1M/1M: Video Message Based On Recent Talks

I have been giving a lot of talks lately, and interacting with hundreds of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship development leaders around the world. Here is an YouTube video synthesizing some of the core points of these discussions on bootstrapping, positioning, and lean startups:

Featured Videos

1M/1M: Online Education Module Of The Curriculum Is Ready

Readers, we have just released the online education module of the 1M/1M premium curriculum. In it, you will find a synthesis of the various trends and opportunities that I see at this point, along with case studies and video lectures. The opportunity is clearly huge in multiple dimensions, and I am convinced that many businesses can and will be built in this segment over this decade.

1Mby1M Deal Radar: Camp Bow Wow, Boulder

What do the Champagne houses Veuve Clicquot, Pommery, and Bollinger; the printer of the Declaration of Independence; and the German steel conglomerate ThyssenKrupp AG have in common? At one time, all were run by widows who took over the business after their husband died. It’s a path that many women have followed across the centuries, back through the Industrial Revolution, medieval Europe, the Roman and Sumerian empires, and perhaps even further. Today’s Deal Radar is the story of one woman entrepreneur, Heidi Ganahl, who found herself in a somewhat different situation: Her husband was killed in a small plane crash just as they were getting started on a business together. Ganahl went on to carry out their idea and found Camp Bow Wow, a dog boarding service, and Home Buddies, its in-home pet care component. >>>

1Mby1M Deal Radar 2011: Latitude Learning, Saline, Michigan

Latitude Learning is an open source, performance-driven software as a service (SaaS) learning management system (LMS) designed to assist training firms, middle-market companies, Fortune 1000 enterprises, and non-profit organizations.  >>>

Entrepreneurship Education: Youth Entrepreneurship Course

As a follow-up to my previous post, The Time Has Come For The College Entrepreneur, a question that begs to be answered is: What is the composition of a youth entrepreneurship course? What are the assumptions that need to be made about what students know?

Of course, one of the assumptions needs to be that the student has no business background or business training. Typically, they come from other streams of study and need to take entrepreneurship as a supplemental course.

In addition, give the job prospects, we have to also keep in mind the cost of education. It’s not reasonable to expect a large number of our unemployed youth to go to expensive business school programs and be saddled with large debt burdens. Entrepreneurship education needs to be imparted quickly, efficiently, and at a minimum cost. Ideally, it’s on a live project – a company – a venture – that the student has already started tinkering with.

I have tried to keep these criteria in mind as I have designed the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) program.

I am also curious to hear from educators at high schools and colleges who are coaching and mentoring students facing this deep recession on what, if anything, you are doing to steer them toward entrepreneurship.

The Time Has Come For The College Entrepreneur

America’s youth unemployment is at an all-time high these days. Studies and reports are showing numbers that are scary, depressing, and downright desperate. A Huffington Post article last summer pegged the number of 16–24 year olds who are unemployed at 51.1%. Things have improved a bit since, but the scale of the problem is still staggering.

We need the high schools and colleges in particular to step up and teach practical aspects of an entrepreneurial way of life to their students, and set expectations that kids and young adults will need to take destiny in their own hands. >>>

Havoc In The For-Profit University Sector

For-profit educational institutions are under tighter scrutiny with Senate and House committees examining their admission process, which seems to mislead applicants, targets veterans and registers student default rates at least double those of traditional universities. According to a Congressional report released earlier this month, for-profit colleges have high dropout rates, poor results, and high loan default rates. At four of the five for-profit colleges studied by the report, 24% of students defaulted on their loans, compared with the national rate of 7% of students defaulting on government loans in 2008. Another equally disturbing report was released by the Education Trust, which cites statistics detailing poor education scores of for-profit institutions. According to the report, a mere 22% of students earn their degrees in six years in a for-profit college compared with 55% of students in public and 65% in private nonprofit colleges and universities. Apollo Group’s University of Phoenix fared the worst with a mere 9% six-year graduation rate. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dr. Reed Sheard, CIO Of Westmont College (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

In the multibillion-dollar market of higher education in the United States, we see an interesting trend whereby a combination of IT people and college communities are playing the role of an active “lead user” and using the cloud computing paradigm to make campus life simpler and information accessible for students through handheld devices. In this interview, we have some insights for you on evolutionary application integrations happening at Westmont and in higher education, from dispensing efficient IT infrastructure for effective collaboration to simplifying campus processes and other real-world tasks. During the interview, Sramana and Dr. Reed Sheard, VP and CIO of Westmont University College, discuss how Sheard has deployed cloud computing technologies and solutions to help the Westmont IT user community move to a higher level of service and helped the college IT team evolve to the next level in terms of business alignment. It is interesting to note that there has been explosive growth in the number of Apple devices in the higher education world, with applications taking a lead in terms of the user base compared to pure browser-based or Internet applications and the absence of Amazon’s Kindle, which is positioned as the textbook of the future in higher education but still needs a volume of textbooks to be made available on it and still lacks the ease with which iPad users can make notes and collaborate. >>>

Women And Entrepreneurship: My Statement

The topic of women and entrepreneurship has been getting a lot of attention of late. Vivek Wadhwa has been leading the charge from TechCrunch. Yesterday, I read an article by Penelope Trunk on TechCrunch that argues that you cannot be an entrepreneur and bear and raise children, have a successful relationship, and have a balanced life.

I generally avoid commenting on this issue, but Vivek has often egged me on to say things, at least in private discussions. Vivek is a good friend, and I believe that he is trying to do something meaningful to help move this debate forward.

So, today, I am going to say a few things on the topic. >>>

Entrepreneurship Education: Incubator Business Models

You have read my last Forbes Column, An Underused Tool For Job Recovery. With unemployment soaring, I discussed how incubators can help people move into self-employment–and create jobs.

We’ve also discussed the topic of why incubators fail at length here. One of the issues that came up in the incubator discussion as a cause for failure is: What is the right business model for an incubator?

This is what I invite you to discuss in this thread.

[Please note that since this discussion took place here on the blog, we have launched the One Million by One Million global initiative, and for incubators looking for a viable business model, you are very welcome to reach out to me to become a reseller of our premium program priced at $1000 annual membership fee.]