Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less. Robert Litan, (VP of research at the Kauffman Foundation) 

As we consider the economic upheaval of the last couple of years, the questions are clear and daunting.  Where should our priorities lie? What do we promote and what do we stand behind?

If you believe Litans research, our economic future lies with the startup and the humble (or not so humble) Entrepreneur.

Ask a dictionary and you might walk away believing that ‘an entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome.’ – To those of us who live it, its more than the enterprise.  Its more than money. Its the drive to pursue a vision, a passion for the unknown, mixed with a slight addiction to the risk. I cant help but smile at Roy Ash’s take… “An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.”

So a petition has been started (by the Grasshopper founders)  with the Kauffman Foundation’s support, to create a nationally recognized Entrepreneurs’ Day as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week – starting November 19th of this year and every Friday of Global Entrepreneurship Week thereafter. They need a million signatures.

According to organizer Siamak Taghaddos – Entrepreneurs are America’s real “bailout” in the sense that by investing in them and their ventures, we would stimulate a real economic turnaround. Whether or not you agree with the politics, entrepreneurship is a vital part of any economic stimulus – so why did it seem like no one was talking about the lack of investment in the future of entrepreneurs? (you can read about more of his motivations here)

Never ones to miss a marketing opportunity, the grasshopper team have created a beautifully executed mo-graph video for the movement.  So take a few minutes to be reminded about what it means to be an entrepreneur. Then head over and sign the petition.

Although on the cheesy side, I cant help but feel that a day to remember the people who have done big things and more importantly dreamt big, is exactly what the world needs right now.

Join the entrepreneur movement. Stimulate the economy. Spread the word.

http://entrepreneursday.org

Post from: Fuel Your Venture

In their own words:

TechCrunch Disrupt is a three-day, single-track conference and startup competition to immerse you in the debate about what’s changing in media and technology right now, what’s causing it and what we need to do about it to survive and thrive in real time. TechCrunch Disrupt gathers the leaders and innovators of the technology and media industries to give you deep insights into the creative destruction happening right now. The big changes. And the subtle trends.

Tablet computing. Smart phones. Real-time conversations. The geo-stream. The evolution of advertising. Rich media platforms. Software in the cloud. And social media. All of these things are connected, and are converging in different ways.

We’ll bring the experts together to talk about what’s next. And why.

***

There’s more than advice, guidance, and networking opportunity on offer. Over the three days emerging companies will be competing in the Startup Battlefield, showcasing their talents and new designs of both hardware and software. One of them will leave the conference with $50,000 to continue to grow, create and succeed in their field.

In the real startup battlefield, beyond the conference, things are constantly changing. TechCrunch Disrupt will immerse you in where media and technology are heading, how not only to make your company survive the changes, but how it can thrive by moving forward and being the change instead of being lost in the rush. At the event you will hear from some of the best in the business, who have been there and done it, and can help you to do it. Check out the confirmed speakers and secure a place by booking tickets here.

If you’re in New York City this weekend, before the Disrupt conference starts in full, check out the free TechCrunch Hack Day – being organised by Chad Dickerson (who held the first Hack Days at Yahoo, now CTO of Etsy), Daniel Raffel (Yahoo) and Tarikh Korula (Uncommon Projects) and Jonah Brucker-Cohen (Scrapyard Challenge). Work with others to create and build something new, hardward or software, and work long into the night to get the chance to present onstage to over 2,000 people. Registration for the Hack Day begins Saturday 22nd at 1pm, 570 Washington Street (between Houston and Clarkson Streets), 2nd floor, New York, NY 10014. Find more info on the Hack Day here.

Everyone can get something from the TechCrunch Disrupt. Be one of more than 1,000 innovators gaining market insight, developing new business, and moving forward with every change in the industry. Listen to executives from high-tech and media sectors speaking of the industry, but grab the opportunity to speak with them and network, developing new business ideas and being part of the latest thinking. Technologists will be seeing what the competition is up to. Startups will gain incredible exposure, with funders from all over the US, and find opportunities everywhere to take the next step. Disrupt will support your innovation. Investors will be there too, seeing the trends and products, getting in there before the competition does. New and exciting business and innovation will be exposed to press, bloggers and policy influences from every corner of the industry.

Dates & Times:
Saturday (tomorrow), May 22nd – Sunday, May 23rd, 2010: Hack Day (Registration begins Saturday, May 22nd at 1pm) 570 Washington Street (between Houston and Clarkson Streets), 2nd floor, New York, NY 10014

Monday, May 24: “What’s Going On?”

Tuesday, May 25: “How are Platforms and Content Evolving?”

Wednesday, May 26: “How do You Find Your Audience –and Make Money?”

Speakers include:

Tim Armstrong (CEO, AOL)
Nikesh Arora (President, Google)
Ron Conway (Founder, SV Angel)
Chris Cox (Vice President, Facebook)
Dennis Crowley (CEO, Foursquare)
Jack Dorsey (Founder, Square; Co-Founder, Twitter)
Eric Hippeau (CEO, Huffington Post)
Ben Horowitz (Partner, Andreessen Horowitz)
Vic Gundotra (Vice President, Google)
Frank Quattrone (Founder, Qatalyst)
Avner Ronen (CEO, Boxee)
Andrey Ternovskiy (CEO, ChatRoulette)
Fred Wilson (Partner, Union Square)

You can learn more about the TechCrunch Disrupt conference here.

Post from: Fuel Your Venture

So in the spirit of success, Fuel Your Venture has created a list/directory of companies providing this unique type of funding and mentorship for the earliest stage start-ups.

Although populated with some amazing incubators, we see this directory as a work in progress.  If you know of a company we are missing, submit it as a comment or email us directly at editor@fuelyourventure.com, and we will add it to the list.

Ycombinator
Location	Mountain View, CA
Key People	Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris
Founded	2005
Focus	Software and web services
Cash Investment	$5,000 plus an additional $5,000 for each founder
Equity Stake	2-10%
Website	http://ycombinator.com/
Contact	info@ycombinator.com
Notes	Ycombinator is one of the earliest of the seed-stage incubators. Based out of Mountain View, CA, Ycombinator hosts two classes of companies each year. Companies must relocate to Mountain View for the three month duration of the program. Ycombinator provides office space and mentorship to participants of the program. The program culminates in an investor and demo day. Graduates of Ycombinator include Reddit, Loopt, Justin.tv, Scribd and Dropbox.

Techstars
Location	Boulder, Colorado; Boston, Massachusetts; and Seattle, Washington
Key People	David Cohen, Brad Feld, Jared Polis, David Brown, Shawn Broderick
Founded	2006
Focus	Technology oriented companies (web based and software)
Cash Investment	$6,000 per founder up to three founders
Equity Stake	6%
Website	http://techstars.org
Contact	info@techstars.org
Notes	TechStars was founded a year after Ycombinator. Companies must relocate to the Techstars location for the entire three month duration of the program. Past graduates include IntenseDebate, Socialthing, Brightkite, DailyBurn and ignighter. The program culminates in an investor and demo day. Over 70% of TechStars companies have had success outside of the program, either by raising outside funding or becoming profitable.

DreamIt Ventures
Location	Philadelphia, PA
Key People	David Bookspan, Michael Levinson, Steven Welch
Founded	2007
Focus	Any idea that can be developed into a product in three months
Cash Investment	$30,000
Equity Stake	6%
Website	http://www.dreamitventures.com/
Contact	info@dreamitventures.com
Notes	At the end of the program, companies pitch to potential investors at a demo day. Although younger than Ycombinator and TechStars, DreamIt has funded successful companies, including SCVNGR, NoteHall, and SeatGeek. Read our recent article about DreamIt for more detailed information.

Capital Factory
Location	Austin, TX
Key People	Josh Baer, Sam Decker, Bryan Menell
Founded	2009
Focus	Technology
Cash Investment	$20,000 in cash plus additional products and services valued at more than $20,000
Equity Stake	5%
Website	http://capitalfactory.com
Contact	http://twitter.com/capitalfactory
Notes	The program ends with a demo day in which companies pitch to potential investors. Previous classes included five companies, including PetsMD.com, SpareFoot.com, and Cubit planning.

Shotput Ventures
Location	Atlanta, GA
Key People	David Cummings, Sanjay Parekh, Allen Graber
Founded	2009
Focus	Capital-light web companies
Cash Investment	$6,000 per founder up to three founders
Equity Stake	5-10%
Website	http://www.shotputventures.com/
Contact	info@shotputventures.com
Notes	Shotput also provides mentoring and a demo day at the end of the program but doesn’t provide any office space. Shotput requires companies to relocate to Atlanta for the duration of the three month program.

LaunchBox Digital
Location	Washington, D.C.
Key People	Julius Genachowski, Sean Greene and John McKinley
Founded	2007
Focus	Technology oriented companies
Cash Investment	$15,000-20,000
Equity Stake	6%
Website	http://www.launchboxdigital.com/
Contact	theteam@launchboxdigital.com
Notes	LaunchBox provides office space, mentorship and a demo day at the end of the 12 week program. Participating companies are required to relocate to Washington, D.C. for the duration of the program. Previous graduates include JamLegend, TapMetrics and unblab.

BoomStartup
Location	Salt Lake City, UT
Key People	John Richards, Robb Kunz and Josh James
Founded	2010
Focus	Tech startups
Cash Investment	$15,000
Equity Stake	Not stated
Website	http://www.boomstartup.com/
Contact	http://www.boomstartup.com/?q=contact
Notes	BoomStartup is mentorship-driven. It provides office space in Salt Lake City as well as services to help startups. The incubator hosts a demo day in September for member companies to pitch to potential investors.

Springboard
Location	Cambridge, UK
Key People	Neil Davidson, Simon Galbraith and Amir Chaudhry
Founded	2009
Focus	Business-to-business software
Cash Investment	Varies
Equity Stake	None
Website	http://springboard.com/
Contact	amir.chaudhry@red-gate.com
Notes	Springboard is an ‘accidental’ incubator founded by Red Gate. Springboard provides mentorship and office space in Red Gate’s offices. Springboard doesn’t take any equity in the companies they support. Past participating companies include PagerDuty, TidePowered and MetaAlternative.

Excelerate
Location	Chicago, IL
Key People	Sam Yagan, Kapil Chaudhary, Kelli Rhee, Troy Henikoff
Founded	2010
Focus	None stated
Cash Investment	$15,000-20,000
Equity Stake	5%
Website	http://www.exceleratelabs.com/
Contact	http://www.exceleratelabs.com/contact/
Notes	Excelerate is a ‘bootcamp’ for startups and provides mentorship, office space in downtown Chicago and access to potential investors. Companies are required to relocate to Chicago for the duration of the 13 week program.

SproutBox
Location	Bloomington, IL
Key People	Marc Guyer, Mike Trotzke, Brad Wisler
Founded	2008
Focus	Web based applications
Cash Investment	$10,000-15,000
Equity Stake	25-40%
Website	http://sproutbox.com/
Contact	Phone: 888.417.9341
Notes	SproutBox is a development focused incubator. Sproutbox selects four companies a year to be a part of a 10 month program. SproutBox provides office space and services worth between $200,000-250,000 in order to ‘mitigate initial distractions’. Participants must relocate to Bloomington for a minimum of three months during the development phase. SproutBox provides access to potential investors at the end of the program.

NextStart
Location	Greenville, SC
Key People	Michael Mino, Kim Dawson, Kristie B. Byrum, Neil Grayson, Rick Heller, David Setzer, Peter Walschmidt, David Wyman, Robert Fletcher
Founded	2009
Focus	None stated
Cash Investment	$5,000 per team member ($10,000 maximum per company)
Equity Stake	5-10%
Website	http://www.nextstart.org/
Contact	Phone: 864.370.3038
Notes	NextStart is an incubator based in Greenville, South Carolina. The program provides mentorship and office space for the duration of the summer program. NextStart culminates in a demo day at which companies pitch to potential investors. The program takes between 5-10% equity.

GoodCompany Ventures
Location	Philadelphia, PA
Key People	Garrett Melby, Chris Bentley
Founded	2009
Focus	For-profit social enterprises
Cash Investment	$0
Equity Stake	0%
Website	http://www.goodcompanyventures.org/
Contact	http://www.goodcompanyventures.org/about/contact-us/
Notes	GoodCompany is an incubator that’s specifically focused on “socially conscious entrepreneurs who can make a difference.” GoodCompany doesn’t provide any money to participants and doesn’t take any equity, but it provides mentoring, support, and facilities. The incubator also facilitates a first investment round. Participants are required to attend weekly meetings at the GoodCompany offices in downtown Philadelphia. The program culminates in a demo day at which participating companies pitch to potential investors.

Betaspring
Location	Providence, RI
Key People	Allan Tear, Jack Templin, Owen Johnson
Founded	2009
Focus	Technology and design from web services to physical devices
Cash Investment	Average of $20k per team
Equity Stake	6-8%
Website	http://betaspring.com
Contact	info@betaspring.com
Notes	Competitive entrepreneurial teams from around the world come to Providence, RI, for our intensive twelve week program. During these twelve weeks, we help teams transform themselves into functional, fundable companies by providing mentorship, kickoff funding, and immersion in an intense startup community of like-minded entrepreneurs. At the end of the program teams have the opportunity to present their company to investors from the Boston, New York corridor during our Demo Day event.

Did we miss anyone?

We would like to make this a comprehensive resource for startup incubators everywhere.  If you have one to add to the list, please submit it to editor@fuelyourventure.com

We are looking for feedback

Have you worked with any of these incubators?  Have feedback? Share your experience below!

Post from: Fuel Your Venture

The CEO and Founder of FreshBooks, Mike McDerment, will be there to address various questions entrpreneuers, have through topics such as the following:

Building – your web app, your company, your team
Marketing – with and without dollars
Product management – so you know what’s right to build
Metrics – to track your progress
Financing – the who, what, when, where, why and how 5Ws of fund raising

With such valuable information being shared, you’d be crazy to miss it however FreshBooks understand that not all people can travel to attend such events so if you’d like to register your vote for them to send Mike to your city, you can – plain and simple!

You can get more information about where and when the events are along with a sneak peak of the talks over on FreshThinking – the blog by FreshBooks.

Post from: Fuel Your Venture

Communication

Contacting all corners of the globe can be expensive and tiring if you’re a conventional telephone user. However thanks to VoIP (Voice-over IP) you can make international calls at a fraction of the price. What’s more, it’s all done through your computer meaning you can talk & type at the same time!

Make free calls to other Skype accounts along with paid subscriptions to call national and international numbers. A great service used by many millions!

A service designed with entrepreneurs in mind. A fully-functional virtual PBX allows you to use Grasshopper in your company to make and receive calls.

By using the Vonage Adapter, you can convert your phone into a VoIP phone making it easier and cheaper to make international calls - simple!

Project Management

If you’re running various projects at once you’ll understand that keeping on top of them can be difficult. With project management solutions such as the ones below, you can take control of your business and complete any important work on time.

An awesome web-based tool that allows you to manage projects, assign tasks, create milestones and targets.

A great project management tool with a clean interface and many features including time scheduling and calenders.

A web-based task manager designed specifically to go hand-in-hand with the 'Getting Things Done' methodology.

Invoicing

It’s normally a painstaking task requesting money from customers but with the many solutions available you can manage all your invoices online in a professional manner. Most services even offer templating and custom styles to make the invoice suit your business.

Perhaps the most renowned invoicing solution offering simple invoice templates that look both professional and legitimate.

SliQ Invoicing & Quotes offer professional invoices, personal quotation forms and credit notes helping you get paid on time!

Zoho Invoice offers multi-user support to collaborate on invoicing along with the ability to track expenses and accept payments online.

Accounting & Budgeting

Perhaps one of the most important parts of running a business is keeping accurate accounts and budgeting for the future to ensure you don’t run out of money. Keeping a record of everything in one central place is the key to all your accounting nightmares.

Priding themselves on being the 'world's easiest accounting system', Xero allows you to keep track of numerous things including banking, invoicing and reports.

An awesome, free service offering outstanding budgeting features along with automatic bookkeeping which gives you time to focus on other things.

An online bookkeeping tool completely free of charge with various features including taxation estimates. You can also export data to your computer!

With so many important tasks required to keep your business afloat – whether new or established – these tools really can help make things easier and reduce your workload. If you’ve got any suggestions for tools, resources & software that can be used to make an entrepreneurs life easier, please share them in the comments. I’d also appreciate feedback on whether you thought this list was useful and what sort of things you’d like to see in the future!

Post from: Fuel Your Venture

Getting noticed amongst the hundreds if not thousands of other startups can be hard work. There’s no clean-cut method but there are steps you can take to give yourself a fighting chance, without breaking the bank.

Thanks to great services such as Twitter and Facebook, it’s possible to expose your business to potentially hundreds of millions, for free. Twitter has become the foundation for startups to gain recognition and popularity, with the many success stories such as Etsy – who launched in 2005, joined Twitter in 2007 and now boasts over 1.2 million followers – it’s a proven method to get the word out.

If you’re going to promote by means of social media, make sure you’re proactive in doing so. There’s a plethora of business-like accounts on Twitter who regularly plug their services and products but don’t take the time to reply to feedback given by people. Monitor conversation about your brand, that way you can be in control and take advantage of the invaluable things being said about it.

There’s no right or wrong way to use your Twitter account but if it’s a business account, it goes without saying that you wouldn’t be sharing pictures of the rump steak you’re having for dinner. A good way of being noticed is to have special offers via Twitter if possible, a great example of this was LCN – a domain registrar like any other who had just joined Twitter, they had 10 weeks of offers to celebrate their 10^th birthday, word got out and they received almost 1000 new followers just from a simple promotional campaign.

So, social media is one thing but what about having your product/service featured in another blog?  Making contact with potential PR opportunities can be difficult but there are some things you can do to help your chances.

Capitalizing on PR Opportunities
Firstly, you need to look at your niche and look at the various blogs covering the same or similar topics. We’ll take running a new iPhone App Development company as an example, you wouldn’t go ahead and contact the big names such as TUAW and MacWorld etc. because chances are, their inboxes are filled with similar emails every day. It’d be more productive to contact smaller blogs to get covered, that way the likelihood of succeeding is increased.

Also, when emailing a blog requesting to be covered, try to avoid starting with ‘Dear Sir/Madam’, make the effort to find out the editor of the blog, or the appropriate name to address, you want to give the right impression from the outset. The whole idea of PR is to form meaningful relationships; if you’re going to generically address the contact then chances are your email could hit the trash before it’s been read.

So you’re actively promoting your service/product through social media and making customer relations along with seeking new PR opportunities, you’re pretty much set for an initial marketing burst, but that certainly isn’t the end of it. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it. You need to create a marketing plan with in-depth information about how you’re going to go about spreading the word, each time you start a new campaign make sure you monitor it so you can see the results and make necessary adjustments to any plans based on the success or lack of success of a certain method.

Post from: Fuel Your Venture