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- Find some of the GH Labs crew & @Chargify at #SXSW http://bit.ly/aGLNUC
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- RT @OPENForum: 4 Employee Benefits at Little (or Zero) Cost. http://www.bit.ly/a42ABx
Featured Entrepreneur Archive
Entrepreneurship, It’s Personal
Nash Kabbara, co-founder of Motors On Wheels and ZipZoomAuto provides insight on building and sustaining a business.
About Me
When I was about 12 years old, mom would stop the car at the local bakery; I would jump out with a pocket full of change and buy a dozen pastries. It’s Sunday, family dinner day, and I knew what everyone’s favorite pastry was. I also
knew which uncles had the most money and which ones did not. As everyone was finishing up their dinners, I set up a table and marked each pastry with a price. Needless to say, the uncles who drove BMW’s had the highest markup!
I’ve always wanted to make a billion dollars by creating something that makes people better at what they do. At my last job I thought I was doing just that, but I was wrong. I cut my losses and quit with about $10,000 in the bank.
Sustainability
Ten thousand dollars might look like it has enough zeroes in it, but it doesn’t go very far. I needed a way to stay afloat while I waited for the billion dollar idea to come to me.
A friend of mine was in the car business. He suggested I buy a car from him at wholesale and resell it myself. I did. I made $1,300 in about 5 hours of actual work!
Featured Entrepreneur: Allan Branch of LessAccounting
This week we are featuring Allan Branch. He’s the co-founder of LessAccounting and also a Grasshopper customer.
Could you explain the philosophy of Less?
We believe business software should easy. It should get out of your way, allowing you to get back to work and make money. Being a business owner is hard enough without having your software make it harder.
I’d love to hear more about your path to entrepreneurship. What were you guys doing before you started Less?
I was a freelance designer and Steve was a contractor doing software engineering. We both were looking for each other we just didn’t realize it at the time.
I’d like to focus on LessAccounting for a second. In college, I had to take this awful accounting class where we learned Peachtree accounting software. After this experience, I vowed to stay as far away from accounting as I could. How does LessAccounting help a guy like me (who can barely add)?
We like to say all bookkeeping software sucks we just suck the least. Bookkeeping should be easy, after all it’s really just adding and subtracting. LessAccounting keeps things simple, organizing your data, showing you where you’re at, who owes you money, who you owe money to, and then having a variety of reports that make it easy to understand your business. We also have bookkeepers on staff ready to help you if you have questions and even help balance your books for you. Ask Intuit or Peachtree to help you do a bank reconciliation.
Featured Entrepreneur: Jared Taylor of RevitalArts
This week we are featuring Jared Taylor. Jared is the founder of RevitalArts, Sparklight Studios and is also a Grasshopper customer.
First off, you are a great example of a “Young Entrepreneur”. You’ve already been involved in founding how many companies? And are how old?
I’ve founded 2 companies. I started my first, Sparklight Studios, when I was 18 years old. Sparklight is a small creative company specializing in website development, video production and theatrical design. We’ve served nearly 20 clients since we started only 2 years ago, which has been quite an undertaking considering we’re college students. We just launched our new website – http://www.sparklight-studios.com. I also founded RevitalArts (formerly Youth in the Arts) in 2008 with a few friends.
Tell us a little bit about RevitalArts and what makes it so unique.
RevitalArts is an entirely student-run non-profit organization and we received our 501(c)(3) designation by the Federal government in mid-2009. Our mission is to provide young adults with positive, engaging and educational experiences in the arts and to revitalize the participation in and appreciation of the arts. Read more »
Featured Entrepreneur: Jonathan Mendez of Relevance Amplified
As part of a new series here at Grasshopper we are going to be featuring entrepreneurs from across the globe. We want to learn more about them, get inside their head and find out what it takes to make it in the world of business.
This week we are featuring Jonathan Mendez. Jon is extremely well known throughout the online marketing and advertising world, running several successful businesses, speaking at conferences and of course through his blog “Optimize & Prophesize“.
Jon, you have founded how many companies now?
A bunch. I’m in the process of starting my fourth Internet business but I’ve been a lifelong entrepreneur. My first business was in Elementary school. I Xeroxed a bunch of album sleeves and articles from sports magazines and stapled them together in a “magazine” that I sold for 5 cents on the playground. Of course my mother has the only surviving issue. In high school I made a connection with the local Champion sales rep and bought his quarterly sales samples of jerseys, jackets, sweatshirts, etc and resold them to kids in my high school. Eventually we started designing and ordering our own custom lines from Champion. My biggest regret as an entrepreneur is not taking that business with me to college.
