We had a great speaker last week at the BIZ. Matt Loecke spent an hour drilling down on how to put a sales process together. As someone who has sold in the past, I can tell you he was right on. We video all of the events at the BIZ and post them for your [...]
Continue reading →Kickstarter is a Marketing Tool
March 20, 2012 By Mike Colwell
The amount of buzz around Kickstarter is growing every day. I was introduced to it about a year ago when the first major hit product came across it’s pages. That was the Tik Tok+ Luna-Tik watch band for the iPod nano. in a matter of a few weeks, this product went from a well marketed [...]
Continue reading →Think you know creative fundraising? This is creative fundraising.
March 15, 2012 By Mike Colwell
I have heard a lot of stories about creative fundraising when it comes to starting a business. Ben Milne of Dwolla raised money for a previous company by selling a bunch of his stuff on ebay. Some use Kickstarter. Recently, however, Mark Suster wrote a great post titled “How This Entrepreneur Raised $28,000 Using Airbnb [...]
Continue reading →User Entrepreneurs – A higher success rate
March 13, 2012 By Mike Colwell
There was a very interesting study released by the Kauffman Foundaton titled “Nearly Half of Innovative U.S. Startups Are Founded by ‘User Entrepreneurs,‘”. The study defines User Entrepreneurs as those who have c”reated innovative products or services for their own use, then subsequently founded firms to commercialize them”. I think fully a third of the [...]
Continue reading →SXSW – The Partnership & Milk Cartons! What?????
March 10, 2012 By Mike Colwell
I don’t say enough about The Greater Des Moines Partnership on this site. After all, they are the reason that the BIZ exists! Well, the marketing team at the Partnership came up with a really great idea for SXSW. Check out the video for more information. If you are going to SXSW you don’t want [...]
Continue reading →The New Idea Paradox
March 8, 2012 By Mike Colwell
I recently wrote a post titled “The paradox of a new idea” over at the Business Record. Check it out and let me know what you think!
Continue reading →
Connect with the BIZ