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Showing posts from May, 2006

Crossing the Starting Line

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What does it really take to successfully launch a new business? In this extraordinary interview with Amar Bhidé , author of the book The Origin and Evolution of New Business , the editor-in-chief of Inc. Magazine draws out some incredible truths from the research done by Dr. Bhidé. Here are some highlights from the article summarizing 10 years of study that fly in the face of conventional wisdom: Most successful startups began without any innovative idea or product, with no specialized training and with relatively little capital. Critical success characteristics for entrepreneurs are: tactical creativity; adaptability and salesmanship. Successful entrepreneurs are very tolerant of ambiguity and find opportunities in uncertain "me-too" market niches, where they can offset risk to customers and other partners. The characteristics that propel a new business to initial success must shift to strategic planning and risk taking if the entrepeneur wishes to take the business from &

Open Sesame

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An Open Door The Internet has created radical new facilities for individuals to collaborate independent of geographical and economic constraints. Riding on the wave of this capability, is the growing phenomenon of open source development and services. This altruistic, voluntary trend is impacting the economics of software production around the globe. Although some would trivialize these attempts as insignificant, many others are jumping through the open door of opportunity. How do organizations make money from open source software? This ZDNet article summarizes how: Selling related services such as packaging and documentation Selling support services Creating custom licenses for particular customers Producing proprietary software that integrates with an open source system Of course, the product mixing strategy requires specific due diligence for an organization to ensure that they do not compromise the open-source licensing with their proprietary distribution. Here is some helpful