The Art of The Start

The Art of the Start

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What It Means To Be An Entrepreneur

What It Means To Be An Entrepreneur

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The New Entrepreneur: Research Review

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The Four People You Need on Your Team

BY Gwen Moran

1. The astute accountant
This one's got a head for numbers and is not afraid to use it. From state and federal tax codes to specific deductions that apply to your business, your accountant can save you big bucks and keep you out of hot water. This person's most important skills include solid expertise in your area of business, a team-player mentality and a keen interest in helping you grow your business. 

2. The seasoned attorney
When it comes to making sure you're on the right side of the law, you want the voice of experience giving you counsel. Look for an attorney who comes highly recommended from other business owners and who understands your market and the special legal and regulatory issues you might face. Some businesses may need more than one attorney, depending on the tasks at hand (e.g., contract law, patent filing, etc.).

3. The masterful mentor
Having the ear of someone who has been there and done that can shorten your learning curve significantly--and prevent you from making costly mistakes. A good mentor doesn't tell you what to do, but rather helps you learn from his or her experience. Mentors may be colleagues, former teachers or others whose experience you deem valuable. Look to your current network to find someone whose work and expertise you admire, and set up a lunch date.

4. The supportive sidekick
Whether it's a trusted business partner, a beloved spouse or a faithful friend, you're going to need a cheerleader when times get tough. It may be lonely at the top, but it doesn't have to be miserable. Having an enthusiastic sidekick--someone who is willing to be a sounding board and help you get through the rough patches--is invaluable.

SOURCE: www.entrepreneur.com

Solo performance

These basic commands from Go It Alone! guru Bruce Judson can simplify the process of starting--and operating--a business on your own

• Act. "Always have a bias toward action," Judson says. Spend too long in the planning and mulling stages and you'll never know if your brilliant idea could have been more than a pipe dream.

• Create the work. In an office, the next task just shows up on your desk. When it is your own business, you have to go out and find it. Pick up the phone and make it happen.

• Forget perfect. Sometimes "good enough" really is all you need. "It's critical to fight the urge to use valuable time on small--and often unnecessary--improvements," Judson says.

• Reflect. At the end of each day, ask yourself, "What did I accomplish?" If you spent most of your time on menial projects or aspects of the business you don't enjoy or that don't play into your strengths, figure out if there is a low-cost outsourcing option for those tasks.

• Adapt. Make your business flexible in every way. To succeed, you need the ability to respond to input, even if it tells you the market wants something different than what you anticipated.

• Sell. One way or another, everyone is a salesperson. You succeed by articulating an idea and convincing others to adopt it, be they investors, partners or customers. Learn the best ways to get others to see your vision.

A Roadmap to Self-Reliance for Solopreneurs

BY Jason Daley

Photography by Michael Rubenstein

Cheering 'treps on: Bruce Judson (right) and Harvey Manger-Weil.

Harvey Manger-Weil's business proposition sounds like the type of wacky offer you'd find advertised in the back of an old comic book, next to the X-ray specs: A perfect score on your SAT, results guaranteed! Yet after more than two years tutoring hundreds of clients, Manger-Weil has proved his merit.

While not all of his clients score a perfect 2,400 on their college entrance exams, most of them (and their bill-paying parents) are over the moon when they jump several hundred points. More important, 95 percent of the students are accepted by the college of their choice.

A former alumni interviewer for Dartmouth, Manger-Weil was upset when he'd see smart students rejected because of mediocre SAT scores. A puzzle and code-breaking buff, he studied the test and developed techniques to "beat" it, refining his system by coaching the children of friends.

Two years ago, he launched New York-based The College Wizard, offering his services via Skype video chat. Manger-Weil's approach--reviewing clients' practice tests and giving them weekly one-on-one lessons--is time-intensive, involving the kinds of tasks that can lead to burnout for a solo entrepreneur. But The College Wizard is thriving, in part because Manger-Weil followed the advice of his college classmate and business partner, Bruce Judson.

A serial businessman and entrepreneur-in-residence at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, Judson is the author of several influential books, including 2004's Go It Alone! The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Own. In a time when the half-life of business books is shorter than a Kardashian marriage, the advice in Go It Alone! has remained popular and relevant, as business owners and wannabe entrepreneurs look for ways to hang their own shingles without the headache of partners, real estate or advisors.

Now Judson, along with Manger-Weil, has launched a new venture, Your Personal Action Plan, an online portal where clients sign up for a personalized road map based on Judson's principles of automating and outsourcing, evaluating and adapting to start a solo business. The $249 service (10 percent of proceeds benefit a charity for the homeless) helps clients determine what solo endeavor best suits them and creates a step-by-step action plan, pointing users toward online tools that can get their businesses up and running quickly and cheaply.

"A lot of what makes me a good entrepreneur is intuition," Manger-Weil says. "But it's also true that a lot of [Judson's] ideas helped me grow The College Wizard when I wouldn't have been able to."

When he started the business, Manger-Weil had students fax their test sheets to his home. When he found eFax software, which converts faxes to PDFs and e-mails them, he was freed to conduct sessions elsewhere. It was a simple off-the-shelf solution, the type that Judson endorses.

The impetus for Action Plan came as Judson's inbox filled with pleas from people asking for guidance on how to pull themselves out of the unemployment ditch. "Our society venerates entrepreneurs," Judson says. "But there are a huge number of people who would be perfectly happy to have a steady paycheck, go to work, go home and have a classic middle-class life. Unfortunately, right now I think there are four or five people looking for every open job.

"I really believe in the next few years people are going to have to create their own jobs," he adds. "I think at this moment in time, even if you're not cut out to be an entrepreneur, if you have a special skill, I would not reject entrepreneurship out of hand. Part of the [new] Go It Alone plan is the whole ‘teach a man to fish' idea."

Find a need and delegate
Creating a profitable solo business is a daunting task, and the Go It Alone road map to self-reliance makes no guarantees. But it does offer basic, easy-to-follow principles to increase the chances of launching a successful operation.

Judson advises entrepreneurs to focus on their strengths and delegate other tasks. When Bibby Gignilliat was featured in Judson's book, she was the jack-of-all-trades for her San Francisco-based business, Parties That Cook, which runs cooking classes as corporate team-building exercises for Fortune 500 companies. But as Parties That Cook has grown, she's been able to step away from functions like accounting and running the classes to focus on what she does best.

"My strength is in finding talent and in promotion and building relationships," she says. "As we've grown, I've found people with opposite skill sets, who are good at taking my ideas and developing them into processes and systems."

Gignilliat's company, which has grown from a solo effort to 12 employees in four cities with more than $2 million in revenue, relies on outsourcing. She contracts with an independent CFO who works eight to 10 hours a month and has built a sophisticated financial model. She checks in with an outsourced search engine optimization professional monthly to make sure she's getting the most from the web. An HR consultant she met through a local small-business association helps her with hiring.

"Two years ago, I tried hiring somebody through Craigslist. I got 200 applications, and I read through them all. In the end I hired somebody who didn't work out," she says. "This time around I hired the HR consultant to help me. She culled the résumés, brought me four candidates, and I hired two who were incredible. She was more than worth her fee."

Head in the cloud
Much of Judson's advice boils down to this: Keep it simple. "Systematize everything you can," he advises. "Look at your business and see what pieces you can automate and outsource. Ultimately, every business is a repetitive system, and you need to automate that so you can spend your time doing the things that really add value."

Part of that systemization means taking advantage of the cloud. Using cloud products instead of building a custom infrastructure plays into one of Judson's golden rules, which can be summed up as: Don't hesitate, act. Using the cloud means getting your business up and running quickly, which means you can start tweaking and refining your model instead of spending months in preparation of launch. "This is something people coming from the corporate world have trouble with," Judson says. "You need to say to yourself, ‘Let's get things up and start learning,' even if you don't have everything perfected."

His strongest admonition is to never use custom software. Instead, he says, try off-the-shelf products, even if they meet only 60 percent of your needs.

Joe Strahl at Mr. Trademark is familiar with this. His trademark-search service uses free products like Google Apps and Google Chat. VoIP services let him set up local numbers across the country that filter back to his cell phone in Las Vegas. He subscribes to LinkedIn for networking and Salesforce for just about everything else. To communicate with clients who don't speak English, he uses Google Translate. "Is it exact, or grammatically correct? No. But I get the message across. That's key. I don't need a perfect translation, just basic communication," Strahl says.

"People will have a vision of the service they want and what it can do. They'll look at a cloud option and say, ‘It's good, but it's not enough,'" Judson says. "But is it good enough? Is it worth paying $19 per month vs. commissioning custom software that will cost $20,000? A product you reject with 60 percent of what you want will likely have 80 percent of what you want a year later. Then it will eventually have 150 percent of what you want, and you'll have to pay to have your custom software updated."

Try, try again
Evolving and perfecting the business model is the next step--often through testing out various marketing and promotion tactics. Free or low-cost web-based marketing means there is minimal risk in trying out multiple e-mail and social media strategies and service offers.

Manger-Weil saw this in action. His generic online ads--"Best tutor around, private one-on-one, $1,000 web discount"--were not drawing traffic. Then Judson pointed out that the most remarkable part of The College Wizard's contract--the guarantee that Manger-Weil would work with students until they get a perfect score--did not appear in his advertising. When he tested an ad that touted that fact, billings skyrocketed from $3,000 to $14,000.

Sometimes the revision process results in a change of the key business function from the original vision. That's OK--flexibility is a hallmark of good go-it-alone entrepreneurs. In fact, Judson has seen several of his own startups morph from their original concepts into products he had never imagined. For example, he launched New York-based T1 Anywhere as a way for small businesses to upgrade to broadband services, but eventually found that his key customers were large, established companies seeking cheaper broadband options. Judson made tweaks to his company to better serve that demographic.

A low-cost, off-the-shelf infrastructure means a business can scale, retool or refocus quickly and inexpensively as new opportunities and markets arise. "People start out thinking their business is one thing," Judson says. "You need to be in a position to capitalize on a target market that be may different than the one you set out to attract."

And that's what going it alone is all about: being nimble enough to capitalize on a unique skill, a great niche business no one else has thought of or just a burning desire to control your own destiny and pull yourself out of unemployment. It's a new way of thinking for many people who have spent their lives in a cubicle.

"Solo entrepreneurs need to recognize they're in a different world and that many of the things that are important inside a large corporation are less relevant," Judson says. "You answer only to yourself. You have to make things happen."

Mentors: A Young Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon

BY Adam Toren

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You need a good idea. Startup cash can make a real difference. Business experience and savvy also help, of course. But to take advantage of the most powerful weapon an entrepreneur can have, find a mentor.

A good mentor helps you think through a business idea, suggests ways to generate that startup capital and provides the experience and savvy you’re missing. You’ll get praise when you deserve it and a heads-up when trouble comes -- probably long before you would have noticed it yourself.

My grandfather who owned a memorabilia and antique shop in Vancouver, British Columbia, was a natural entrepreneur. He helped my brother Matthew and me launch our first successful venture: selling toy airplanes at a local festival when we were just seven and eight years old. With his help, we developed just the right marketing strategy -- putting on a show with the planes that created excitement and a "wow" impact. We sold out of planes in just two hours.

Our first mentor was someone whom we trusted and who cared about our success. He had the knowledge and skills to keep us focused, and he knew a small early success would spur us on to more entrepreneurial attempts. Looking back, I realize he really engineered our first foray into business to build our confidence and help us understand what it’s like to work for ourselves. Even now, nearly 30 years later, Matthew and I find ourselves remembering his advice when we’re planning or making decisions.

Although few entrepreneurs are fortunate enough to have a keen mentor in the family, it is possible to find one or two. Here are eight tips to getting the right mentor -- or group of mentors -- for you:

1. Determine your needs. Keeping in mind that your mentoring needs will shift as you start and build your business, take the time to determine exactly what kind of mentor you want now. Are you having trouble with the numbers, understanding your market or operations? Are you ready to ramp up production or still playing with concepts? Build a wish list for your mentor -- laying out what skills and support you need to get to the next step.
    
2. Take time to network. Networking isn't just important for finding customers. It’s also vital for finding a mentor. Who do you want helping you? Someone who sits in an office and thinks connecting with the business community means reading a couple of magazines a month? No, you want someone who’s out there, knows the market and can point you in the right direction.
    
3. Listen more, talk less. Given your youthful enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, it may be hard to stay silent. But to find a mentor, you need to listen -- a lot. Pay attention and you‘ll be able to separate the smart potential mentors from those who just use all the right words.
    
4. Be "mentorable." If you come off as someone who knows everything -- or thinks you do -- many people will back away. If you want to learn, be willing to consider ideas that may not match your expectations or opinions. Above all, don’t fall victim to your own hype. Your business may or may not have serious problems, but another viewpoint will help you sort things out.
    
5. Remain flexible. You may have mentors who stay with you over the long haul, but you will also benefit from people who provide just an afternoon of insightful ideas. If you are fortunate enough to get time with someone who is rarely available, absorb all you can and take notes. Your mentor may be skilled only in one specific area, but that’s okay. All help is good help.
    
6. Don't overlook nontraditional mentors. Some mentors may help you without their knowledge through books, seminars, speeches, videos on Ted, TV programs and the internet. My brother and I always looked to Richard Branson as one of our mentors. We don’t have to meet him in person to appreciate all he provides to entrepreneurs and others all over the world.
    
7. Thank your mentors. When people help you, intentionally or unintentionally, let them know. Mentors are not in it for the money; they just want to help others grow. Think about what you can do to let them know how much you appreciate them and their help.
    
8. Pay it forward. You may never be able to pay your mentors back, but you can recognize what they’ve done for you by becoming a mentor to others. That's one reason we started YoungEntrepreneur.com: to support those who share our dreams and goals.

SOURCE: www.entrepreneur.com

A Complete Resource Guide to Start a Business in 2012

Use this list of free -- or almost free -- tools to turn your business idea into a reality in the new year.

BY Catherine Clifford

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If you're planning to launch a business in 2012, you'll need every last penny you can get your hands on. That's why we put together a guide to free and low-cost resources to help you ease smoothly into the world of entrepreneurship.

It's still tough out there. Credit remains relatively tight, and consumers are cautious. So arm yourself with valuable information that will help you to get off to a winning start. We're here to help. Here are the essential steps you'll need to take to get your new business off the ground.

Figure out the right concept. To be successful and happy in your own business, you need to think seriously about how you like to spend your time and where you want to live. After you've come up with a business concept that suits you personally, the next step is to research the competition, your prospective customers and the cost of getting started.

• Here are trends we think are going to be hot next year: 10 Hot Startup Sectors for New Business Ideas in 2012
• Identify your passions and the things that make you happy with these five creativity exercises. 
• Have you thought about a franchise? We've got a list of 100 low-cost franchises you can start for less than $50,000. 
• To estimate your startup costs, work through our free and low-cost financial forms.

Create a business plan. Putting your goals on paper will help you focus your concept. A business plan typically includes details about the product or service, the competition and target consumers, plus a cash-flow projection. You'll also want to come up with a clever name for your startup.

• Explore our how-to guides on business plans, including the basics of writing your plan, what you must include and where to find help.
• As you consider names for your business, be sure to check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's website to make sure they aren't already taken.
• You'll need to determine the structure of your business for tax purposes. Study the SBA's list of possibilities and tax implications for each one.
• Find your local chapter of SCORE, a nonprofit association created to educate and mentor entrepreneurs. It may be able to refer you to local business owners to serve as advisers.
• If you plan to recruit employees, look for guidance in our hiring center, including how to start employees on the right track. You can also review the SBA's 10 steps to making your first hire.

Find Financing. The idea is hatched, the plan is set. But nothing happens without some green. Getting a loan could prove challenging because banks often are hesitant to lend to someone without a track record. And another traditional credit source—the home equity loan—has become harder to come by since the housing market cratered and home values plummeted. So it just might be time to hit up friends and family and draw on your personal savings.

• Follow our guide to raising money for helpful tips. In particular, check out the section about startup financing.
• Search for angel investors in the directory for the Angel Capital Association. We also recap the top 10 angel investor groups that fund startups, ranked by number of investors. 
• Find venture capital investors through the directory of the National Venture Capital Association.
• Try the SBA's search tool for loans and grants to find out what you may be eligible for.
• If you're considering giving up a stake in your company for cash, use our Investment ROI calculator to see how you may fare in the end.
• This search tool from MultiFunding, a loan advisory firm, will tell you how friendly your bank is toward small businesses.

Related: What Technologies Banks Should Be Using to Keep Your Money Safe

Develop and execute a marketing plan. In the Internet age, you can choose from an ever-expanding array of marketing tools, including traditional media, social networks, blogs, email and pay-per-click ads. They all require time and money, and the trick is to determine which offer the best return on investment for your particular business.

• What is a marketing plan and how should you put it together? Consider these five steps to get started. 
• If you're advertising online, you will want to optimize your rank on Google and other search engines. Check out Google's beginners guide to search engine optimization.
• Become a member--for free--of the Foundation for the Advancement of Marketing Excellence in Entrepreneurs and take one of its online courses.
• Use Entrepreneur.com's calculators to determine your ROI for pay-per-click advertising and the efficiency of email marketing campaigns.

Start selling. When you hang out the "open" sign, be ready to meet your new customers with enthusiasm and the right sales pitch. Once you start attracting customers, you'll need to figure out how to keep them coming back with great service, new products and promotions.

• When approaching your first customers, you're likely to face rejection before you reach sales success. Consider these seven rules to help you cope.
• Are you going to accept credit and debit cards? If so, consult the National Federation of Independent Business for recommendations for finding a merchant card processor: You also can watch its free webinar, "Payment Processing 101 for Small Businesses."
• Now that you're making sales, you have to pay taxes, of course. Check out the IRS's Virtual Workshop to learn the basics.
• While on the road making sales calls, you can stay organized with these essential sales apps.

SOURCE: entrepreneur.com

Make Millions Without A College Degree?

Leading British entrepreneur Simon Dolan: Degrees are worthless

By Adam Parris-Long

A British entrepreneur worth more than £100m has said that degrees are “worthless” and that many university courses available across the UK are “ridiculous”.

Self-made multimillionaire Simon Dolan left school at the age of 16 and went on to form a business empire which now turns over close to £100m a year, putting him 703rd on the Sunday Times Rich List.

Simon Dolan at home in his multi-million pound Buckinghamshire pad (Copyright: Rex)

Known for taking risky business ventures, Dolan became recognised as the world’s first “Twitter Dragon” after investing more than £5m of his own money on business pitches composed of no more than 140 characters.

Managing a staff of more than 200 people, he told Yahoo! Finance that “younger, brighter candidates are much more employable” than university graduates.

“No matter what the government say we know that the current system doesn’t work,” he said. “As an employer myself I know a degree is worthless, every other employer I speak to says the same in the main part. University is not the issue of whether you had a good time or not it is the whether you will be employable at the end of it.

“Graduates come out with a self-right to not have to flip burgers even if it is the only job they can get.

"Schools need to educate children to become fully rounded human beings and not make them just pass exams so they can get to university.

"I think a far larger part needs to be taken with how to be useful in an office or work environment." 

Dolan’s autobiographical guide book ‘How to make millions without a degree’ has divided opinion but with more than 1.04m young people out of work and thousands more being priced out of university it touches on one of the burning issues of the day. Amid huge opposition to the increase of tuition fees this summer he said that the rise is a “really good idea” as it will overhaul “ridiculous” degrees on offer.

“Formerly university was the place for talented people to go to get higher education for later life,” Mr Dolan said. “It typically wasn’t the place where everyone went…everyone can’t be the most intelligent in society."

A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson said: "A degree remains a good investment in the long term and is one of the best pathways to achieving a good job and rewarding career.

“Demand for more highly skilled employees continues to increase. Graduates like everybody else are facing tough times, but the evidence shows they fare better than non-graduates, and their prospects tend to pick up quicker during the recovery”.

SOURCE: www.yahoo.co.uk

Sitting increases risk of death

Doctors should prescribe "reduced daily sitting time"

© Sheila Eames - Fotolia.com

Sitting for long periods of time can sharply increase the risk of dying, according to the latest research.

A study led by the University of Sydney found that adults who sat for 11 or more hours daily had a 40 per cent increased risk of dying in the following three years, as compared to those who sat for fewer than four hours daily.

The study looked at more than 20,000 people, and was adjusted for physical activity, weight, and health status.

Lead author Dr Hidde van deer Ploeg said: "These results have important public health implications.

"That morning walk or trip to the gym is still necessary, but it's also important to avoid prolonged sitting. Our results suggest the time people spend sitting at home, at work and in traffic should be reduced by standing or walking more."

The study's size and focus on total sitting time make it an important contributor to the growing evidence on the downsides of prolonged sitting.

The average adult spends 90 per cent of their leisure time sitting down and less than half of adults meet World Health Organisation physical activity recommendations.

An editorial accompanying the study, which is published today in Archives of Internal Medicine, said the evidence supported doctors prescribing "reduced daily sitting time" to their patients.

The study is published today in Archives of Internal Medicine.

SOURCE: www.yahoo.com

Top 10 African Countries With Fastest Broadband Speed [REPORT]

According to latest statistics from Ookla’s NetIndex, Ghana has been ranked with the fastest broadband Internet speed in Africa.

Ookla is the global leader in broadband testing and web-based network diagnostic applications. Based on millions of recent test results from Speedtest.net, the NetIndex compares and ranks consumer download speeds around the globe.

From the results, Ghana currently has download speeds of up to 5.14 Mbps, ranking it 73rd in the world. The country is closely followed by Kenya with 4.94 Mbps, Angola with 4.53 Mbps, Rwanda with 3.28 Mbps and Zimbabwe with 2.98 Mbps in that particular order.

Other African countries with the fastest broadband speed include South Africa with 2.98 Mbps, ranked 6th in Africa and 105th in the world; Libya with 2.94 Mbps, ranked 7th in Africa; Morocco with 2.77 Mbps, ranked 8th; Nigeria with 2.30 Mbps, ranked 9th in Africa and 129th in the world; and Tunisia ranked 10th with 2.12 Mbps.

The table below provides full details about the top 10 African countries with the fastest broadband speed.

According to the the report, Lithuania ranks number one in the world with 31.67 Mbps, followed by South Korea with 30.59 Mbps and Latvia in third position with 27.42 Mbps.

SOURCE: http://techloy.com

Google+ Yet to be Embraced in Africa

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Google’s social networking site Google+ has slowly but steadily been experiencing a growth in its user base, with over 90 million users worldwide as by January 2012. This is can be termed as a very small figure, as compared to Facebook’s 800 million and Twitter’s 500 million users worldwide.

In Africa, where Facebook and Twitter are predominant, Google+ has been able to rack up over 478 449 users in Egypt alone, SA follows with 466 828 profiles, while Zimbabwe has ca 30 000 people on Google+. According to these figures, Egypt boasts the highest number Google+ of users in Africa. However, this growth is still very slow, and Africa has been ranked as the slowest to embrace it as compared to other continents in the world.

In a bid to attract more African users, Google recently added 2 indigenous African languages, Afrikaans and Zulu, to their social network, Google+. The network is available in up to 60 languages.

Asked why Google+ take up might have been that slow, Maina Martin, an ICT Consultant at October ICT told HumanIPO, “It's going to be an uphill task for Google+ to convince new users into their network. Reason being, Facebook and Twitter already have established niches that Google+ is yet to have. It was hard enough even for Twitter to gain popularity with Facebook as a competitor. As we speak, Twitter is mostly an information tool, while Facebook is more of fun and communication tool. For Google+, am yet to know their area, though it has some good business features compared to the other two. If that is going to be their niche, it's a question of let's wait-and-see.”

According to figures by Plusdemographics, Google+ majority users (50%) fall in between the ages 18-24 followed by 25-34 age group, at 28%. The figures also show that 62% of the registered users are male, and 38% female. 42% of the users have been listed as ‘looking for friends’, while 32% are looking for networking.  

Google's CEO Larry Page in January 19, 2012 press release said, "I am super excited about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+, which now has 90 million users globally - well over double what I announced just three months ago. By building a meaningful relationship with our users through Google+ we will create amazing experiences across our services."

Many people around the world are monitoring the take of Google+, and specifically waiting to see what niche it will cut for itself in the social networking arena, like Facebook and Twitter. In the meantime, the social network's relevance as a marketing tool for African businesses to communicate brand messages is becoming more important.

SOURCE: http://www.humanipo.com

Introducing Africa’s First Web Browser

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Yes it’s happening. Africans are creating their own IT solutions and using them. Anansi Web Browser should be one of the first web browser developed by an African for Africa. Is he re-inventing the wheel?

Raindolf Owusu is a 22 year old Computer Science student in Accra, Ghana but has done much more than his peers. He is the creator of Anansi Web Browser which has already over 1,000 users since it launched in December 2011. 
“Softpedia.com added the Anansi Browser in their software database in February this year and we have had over 600 downloads with 75% of the downloads coming from outside Africa,” Raindolf told HumanIPO in an interview. He name the browser “Anansi” which means Spider in Twi Language. The browser is developed in a Linux environment.

With the abundance of web browsers, why did he come up with another one? “The reason why I came up with the Web Browser was the fact that I wanted a web browser that could be the Hub for so many things like music that we did not need to stream online. I created a web browser that had offline features like the web camera that you could take a picture and save it on your pc and also share it online and the format for saving it is very web friendly (gif, png) and also I embedded a download manager that would speed up the downloads of your files and more,” he said to HumanIPO. His reason for putting these offline features was because the PC internet for Africa is unstable.

Web browser development is a globally competitive sector with big players like Mozilla and Chrome dominating the scene. Raindolf has seen his share of competition. “The downloads are not impressive since everyone is using web browser's like Chrome and Mozilla,” he explains. But he is not giving up. “I hope if i find a vibrant team to join me we could build Anansi Browser to be the next big thing,” he asserts.

SOURCE: http://www.humanipo.com

New Chat App Launched in Ghana

Trying to outdo chat monster MXit, Saya a new chat app for blackberry, Android, Apple and Java enabled phone has been launched in Ghana.

Saya was founded in 2010 by Robert Lamptey and Badu Boahen. They have recently received undisclosed funding from Meltwater Foudation.

The app gives a new functionality, apart from general chat and Facebook chat: Street Chat. This geo-chat function is quite new in the African market and differentiates itself from other product. The app pinpoints your location and you can anonymously chat with people on the same geographical area.

The Saya app has become so popular that 24 days after its launch it registered over 11,000 users. This is encouraging for a young startup.

An additional feature for the chat app is the fact that users can use their phone contacts and engage in “phone contact chat.” Albeit young, the chat app will definitely give Mxit a run for their money.

Speaking to HumanIPO, on future modifications, Robert Lamptey said, “Well for now, we are still gathering analytics on which features our users are using the most and based on that, we will know which features to improve, add or remove.”

SOURCE: http://www.humanipo.com

Coming Soon – Africa’s First Operating System

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He is at it again. The innovator who brought to you the Anansi Web Browser has another one up his sleeve. This time, Randolf Owusu, a 22 year old Computer Science student from Accra, Ghana, is creating Africa’s first Operating System.

Owusu is definitely cutting a niche for himself. Armed with the knowledge from his computer science class and passion, he is in the process of perfecting Anansi Operating system. “The reason for the OS was that I'm an open source developer and I visualize the future of OS to be cross platform,” he explains to HumanIPO in an interview. His operating system is meant to be used on Windows, Macs and Linux machines. 

What makes this OS different from any Linux OS is the fact that you do not need an emulator to run any software created from any other platform. Its cross platform feature sets it above the current linux OS. One example of such a platform is the Wine Devel package.

“I am yet to launch the operating system but developers are actually testing it for bugs as at now,” he says of the operating system that will include 6,000 educative articles.

Owusu didn’t have much money or investors to back his projects, but with due passion he invested the little he had into the project, which is under his company, Oasis WebSoft. He offers services like webhosting and design to keep him afloat.

So is he expecting his investments to come back? “For the OS I would have a pro/premium Anansi OS that would offer more or the user would choose his/her packages to be embedded in the OS,” he said. For now his web browser and other software he is developing are free for download.

He also has a web development school (online) where he teaches web development techniques. “I even have an online school I teach basic programming and web designing,” He concludes.

Owusu’s story is one that encourages and motivates developers that in spite of the global developments, Africa can still come up with its own solutions. “The future of Oasis will be developing relevant software, mobile and web solutions that would solve real life African solutions,” he tells HumanIPO.

“For the OS most people are astonished that a young person like me could come up with something like this. I hope when I roll it out it will be accepted like Ubuntu,” Owusu says.

SOURCE: http://www.humanipo.com

Why Most Employees Make Up to 30% Less Than They Should -- Is It Happening to You?

Nancy Anderson

If you were offered a raise at work simply for being there and requiring no additional tasks, would you accept it?  Of course you would.  With no downside risk, most people would jump at the chance for additional compensation, but the reality is the raise was there all along.  You just didn’t realize it.  Many people forfeit a generous raise by not fully taking advantage of the benefits packages provided by their employer. Employers provide an additional 30% or more in benefits above and beyond salaries listed on a W-2. Many people even choose between prospective employers specifically for better benefits packages but after their new hire paperwork is filled out and the core benefits are chosen, maximizing that extra 30% in compensation falls by the wayside.  Performing in the new job is top of mind.

Forfeiting additional compensation is one thing, but the consequences of doing so are high.  Neglecting to fund a retirement plan or forgoing an employee stock purchase plan could have catastrophic results in losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars and delaying retirement for many years.  Not using a Health Savings Account or taking advantage of a company legal benefit could result in unnecessarily high out-of-pocket expenses for yourself and your family. There are also many free perks that could add value or enjoyment in life that are often simply overlooked.

There are reasons for this.  HR Departments can’t give personalized advice to employees on benefits, but they can provide education, communication, and tools for employees to use, but that is the extent of it. The financial planning field doesn’t always incorporate employee benefits such as health insurance into financial plans, or does so at a minimal level.  Their expertise lies in the insurance and retirement products they sell or provide to their clients, not in the ones provided in the workplace. Americans who work with financial planners that do not take a comprehensive look at their total financial life aren’t truly getting the whole picture and a full value of working with an advisor.  For better or worse, most Americans are in a situation where they have to rely on themselves when it comes to benefits decisions.  

This can be tough with our hectic lives, but the good news is that you know you have your own best interests at heart, which isn’t always the case with outside financial experts who may care more about their own commission.  Plus, getting more out of your benefits is probably easier than you think.  We’ve created a three-step process for employees to maximize their benefits and recapture some of the “lost raise” they were missing.  Below are the steps we share with the employees we counsel that you can use on your own with your spouse or loved ones:

Step 1:  Maximize your core benefits– This is where you stand the most risk of leaving money on the table and, ultimately, jeopardizing your health or retirement in the process.  Core benefits are a major drive to long-term financial success, and if mishandled, can lose virtually all their value.

The biggest mistakes we, as educators, see employees making are to miss out on the complete company matching contributions and to not withhold enough of their paycheck.  In a company with 5,000 employees and an average salary of $50,000, the wealth generated just from employee matching contributions would be about $7.5 million dollars a year.  Employees often stop there however and only save to the matching percentage.  

A common company match is 50% of the first 6% of contributions.  If employees only save 6%, they may not be saving enough to be on track to retire since the rule of thumb is to save 10% of income from the beginning of their career.  Maximize this benefit by taking full advantage of every dollar of matching contributions from your employer and increase your savings contribution percentage to the maximum allowable contribution over time.  Better yet, if your company offers auto-escalation through your retirement plan, sign up for it.  Auto-escalation automatically increases your savings rate over time, in small increments that you set—at say 1% or 2% per year.  This can make a difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your working career—simply by filling out a form!   Quite a payoff for 5 minutes of your time.

In terms of health care plans, one of the biggest mistakes we see is employees renewing their coverage year after year without doing a full analysis of the plans.  Employees may have compared plans when they first started at the firm, but the plans themselves have probably changed as well as the employees need.  Consider the high-deductible health care plans and compare them to the full service plans, using your past medical history as a starting point to see what plan is the best value for you.  Your HR department may have an online calculator or other tools to show the true cost of the plan side by side.

Step 2:  Take advantage of your free benefits– Here’s where employees are overwhelmingly missing the boat and spending thousands, in some cases tens of thousands, of dollars a year out of their own pocket on services their companies will actually pay for.  In our experience, the most expensive and common company-subsidized benefits that employees miss out on are tuition, legal and financial services, counseling, day care, adoption services, and moving expenses.  To avoid this obtain a list of benefits from your HR department or review your benefits portal on your company intranet.  Sit down with your spouse or significant other and review the benefits you have available.  Many people don’t even realize the benefits they have!  Then earmark the most valuable benefits and put them to use.

Step 3:  Determine which voluntary benefits are right for you– These are benefits that you have to pay for but might (and I stress the “might”) get a discounted rate from your employer.  Some may be very important to your overall financial plan and ultimate financial security.  Others may, quite frankly, be a complete waste of money.

While health insurance is usually a given that there will be a cost savings, some other benefits such as life insurance or disability may be better purchased separately.

Consider the cost savings first, but also ask yourself these questions:

Is it portable? Do you own the policy or is it tied to the workplace?  If the policy is tied to the workplace and you plan on leaving soon, it might be better to purchase coverage outside of work.

Is it accessible outside of work?  In other words, can you obtain the benefit outside of the workplace?  People with health problems may not be able to qualify for life insurance or disability in an individual plan, so getting the benefit through work may be the only answer.

Is it convenient or easy to use? Voluntary benefits through work are often more convenient than those purchased outside of work since they can often be paid for through payroll deduction—so if convenience is important, this may make a work policy more attractive.

Lastly, is it a quality benefit? Quality sometimes matters much more than cost—so it’s critical to make sure the work benefit is the quality you need before purchasing the benefit through work.  For example, discounted legal services provided through a work pre-paid legal plan may give basic estate planning documents, but if you need complex trusts drawn up, the benefit at work may not be of the quality needed to fill your need.

There are hundreds of ways your benefits can make you more money, help you grow your wealth, provide savings on services you use daily, and can ultimately be the difference in your family’s financial security. Next time you look at your paycheck or log on to your company’s benefits portal, try reading between the lines and take a deeper look at what benefits you’re utilizing. There is most likely money hidden between them that you can find without having to hassle the boss for a raise.

Nancy L. Anderson, CFP ® is Think Tank Director and Resident Financial Planner at Financial Finesse, the leading provider of unbiased financial education for employers nationwide, delivered by on-staff Certified Financial Planner™ professionals. For additional financial tips and insights, follow Financial Finesse on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

SOURCE: www.forbes.com

The "Small Steps" It Takes to Build a Multibillion Dollar Business

Elaine Pofeldt,

In the old days of entrepreneurship, you were either succeeding or failing. Your business was the next Apple, or it was a dud.

But in the past few years, thanks in part to the lean entrepreneurship movement, something’s shifted in our thinking. There’s more of a recognition in the media and popular imagination that businesses are constantly evolving, almost like living organisms. The startup that’s limping along during its early months could evolve to become the next Facebook or LinkedIn. Now, says Leonard A. Schlesinger, president of entrepreneurial mecca Babson College and former COO of Limited Brands, “people don’t fail. They pivot.” If the original business concept isn’t working, the entrepreneur tweaks it, until he or she gets it right—or realizes it was all wrong in the first place and tries something else.

In Just Start!, a new book Schlesinger coauthored, he looks at how serial entrepreneurs who built businesses with revenues ranging from $200 million to the billions—actually behaved when starting a business. And, contrary to the popular image of entrepreneurs as swashbucklers who routinely take crazy risks, many turned out to be pretty careful and analytical. “What surprised me, quite honestly, is the fundamental difference between the myths we structure for entrepreneurs and the reality,” he says.

The first thing serial entrepreneurs do when starting a business, the authors found, is to take a small, “smart step” toward something they desire to achieve. Next, they stop and reflect on what that action accomplished. Finally, they decide if they still want to move forward, given what they have deemed to be their “acceptable loss”—or, as Schlesinger put it recently— “how excited you are about an idea against what you have in time and money.” With each step they take, they go through the process again until they either bail out, shift in another direction or succeed. Of course, they act quickly. Moseying through the steps doesn’t work in a fast-paced, global economy.

ZenCash's Brandon Cotter

Schlesinger’s analysis rang true when I spoke recently with Brandon Cotter, 42, a self described “chronic entrepreneur” from Dallas who’s scored some nice wins. He got a crash course in what it takes to run a successful business when he started a series of them after graduating from Texas Christian University. Early in his career, he sold one startup, CreateTech, which built websites for companies like Hummer, to Broadcast.com and found himself working alongside Mark Cuban for a while. He sold another one, musicforce.com, a Christian Music Site, to Gaylord Entertainment Group. However, a follow up act, Stick Networks, a wireless operating system network, went under in early 2001, after he and his founding team raised $15 million from outside investors. “After two great successes and two exits, I was in the position of having to tell 50 investors we lost their money,” he recalls.

What learned is how important it is to get an idea out there and start testing it early. While he put up the sitefor musicforce.com in a month and quickly saw that it had legs, he and his team spent two years perfecting the technology for Stick Networks and seeking patent after patent. “We ultimately ran out of money and failed before we had a chance to bring it to market,” he says.

He kept on innovating and got involved in other startups. At his most recent, ZenCash, he’s taken the lessons he learned at Stick Networks to heart. ZenCash is an automated collection system for receivables aimed at folks like freelancers, who often find themselves twisting in the wind when a customer pays really late, or not at all. Customers can set things up so, for instance, someone will call to remind the client about a bill every 30 days and to send it to collections at specific point, such as 120 days from when it was issued. “There’s a discipline that comes from inserting a mechanical nature into your invoicing and having a contract in place,” he says.

Cotter launched the site for Zen Cash in February, six months after starting up, using $500,000 of his own money and funding from friend and family. “You’ve got to get it in front of customers so you get real world feedback,” he says.

As a freelancer myself and co-editor of a site called $200K Freelancer, aimed at helping indie professionals earn a living, I wonder how easy it will be for ZenCash to make its customers whole. I had a number of normally great clients pay me late during the worst of the recession, and I wonder what would have happened to those relationships if I had asked a third party to call them about the invoices instead of keeping it between us. Maybe it would have helped me pay my own bills faster—or perhaps it would have just annoyed them at a time when they were waiting for checks to come in from their clientele. All of them paid me in the end.

But it’s for Cotter to find out what the results of ZenCash will be. Like the successful serial entrepreneurs in Schlesinger’s book, he’s taken the small smart step of getting his idea out there. If what he’s doing is working, he’s positioned to step on the gas pedal. If customers don’t buy his services, he’s ready to pivot, like any smart serial entrepreneur these days. “Until you get it out in front of random strangers who are willing to pay for it, you really don’t know,” he says.

SOURCE: www.forbes.com

How America's Wealthiest Get Rich

Want to be a billionaire? If you follow our World’s Billionaires list, you know there’s no single way to get the job done–you can get rich on energy drinks or yoga pants just as well as hedge funds.

But for those who like to read the tea leaves, we’d point out something that is probably fairly obvious to most: the tech industry is probably the best place to roll the dice.

Technology is now the second-most common way American billionaires made their fortunes. Fifty-one of the 425 Americans on the World’s Billionaires List (12% of U.S. billionaires) are rich thanks to this industry. (Number one is the hodge-podge category of investments, which includes hedge fund tycoons but also a wide assortment of others like Warren Buffett who have interests in a multitude of industries).

That’s a change from 10 years ago, when tech and software ranked third among industries that produce billionaires. In 2002, 26 of the 243 Americans on the Billionaires List made their fortunes in technology. Today they are almost double. Here’s the list as it stands in 2012:

Top 10 Industries Producing U.S. Billionaires

1. Investments: 100 billionaires
2. Technology: 51 billionaires
3. Media: 37
4. Energy: 35
5. Food and Beverage*: 31
5. Service*: 31
7. Fashion and Retail: 28
8. Real Estate: 27
9. Manufacturing: 18
10. Sports: 15

Worldwide, the industry rankings look a lot different: investments retains the number one spot (as it does in the U.S.) with 143 billionaires, followed by fashion and retail (123 billionaires) and real estate (102 billionaires). Tech ranks number 5. (See the full list at bottom). But even that number is greatly skewed by Americans. Of the 90 tech billionaires in the world, 57% are Americans. Looked at another way: While 12% of U.S. billionaires made their fortunes in tech, just 5% of non-American billionaires did. 

This is a trend that could be picking up speed, particularly as MBA students move away from Wall Street. “There’s definitely a movement among my MBA students—and among MBA students in general–a little away from finance, which has been somewhat compromised by the crisis and by Dodd-Frank,” says Steven Kaplan, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “We’re seeing big winners in technology. Finance isn’t going away, but I think finance probably peaked in 2007.”

eter Wendell, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a venture capitalist, says that it’s not a matter of if tech, but which tech. “One area that continues to get interest is so-called Big Data,” Wendell says. “Some of the brighter and more forward-thinking ones are focused on tools for analyzing data, tools for storing data.” Wendell also sees smart students choosing are cloud computing, social media, mobile, and video.

Not a techie? Not to fear: industry may be less important than inspiration. “My reading of the stories of people like Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak and even Steve Jobs is that they were driven by passion,” says Teresa Amabile, a Harvard Business School professor and co-author of The Progress Principle, who has studied the diaries of successful business people.

“I am confident in saying that they are more productive and creative when they are working on something that they find meaning in, that there’s a sense of purpose, that they’re contributing to something they value, when they’re in an environment that allows them to make progress.” Who could argue with that? Nonetheless, here are the ones that have worked across the globe:

Global Top 10 Industries Producing Forbes Billionaires
1. Investments: 143
2. Fashion & Retail: 123
3. Real Estate: 102
4. Diversified: 97
5. Technology: 90
6.  Manufacturing: 85
7. Energy: 78
8. Finance: 77
9. Food & Beverage: 69
10. Media: 64

SOURCE: www.forbes.com

The Importance of Integrity

Do you show leadership or financial cancer?

In 1979, I learned an important lesson about the importance of integrity. At that time, my first business was failing. Many of our account receivables were out past 90 days, I owed money to our distributors and back taxes, and I was in danger of not being able to pay my employees.

Still, I was trying to hold on.

Rather than be honest with myself, I kept making excuses. And as rich dad said, “Excuses are simply lies you tell yourself.”

At this time, I sat down with rich dad and he looked over my books. After some tense silence, rich dad looked up, shook his head, and said, "Your company has financial cancer, and I'm afraid it's terminal. You boys have mismanaged what could have grown into a rich and powerful company.”

He went on to say, “You and the three clowns you call partners have mismanaged your business. You don't know what you're doing, you're incompetent. And worst of all, you don't have the guts to admit it. You guys are pretending to be businesspeople but when I look at your financials, you boys are either crooks or clowns. I hope you're clowns, but if you don't make some changes, you clowns will become crooks.”

It was a hard truth to hear, but thankfully I listened to my rich dad, liquidated my business, paid my employees and back taxes, and started over with nothing in my pocket. I wasn’t rich in terms of money, but I had gained a wealth of knowledge and retained my integrity, which is one of the most important things a person can have.

The Age of Integrity

One of the many lessons I learned from my failure was that it's not the lack of money that kills a business. It's more the lack of business experience and lack of personal integrity.

Around that time, I started learning from Dr. Buckminster Fuller, who was considered one of the smartest men of our age.

Dr. Fuller taught that we were entering the age of integrity. Integrity simply means whole or complete. That means that your thoughts, your words, and your actions need to be the same. If you will do that, the future is yours.

If you don’t, you can cause incredible damage in our increasingly connected world.

The power of integrity

This last week, the power of integrity was on display in a negative and massive way when Greg Smith, an executive at Goldman Sachs quit through an Op Ed in The New York Times.

According to Smith, “To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.”

Central to what the firm used to stand for was “teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients,” the “secret sauce” according to Smith that allowed the firm to enjoy success for over 143 years.

Living out of integrity

Among 14 values listed on Goldman Sachs website are two important ones:

OUR CLIENTS’ INTERESTS ALWAYS COME FIRST.

INTEGRITY AND HONESTY ARE AT THE HEART OF OUR BUSINESS.

Goldman has a problem today because a high level leader is questioning their integrity. They say one thing but do another. They live out of integrity.

As Smith writes,

How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.

Those actions couldn’t be more opposite than Goldman’s stated values.

How’s your integrity?

As I said, integrity is one of the most important things you can have and control. Each day, you make a decision whether you’ll walk in integrity or not. And in the Age of Integrity, our actions affect others in untold ways.

For instance, Goldman was a major contributor to the financial crisis because they pawned off toxic assets to clients, causing massive financial damage. Their lack of integrity cost investors billions if not trillions of dollars.

Conversely, Greg Smith’s open letter last week caused Goldman Sachs to lose $2.5 billion in market value.

Only time will tell how truthful Smith’s letter was, but I’m inclined to believe an individual who puts his reputation on the line over a firm that settles antitrust lawsuits with the SEC to the tune of $550 million and has a host of other public integrity issues.

But one thing remains true, the Smith/Goldman debacle shows that integrity is massively important in today’s world of business.

While your integrity or lack thereof may not cost people billions of dollars, it is still massively important to your success and the success of others.

A lack of integrity results in broken relationships, lost deals, and a bleak future. A life of integrity results in a multitude of friendships, new opportunities, and a bright future.

So, how’s your integrity?

For more information about building your leadership, integrity and success, see our free, financial education resources here.

 SOURCE: http://www.richdad.com