December 31, 2004
Are You A 'Pure Entrepreneur'?
Are you:
- loopy and obsessed?
- driven by a belief that a major shift is coming?
- a solo enterprise, funded by credit cards, consulting projects, and second mortgages?
- focused more on producing a product that people will find useful than on figuring out how you'll make money from it?
- believing that everything is possible?
Read this article from The Boston Globe to find out more about dealing with your curse!
Posted by Kurt at 01:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Open Source Predictions
LinuxInsider is predicting a Happy New Year for open source software.
According to the article, you should look for more companies to start taking open source software seriously. As a result, expect software buyers to demand full disclosure of which parts were not entirely developed by the seller and are subject to other licenses. You should also expect to see legal due diligence checklists add a section covering open source, checking for both inbound and outbound open-source licenses.
Something for those of us who buy, sell, and develop software to think about!
Posted by Kurt at 01:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 30, 2004
Patent Services
I recently came across a short list of local companies offering Intellectual Property Services.
At the same time a competing list of local Patent Searchers came up.
It's interesting to note that Technosystems Services Corporation (from the first list) is also doing business as INVENTION SUBMISSION CORPORATION-ISC (from the second list).
If you know of other local companies that offer similar services, please let me know.
Posted by Kurt at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Year According to EBay
This article at USA Today gives an interesting perspective on what people were really interested in buying and selling this past year.
Between the descriptions of the Virgin Mary cheese sandwich and rocker Bryan Adams' unwashed socks, you'll find interesting observations on what people are looking to buy, and sell, right now.
EBay - "It's a societal seismometer."
Posted by Kurt at 09:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 28, 2004
New Technology Measures Document Intent
According to this article on Sci-Tech Today, Steven Harrington at Xerox, J. Fernando Naveda at RIT, and Rhys Price Jones at IBM are developing the science of what documents mean -- and intend to mean. They hope to automate the process so that your next PowerPoint presention conveys its meaning more clearly and acurately.
Assuming you intend to be clear and accurate!
For ideas about how to present information clearly (or not!) please visit the Gallery of Data Visualization, especially their "best" and "worst" statistical graphics.
Posted by Kurt at 11:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Proposed Elimination of Deduction for State Taxes
The Bush administration has been talking about scrapping the federal deduction for state and local taxes as part of a broader plan to revamp the nation's tax system.
New York, which currently has the second-highest income tax rate, would be hit hard, with residents losing as much as $37 billion annually in federal tax deductions.
Is this an effort to punish "blue" states after the recent presidential election? Let us know what you think.
Posted by Kurt at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 24, 2004
Rochester Area Small Business Development Centers
I woke this morning to a blurb on the radio about local Empire Zones. Then I saw an article in Business Strategies about programs to aid economic development.
I got the hint. Here are links to Rochester area Small Business Development Centers.
Let's start close to home. The Small Business Development Center at SUNY Brockport serves the counties of Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, and Wayne. It's offering a Start Your Own Business Workshop in Canandaigua on 01/26/2005.
The Small Business Development Center at Niagara County Community College serves the counties of Niagara, Orleans, Livingston, Erie, and Genesee. It has an outreach office at SUNY Geneseo.
You can find the locations of all New York State's Small Business Development Centers here. The caption on the map states "We take pride in knowing that no business in New York is more than 30 miles from any of our offices," but it looks like some of those miles are a lot longer than others!
P.S. The "uber-site" for all of this information is part of the state's I Love New York presence on the Web.
Posted by Kurt at 09:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 23, 2004
Rochester Area Business Incubators
I found this list of Rochester area business incubators in the new (January) issue of Business Strategies. I couldn't find this list on their website, so I've re-entered it here (I also labeled the links and corrected the typos I found):
ABC Enterprise Center
Mancuso Business Development Group
High Tech Rochester
Cornell Biotechnology Institute : Center for Advanced Technology
RIT High Technology Incubator
As usual, if you know of any other Rochester area business incubators that should be on this list, either add comments to this article or contact me directly.
Posted by Kurt at 11:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
San Francisco Examiner to Create Rochester Examiner?
I was doing a search for Rochester patent news articles, and came across this one about billionaire Philip Anschutz trademarking the name "Examiner" for use here in Rochester, among other places.
You may be familiar with the name of the San Francisco Examiner which once was the flagship of William Randolph Hearst's media empire. It now is a free weekday tabloid owned by Anschutz, who ranks 33rd among Forbes' richest 400 Americans.
This doesn't sound to me like new venture capital coming into the community. Instead it sounds like City Newspaper may be receiving some competition.
Posted by Kurt at 08:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 18, 2004
Trillium Invests in E-chx Inc.
According to this article in the Democrat & Chronicle, Trillium Lakefront Partners III has made its first venture capital investment, in E-chx Inc.
Although the investment amount was not disclosed, the article says that the fund was built to distribute $2 million to $5 million per investment. A little bit larger than most of Rochester's entrepreneurs require.
E-Chx, a payroll service company with headquarters in Brighton's Canal View Office Park, currently employs 19 people here, along with an unspecified number in Atlanta, GA.
Trillium Group LLC also manages the Monroe Fund, the venture capital fund set up by Monroe County and a number of banks, corporations, and other local institutions.
See also this article in the Rochester Business Journal.
Posted by Kurt at 05:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 17, 2004
RIPN Roster of Volunteers Survey
County Executive Maggie Brooks has asked RIPN to provide a list of people who would be interested and available to assist her team by providing input and guidance on various projects and/or initiatives. You can participate by filling out their Roster of Volunteers survey form.
Posted by Kurt at 01:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Google Partners with Oxford, Harvard & Others to Digitize Libraries
Google is working with libraries at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University and the New York Public Library to digitize books in their collections and make them accessible via Google Print. Find out more...
While this is not a completely new idea (see Project Gutenberg), it could have an impact on the cost and availability of information for your business, especially if you broker information or do research for clients.
How do you think this will affect you?
Posted by Kurt at 11:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!)
Like the Monkees said, "Look out! Here comes tomorrow!" (The fact that I remember such things shows my age!)
I just found out about the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, offered by the University of Rochester, which introduces middle and high school students to a course of project-based, hands-on entrepreneurial education.
These kids could be your competition. But would that be such a bad thing?
Posted by Kurt at 10:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 16, 2004
New Business Filings Database
One of the things many small businesses want to know, if only so they don't feel so alone, is what other businesses have recently been formed in their area. The Democrat & Chronicle's New Business Filings database allows you to search for Rochester-area start-ups by date, town, and keyword.
Just another wrench for your toolbox!
Posted by Kurt at 11:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 15, 2004
The Other Side of Outsourcing
by Richard Blazey
We hear lots of complaints about American jobs lost to workers in China and India. I recently had occasion to see a silver lining to this otherwise dark cloud. I was looking for an opportunity for one of my clients to manufacture a product in China. He had been told that his comfort liners for bicycle helmets had to be made in China because that was where all of the bicycle helmet manufacturers were now located. So I arranged a meeting for my client with a local Chinese Export/Import dealer. What I learned at that meeting was an eye-opener.
The dealer said that he couldn’t help my client for two reasons. The first was that he had a different mission, exporting high value American made goods to China. We often think of the Chinese market as a 1.2 billion low income customers for inexpensive products, but that is an incomplete and incorrect view.
The dealer pointed out that the new world of commerce has created high income Chinese who want to buy products perceived by them as high value, and to those Chinese those high value goods are American (and European). The exporter was busily arranging to export Zweigle’s hot dogs to China.
I said, "Who in China has ever heard of Zweigle’s white hots?" and he replied, "You would be surprised how many Chinese either attended or know someone who attended the University of Rochester." I guess they developed the taste for Zweigle’s at local picnics. Maybe there is also a market for Buffalo chicken wings?
The other thing he told me was to forget trying to convince Chinese bicycle helmet manufacturers to buy American helmet liners. "These Chinese factories," he said, "are just captive satellites of the American parent companies. They make what they are told and compete to be able to supply at the lowest possible price because the American companies play one of them off against the other. The American companies that told your client that they had no power over the manufacturing of their helmets were lying to your client."
All in all it was a very interesting and surprising conversation.
Posted by Kurt at 09:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Starting a For-Profit Small Business in the U.S.
I recently came across this page on Starting a For-Profit Small Business in the U.S. which is a pretty comprehensive set of guidelines for starting up a business. A very dull looking page, but very useful.
Posted by Kurt at 05:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Serendipity and Spyware Removal
I was reading a Marketing Sherpa article on the outlook for Affiliate Marketing in 2005 which talks about using desktop applications for marketing your products. One of the related links points to Benjamin Edelman's blog on adware and spyware, which gets into (among other things) discussions on End User License Agreements and recent laws that are supposed to reduce the amount of spyware PC users have to contend with.
His blog led me to The Spyware Warrior Guide to Anti-Spyware Testing by Eric L. Howes, which is a truly scary set of test results on the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of popular anti-spyware software.
A number of local entrepreneurs (including me!) rely on Nick Francesco's Security Tango instructions to keep our computers running smoothly. After reading the Spyware Warrior's test results, I think Nick's going to have to add a few more steps to his dance!
Posted by Kurt at 01:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Catching the fire
I heard this report on WXXI about the volunteer effort to place an ad in the NY Times for the free "Firefox" browser. On looking into it further I discovered that the effort (which was wildly successful, by the way) occurred at the end of October. The effort was organized by a website called SpreadFirefox.com, and was successful in raising over $250,000 in ten days.
Check out this press release for more inspiration. (Think anyone in Rochester could put together an effort like this?)
Posted by Kurt at 08:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 14, 2004
Firms intend to add staff
According to this article in the Rochester Business Journal, Rochester area businesses forecast job growth over the next three months.
How about you? Are you planning to add employees? For that matter, do you have any employees to begin with?
Posted by Kurt at 04:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 13, 2004
Center for Civic Entrepreneurship
This article in the Rochester Business Journal describes the Center for Civic Entrepreneurship which was announced today by Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks.
Do you think they have a clue?
Posted by Kurt at 03:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Minimum Wage
Another article in the Democrat & Chronicle - State to raise minimum wage - has me wondering how this will affect local entrepreneurs. Do you view this as good news, or bad for business? Or do you see it as having any affect at all?
I look forward to you comments!
Posted by Kurt at 10:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
E-ZNet Folds
There was an article in yesterday's Democrat & Chronicle called E-ZNet's decline snares users that I hope everybody got a chance to read. (If not, follow the link.) It sounds like the E-ZNet fiasco was nearly as bad as when VivaNet died. And to think that at one time E-ZNet was doing so much business (at least with my employer) that I had their numbers in the speed-dial of my cellphone!
Posted by Kurt at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 10, 2004
Rochester Business Networks
Here are links to local business networks that I've been able to locate:
RPCN - Rochester Professional Consultants Network
High Tech Rochester
The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
The Rump Group
Rochester Women's Network
the eBusiness Association
Toastmasters International (list of Rochester clubs)
Business Network International (Upstate NY)
Simon School's Alumni web pages
Rochester Venture Capital Group
Genesis Fund
Rochester Business Alliance
Connect Rochester
High Technology Business Council
Digital Rochester
Greater Rochester Jaycees
Rochester Young Professionals Network
National Association of Women Business Owners
Rochester Entrepreneurial Society
Rochester Black Business Association
SCORE, Rochester Chapter
Greater Rochester Quality Council
Financial Executives Networking Group
Regional Innovators' Participation Network
Rochester Green Business Network
The August Group
Better Business Bureau - Western NY
Finger Lakes Entrepreneurs’ Forum
If you know of any others that should be in this list, please leave a comment!
Posted by Kurt at 08:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
RPCN Annual Tax Update Presentation
The RPCN - Rochester Professional Consultants Network's: 'Annual Tax Update' presentation will be held Friday, Dec. 10, at 8:00 am. The presenter is Sharon Ziegler (filling in for John Foote).
Posted by Kurt at 08:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 08, 2004
Other Rochester Area Blogs
Let's kick off a list of Rochester-area business blogs. The one I've been able to find (other than my own) is Lip-Sticking. I'm sure there are others out there, I just haven't found them yet!
If you know of any, please post them in the comments.
Posted by Kurt at 01:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mission Statement
The Rochester Entrepreneurs Resource blog is- news, information, and opinion
- of, by, and for entrepreneurs
- in and around Rochester, NY.
Posted by Kurt at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack