Category Archives: Small Business

Going For Broke: Four Ways to Make the Most of Unemployment

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In your professional life, there are few Unemployment signthings that suck the life out of you more than the “U-word.” Chances are you won’t find much humor, but you’ll get copious amounts of stress when you struggle to pay off bills and loans—especially as colleagues in your LinkedIn network keep hitting those annoying work anniversaries.

Whatever misfortune or happenstance got you to U-town, don’t dwell there. Here are four things you can do right now to maximize this “opportunity” and maintain your sanity. The one thing you have right now is time. Invest it wisely.

1) Hit the gym: What’s the No. 1 excuse that people don’t work out? Not enough time. Your old job could get crazy busy 24/7, right? Well, now you’ve got time in spades—and the endorphin release will stave off some of that stress to boot. Without a full-time job, there’s no reason not to be in the best shape of your life.

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Veterans Talk Startups, Practice Pitching: 4 Takeaways From “VetCap”

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More than 70 veterans of all military branches packed the house for the VetsinTech launch of “VetCap” in San Francisco, a new program geared to teach transitioning vets where and how to raise capital for their startup. Part workshop and part pitch session, VetCap covered the basics of corporate capital financing, angel funding, crowdsourcing, venture debt and small business loans.

Held at Next World Capital in honor of Military Appreciation Month, the event is the first in a series of workshops by VetsinTech set to continue around the country. Here are four key takeaways:

Tech-savvy veterans fill the room. Photo by Brian Jarvis

Tech-savvy veterans fill the room. Photo by Brian Jarvis

1) Think of investors like dating: The analogy between finding a significant other and securing financing for a startup is strikingly similar. As with any relationship, it begins with basic chemistry. “Imagine asking random people for a date and your hit rate will be pretty low. That’s where the power of a personal introduction can’t be overstated,” said panelist David Mayhew, Chief Risk Officer of GE Ventures. “It means making connections by grabbing people at every coffee bar and networking event.”

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Becoming Master of Your Domain: How Small Businesses Can Secure Their Pixel of Cyberspace

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Illustration by Matt Davidson.

When I first branded my consulting business “Jailbreak Media”, I didn’t think much of the fact that there was another Jailbreak Media out there. I owned the URL jailbreak-media.com and mapped it to WordPress; a Dallas-based marketer owned jailbreakmedia.com without the hyphen, which led to a site under construction. Barely a month after I registered the name, however, he contacted me. Turned out he was a consultant too. Unsurprisingly, he—and his attorney—asked that I stop using Jailbreak Media to avoid confusing our identities.

What to do?

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“Trust me, I’m a Consultant…”

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George Clooney plays a corporate downsizer for hire in the 2009 film Up the Air, but most consultants do positive work.

Choosing a job title is serious business nowadays. If you’ve ever attended a Meetup group or built a LinkedIn profile, you know what I mean. Almost every day we inevitably encounter some variation of “So, what do you do?” The answer had better be truthful, easy to grasp, and (most importantly) make you proud to say it.

“Consultant”—the title on my business card—is wonderfully malleable. Depending on who’s talking, it can mean just about anything. Let’s examine just what consulting entails across the career spectrum, and why it’s a fast growing profession.

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