Looking to take grandma’s pickled beet recipe to the masses?  Maybe start raising organic chickens?  Have a salsa you’d love to see on the grocery shelves?  Getting it from your cookbook or barnyard into the consumer’s hands can be a challenging journey.  The University of Nebraska’s Food Processing Center knows this well and has developed a nationally-recognized program to help food entrepreneurs realize their dreams.  They deliver most of the info through a 2 day seminar, which happens to be coming up March 5th over in Storm Lake.  Day 1 is “From Recipe to Reality” and covers the basics from market research to legal issues.  Day 2 is “From Product to Profit” and allows you get some 1 on 1 consulting about your specific food idea.  U of N’s FPC doesn’t make a ton of stops in Iowa, so this is a great chance to get some of their training without driving too far.  If you’ve ... [More]

  Greetings! Last summer, we contacted small business owners from across the state to get direct feedback on how Iowa’s small businesses are really doing.  We emailed and called many of you to ask a huge favor – 5 minutes of your day to answer a few questions about your business and the business climate within your community.  Your responses helped to capture the attention of the legislature, resulting in the new Iowa Small Business Loan Program and the upcoming free business research services here at MyEntre.Net. This winter, it is more important than ever to hear from you.  We'd like your comments and input - the good, bad, pretty or ugly - so we can carry your needs and concerns to the people that can help. Simply click on the button below to access the survey or visit: http://www.myentre.net/EconomicImpactSurvey/tabid/117/Default.aspx. THANK YOU…. …very much for... [More]

My book reco for 2011 So I am in the process of weaning myself off of TV, ok, not all tv, but a bulk of it.  I still need my Parenthood and The Office of course, but after that, it’s time to pick up a book.  To that end, I picked up The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki – an Apple veteran and leader in the blog-o-sphere of entrepreneurial writing.  To this point, I am not what you would call a book worm, so take my advice with a few grains of salt.  But I really liked the style Kawasaki used to go through the start up process.  Much of it is written for tech-based start ups – Silicon Valley style – but quite a bit of it can be translated to anything. A few nuggets I really enjoyed: 1                     Build a Board -  I think many entrepreneurs have some folks to bounce ideas off of – many of them end up being friends an... [More]

  ·         Intuit’s glance into the future – their view of the world in 2020 as it relates to small business.  There is nothing too earth-shattering in here.  Most of what they are talking about we are seeing play out as growing trends now.  Carrying those into the future doesn’t take a whole lot of faith-leaping. ·         Wisebread’s Nora Dunn put together a quick read on pricing strategies.  It’s not an end all by any means, but a great quick-hitter of tips you may want to incorporate into your own pricing/product offering plan.  ·         One more example of why competition on price is always a losing game when Wal-Mart is a player.  Just last week, Wal-Mart unveiled their plan to offer free shipping for online sales.  It was widely speculated that all the other fish in... [More]

The second annual CMI Green Community Marketing, Inc. Green Traveler Report is out. The study outlines how different sustainability techniques have impacted green consumer travelers, sometimes also referred to as socially responsible, sustainable, or eco-conscious consumers. If your community or business is trying to reach these types of individuals, I would strongly recommend reading the full report. For those of you who have a passing interest in the topic, hopefully this blog entry will help you zero in on some of the highlights and give you ideas for potential business growth. Green consumers are continuing to become “greener”. Not only are their preferences for traveling and hospitality reflected in this change, but many green consumers reported an increase in participation in eco-friendly home activities: using public transportation to work, gardening, buying local and eating vegetarian all were cited (pg 5). This may be an emerging market to research for... [More]

  Greetings! This Weeks Webinar: The Nuts and Bolts of Starting a Business Thursday, December 2 at Noon (CST) Join Sean Grant of Grant & Schindel and Rich Petersen, Interim Director at the University of Northern Iowa Small Business Development Center.  As they cover basic tax issues, accounting set up, forms and registrations that need to be done, and other basic set up information for start ups!  This is one Webinar that you won't want to miss out on!     TO PARTICIPATE in this MyEntre.Net Webinar, simply click on the MyEntre.Net logo below just prior to the start of the webinar at Noon (CST) on December 2nd. It's that easy!  Free MyEntre.Net registration is required in order to participate. Registered members of MyEntre.Net will be taken to Adobe Connect, login as a Guest.  If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, contact us! Start with Courtney Schwitzer at 319-273-4333 or [email protected] ... [More]

If you haven’t read the fine print on Dodd-Frank (and I don’t know anyone that has – including myself) - you may have missed a nice little sweetener for small business.  Effective July of 2011, banks will be allowed to pay interest on business accounts.  For those of you that remember 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act was put into law that year.  Part of its provisions, was a mandate that banks could no longer offer interest on business checking accounts.  Welcome to 2010, and soon 2011, where Glass-Steagall is out and Dodd-Frank is in, and with it comes interest (maybe, anyway).  Robb Mandelbaum wrote a very nice piece on the whole deal over at the Times.  If you are hoping for big rates on your checking account starting next summer, I wouldn’t hold my breath at this point.  With Fed Funds at almost zero, there is little to no interest to be found anywhere right now.  The Feds announcement to push another 600 Billion ont... [More]

·         Having trouble giving awesome presentations?  Take a few lessons from the master, Steve Jobs. ·         Chris Dixon offers up a straightforward, easy-to-follow grocery list on how to get take your tech idea from napkin to launch ·         First it was Pepsi dolling out big bucks with their feel-good Refresh Project, now IBM would like to give your town some money too – in their Smarter Cities Challenge.  ·         Entrepreneur.com is all about the list, they’ve got one for everything – to that end is their top 100 low-cost franchises.  It’s basically full of business and home cleaners, but of special note is #94 on the list – DoodyCalls- of the lucrative “pet waste removal” industry.  There must be an easier way to make a buck... [More]

While checking out the blogs on my RSS reader, I stumbled upon an article written by Chris Brogan that talked about ‘growing bigger ears’ online. For those of you who don’t know Chris, he is one of the foremost online social communications experts. He owns his own marketing company, New Marketing Labs and has an outstanding blog (you can find it via the link above). The meat of Chris’ article talked about how to better monitor your online brand identity and chatter via Google’s RSS Reader. This resonated with me, especially after attending the Economic Gardening Retreat this past summer. While there, Chris Gibbons spoke about a project that one of his researchers was working on that he coined buzz tracking. The buzz project that he was developing sounded very similar to what Chris Brogan had suggested in his article; that by tracking multiple channels you can determine trends and business opportunities in the marketplace, and gain chances to build be... [More]

Link-a-palooza for 10/15/10 ·         Props for the business incubation process courtesy of Ned Smith at Business News Daily ·         Chipotle (please open one in Cedar Falls, IA!!!) is all about doing a small number of things very, very well.  A lesson so many entrepreneurs can learn from as they try to be all things to all people.  Remember the burrito and simplify! ·         Everyone knows about Mint.com and other online budgeting software out there.  But maybe you haven’t seen BillShrink – which is on online service that basically helps you shrink your bills.  Their tagline is “Start saving money in under a minute”, which is music to my ears for a cheapie like me.  You can input some of your monthly expenses – cable, cell phone, internet service, etc. – and it’ll tell you w... [More]