The power of words is never more evident to me than when I’m working with a client or team and the language turns negative: The boss is difficult. The workloads are unmanageable. The policies are dumb. Immediately, I see the negative effect that kind of language has on the situation. You see, when you say the […]

What makes an entrepreneur who they are? It’s not for anything vain or superficial. No it’s someone who makes the bold and courageous move to do things their own way. And it’s an individual with the drive and motivation for something more than material wealth. They inspire others, create fantastic new ideas, and live independent […]

These are two of the greatest cities in the world, but living with one foot in each is no easy feat. In the past two years, I’ve taken 36 plane trips across the Atlantic, totaling over 120,000 miles worth of airtime. I’ve paid rent in London, crashed with friends in New York, spent a couple […]

Do you want to swim with the big fish? Before an enterprise client will let you put on your bathing suit, they want to know you possess the ability to hold your own. The competition for business is fierce out there, but with the right mindset and strategic actions you can — and will — […]

As an entrepreneur or startup business, you are likely a hard-working, never-give-up kind of person who wants every facet of your business to be perfect. Because of those qualities, we tend to take on more than we can handle (and more than we are willing to admit). However, there comes a time when business is […]

As many entrepreneurs will tell you, having great ideas rarely equates to having a great business. Everyone has ideas all the time, and many assume that the result of a shower-induced epiphany could mean they are soon to become the next Richard Branson, though maybe without the beard. Whatever your idea is, first and foremost, […]

Successful entrepreneurs like Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, exhort startups to write down their core values on Day 1 and make company culture a first-order concern from the very beginning. Have you tried it? The problem is that after you look at what you wrote, you’ll probably see a bunch of boring clichés. Many of your […]

Like many bootstrapped businesses, one of the biggest challenges ZinePak faced in our early days was cash flow. My cofounder Kim Kaupe and I financed the company from our own savings and quickly became pros at shifting balances across multiple, personal credit cards—sometimes as many as six cards at a time! Kim and I made […]