two years ago, I first wondered if anyone would show up. They did and all those introverts made me a true believer in their abilities. This depth means introverts have a lot to give. Most are good observers, intuitive, with great analysis skills. Hard work and thoroughness is central to how they operate. I recommend to every extrovert, that they network with at least one introvert.

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