Step 1: Stay on Target
A mistake often associated with the first step is signaled by an entrepreneur’s inability to clearly and concisely convey his idea. You have to be able to generate buy-in from investors, partners and potential employees, so nail down your “elevator speech”—what you would say if you ran into an important potential investor in an elevator. Try to refine the essence of your concept into just 140 characters. Once you’ve done that, expand your message to a maximum of 500 characters. Remember, the shorter your pitch is, the clearer it will be.
An associated error is lack of focus. If your start-up has been tagged as “the next big thing,” the adrenaline rush that comes with building buzz can lead to impetuous decisions and a loss of a sense of purpose. Clearly define your goals, then establish a timeline.
Getting too far ahead of yourself is also dangerous. If your product or service is still on the drawing board, don’t get sidetracked by plans for future versions. Looking two or three years ahead is best, but the nature of your business and feedback from your investors will help you determine how far ahead you should plan.

Step 2: Be Realistic About Costs
Don’t shortchange your start-up when estimating the funds you’ll require. Keeping expenses under control is vital, but don’t confuse capitalization with costs.

Step 3: Hire People You Need, Not Like
As tempting as it may be to staff your new business with friends and relatives, this is likely to be a serious mistake. If they don’t work out, asking them to leave will be very tough. Take full advantage of the knowledge pool you’ve created; when a problem comes up, remember nobody has all the answers, including you. One of your goals should be to find a manager who shares your vision, and to whom you can someday confidently hand the reins to carry out the next step.

Step 4: Know When to Say Goodbye
A great entrepreneur knows when it’s time to leave the CEO role. It’s seldom easy, but it has to be done: few entrepreneurs make great managers. In my case, managing the daily operations of a business simply isn’t in my DNA.  Stepping back doesn’t mean turning your back on your business. Founders shouldn’t hesitate to re-insert themselves into their businesses when necessary—look at Larry Page, who temporarily returned to the CEO role at Google in April. That said, I had to laugh when I heard this news, wondering how many managers at Virgin businesses had thought, “Wow, I hope this doesn’t give Richard any ideas.”
RICHARD BRANSON is the Founder of the Virgin Group.
©Entrepreneur Inc. All rights reserved

Entrepreneur
(How I love this animal!)
Dictionary says: One who organizes and manages an enterprise, especially a business, with considerable initiative and risk.
Entrepreneur says: A person running a business, the way he chooses to, without being answerable to a boss, coming to work when he pleases, making money and keeping it all.
Mentor says: A selfish person who doesn’t like the way the world around him is, sets out to change it and in the process leave his footprint.

Serial entrepreneur
(The word reminds me of a serial killer!)
Dictionary says: One who starts one business after another by successfully exiting the previous one.
Entrepreneur says: A person who starts a company, gets bored with it after a point,  sells it, shuts it or forgets it.
Mentor says: A person who likes to validate how often he can keep repeating the same mistakes or how creatively he can make new mistakes!

Customer
(Has discovered lately that he is actually the king!)
Dictionary says: One who buys goods and services.
Entrepreneur says: Any sensible person who buys my product because I know better what is good for him.’
Mentor says: A person who makes or breaks
an entrepreneur.

Venture Capitalist
(Never have two alphabets sounded more ominous!)
Dictionary says: Private equity investment in a business which does not have access to capital market.
Entrepreneur says: Capital which announces that I have arrived to the rest of the world.
Mentor says: Capital that you will raise when you don’t need it, not when you’re desperate for it.

Profit
(Used to be an ugly word with all failed capitalists!)
Dictionary says: Monetary gain resulting from employment of capital in any transaction.
Entrepreneur Says: The difference between over invoicing and under booking of costs.
Mentor’s definition: The meeting point between your vision and execution.

Mentor
(A new species troubling Darwin in his grave!)
Dictionary says: A wise guide, adviser, preceptor.
Entrepreneur says: Not sure what he’s supposed to do but is expected to wave his magic wand and make the negative effect of all mistakes vanish.
Mentor says: One who will never claim he knows it all, is willing to share what he knows and learn what he doesn’t, will open doors for you, and choose the good of your organization over you.

These words define an entrepreneur’s existence, yet there seems to be such serious disconnect in perception. India badly needs entrepreneurship education today.

Nandini Vaidyanathan teaches entrepreneurship in several ivy-league business schools across the world. Her company, CARMa (www.carmaconnect.in), mentors startups, family businesses and mature enterprises. She is the author of bestseller Entrepedia—A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Entrepreneur in India.

Ranjeet S Mudholkar is the Vice Chairman and CEO of Financial Planning Standards Board India. The views expressed here are personal, and do not necessarily represent that of the organization.

Ultimately, be prepared to stick to your onlinestrategy over the long haul. “It can take up to six months to really make a difference,” Bernstein says, “which is why you also need the short-term approach.”
Christopher Hann is a contributing writer for Entrepreneur.

©Entrepreneur November 2011 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Coffee shops have become the de facto conference room of the working class, which means as a frequent coffee shop patron, I’m privy to a significant amount of BS that spews from tables around me. I get to hear about overarching concepts. It aggregates content in an innovative fashion and integrates seamlessly with existing infrastructure.

If you have no idea what any of the above means, that’s OK.
I don’t either. In fact, no one does (even the people spewing the words). So, I’ll ask the tough question: Is Buzzspeak Killing Your Business?

Buzzspeak is the uncooked spaghetti of the business world: When you throw it against the refrigerator, nothing sticks. It’s lazy and the epitome of monkey-see, monkey-do. Seriously—would you know an overarching idea if it bit you on the leg? The only thing that buzzspeak does for us is make us seem less intelligent than we truly are. Buzzwords are an excuse to talk around what we really mean to say, and those are the words that will close business and help us give our audience what they really wanted all along: tools that get things done.

So how do you break the buzzspeak bubble and start finding words that work? First, it goes back to the issue of respect. Respect your audience and tell them straight. Stop sugarcoating and dancing around the conversations. I’ll bet if you sat down with your audience and asked, “What do you need?” the answer would probably sound something like this: “I need you to fix my problem.”

Once you understand that the reason we all have careers is because other people’s problems need fixing, the next step is to get to fixing those problems. Here are four tips for closing your mouth, thus denying the buzzwords bandwidth, and opening it in the pursuit of problem solving (the heart of entrepreneurship).

Simplicity: If you want your audience to buy in to what you’re putting on the table, don’t make them learn a new language. Simplicity goes a long way. When people feel they’re not smart enough to understand your solutions, they feel they’re not smart enough to do business with you.

Brilliance: If what you’re offering can make your client look brilliant to people, that’s a huge selling point. You’re not the brilliant one for bringing them the solution—they are brilliant for bringing your solution to the table. Take a moment to understand how your solutions make your client shine.

Time: It’s the mother of all sins—wasting someone’s time. Great solutions don’t integrate or aggregate. They save time. While not every solution saves time, the fact that it might is a fair share more significant than any crap vocabulary you throw into the mix.

Usability: If it takes a village to learn, it’s probably not the best solution. Respect your audience by offering easy-to-use solutions that make sense for how they operate. Asking them to change their routine won’t get the yeses you crave. Our job is to lend value. We don’t get points for using big words but for results. Best solutions never need dressing up, they just need a team who can effectively communicate their worth and put them into action.

Erika Napoletano Head Redhead at Redhead Writing, a Denver-based online strategies consultancy dedicated to keeping companies from looking like idiots online. Visit her (if you dare) at redheadwriting.com

©Entrepreneur September 2011 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

India today is a land of opportunities, a beacon for investors everywhere in the world. It has gained strength even in the wake of turmoil and instability in more-mature western markets. However, Indian businesses are aggressive in their plans to expand in global markets. Here we discuss what drives business owners to step out of their home ground and create a global footprint.

Capitalise on a good business opportunity
One of the most discerning features of business owners is their ability to identify an opportunity and generate value—in simple words, make money. This has always been a differentiating ability. Coupled with will power and ability to take calculated risks, this feature has the most significant impact on the pace and quantum of growth. But, this still does not answer the question that why do Indian businesses have this compelling urge to establish themselves on foreign shores?

India is the third largest economy in Asia with rising income levels, growing urbanization, increasing lifestyle aspirations and favorable demographics—all contributing to its attractiveness as a
domestic market. This is happening in the backdrop of ailing developed economies with prohibitive cost structures that are, in most cases, neither able to serve home country demands nor the demands of emerging markets. This provides a great opportunity for Indian business owners to establish their presence in global markets.

Since liberalization, Indian companies have battled it out for market share and shelf space with a multitude of multinational companies setting up shops in India. The experience of Indian companies has prepared them to claim a stake in mature markets which were considered the bastion of multinational companies. Most Indian businesses will get a sizable share of their revenue from export.
Indian businesses today have the right capacity, availability and access to appropriate skills and technology. Agility and will power to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the world markets add to these qualities.

In the end, it’s all just good business sense. Apart from giving access to new markets and pools of revenue, expanding outside home country helps businesses gain global footprint—especially in the face of volatile socio-economic conditions.

Global recognition
One of the biggest reasons why business owners want to expand outside their home ground is to gain global recognition for the company and themselves. Stuck for years behind the pre-liberalization curtain and struggling to match up with swarming multinational companies in the post-liberalization period, business owners have a strong urge to establish themselves in foreign markets.

Peer pressure, too, has a role to play in the expansion of businesses abroad. Business community in India is close and interconnected. Traders are aware of each other’s actions. This is not only keeping up with the joneses but also tracking competition.

A matter of national pride
There is a fair amount of national pride associated with the decision to go global. Most business owners have a sense of their standing and role in the Indian community. The decision to go global is somewhere rooted in the desire to prove to the world that India, a developing economy, is a force to reckon with.

Till today, best brains of our country have been serving the global companies and universities. Most of the best professionals abroad are Indians. Today we are trying to establish ourselves as the creators of reputed global companies and universities where the best talent of the world would aspire to work. For years, Indian business owners have tried to emulate global companies and their best business practices. Today Indian business owners aspire to build and lead businesses that become the benchmark of growth and management and organizational practices for multinational companies.

Regionalization of businesses
One of the key trends in business is creating value by leveraging technology, supply chain and other core organizational capabilities across geographies. Markets today are not defined by political boundaries but by economic opportunities to consolidate and drive effectiveness and efficiencies.

So, one cannot actually think of state boundaries as contours of business presence and hence moving outside home country has become a business necessity. For example, it just makes more sense to have a sourcing team that has access to markets in various geographies or a supply chain that is able to serve different markets, takes advantage of economies of scale, creates competition and manages key sustainability issues.

Entrepreneurial vision drive and conviction
This is probably the most powerful driver for business owners to look towards foreign markets. While different businesses have a different way of expanding in global markets, business acumen and environment definitely have a role to play. Also, a business owner’s instinct, conviction and risk appetite play a major role. Let us briefly look at some preferred modes for globalization:

Setting up sales, marketing offices and outposts
This is the most common, easy to execute and a relatively low-risk option in taking the first step towards global expansion. Most family owned businesses would have a sizable portion of their revenue coming from export.

Acquisition or inking a JV with suppliers, competitors or distributors
Indian business owners have toyed with the ideas for quite sometime now and have made bold moves. However, today we see inorganic expansion as a stated strategic objective for most Indian businesses. We can only anticipate this activity to gain more momentum over
the next few years.

Setting up greenfield and brownfield manufacturing sites near potential markets
This allows businesses to serve markets faster, in a more cost-effective manner and with a more customized product portfolio. A few years ago, I worked with a plastic manufacturing company which supplied to some of the world’s largest consumer products companies. Later, this Indian company moved most manufacturing locations closer to customers. Customer/consumer intimacy is a big driver for setting up manufacturing locations abroad. Some firms are also setting up contract manufacturing sites in Srilanka, Bangladesh and Thailand.

Sourcing locations
Regionalization of business and the need to compete in a globally interconnected business environment drive companies to look for locations that provide a variety of raw material quickly, in bulk and at
competitive prices.

MITALI BOSE is Managing Consultant & Building Effective Organizations (BEO) Practice Leader, Hay Group

©Entrepreneur October 2011

This sounds like a fantastic and vivid dream or a scene from a movie, but it is actually a description of the Virgin Galactic experience from our brochure. This vision has already captured the imaginations of the more than 430 people who have signed up for our first commercial space flights, which will take place within the next two years.

To put this into context: Since the first Soviet and American space missions took place 50 years ago, just over 500 people have reached space. Space travel has been limited to government agencies, which have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on developing the technologies that have enabled mankind’s first forays outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Virgin Galactic is pushing to make space travel possible for paying customers; in our first full year of operations, Virgin Galactic plans to carry more than 500 astronauts.

While the ticket prices are high, these are no luxury trips or exotic adventures—we are using our space tourism efforts to enhance our expertise in space travel. Parts of the space industry are being transferred to private companies as NASA’s space shuttle program shuts down. This change will affect launches of satellites, which are instrumental in our communications network and to data-gathering, on everything from changing weather patterns to crop yields. We should no longer rely on old, expensive, “dirty” technology to transport satellites into space. The industry must be made more sustainable.

So, we have been developing a greener solution
in Mojave, California—one that will have less impact
on the environment and will be more cost effective.
Our two-step launch process, which does not employ rockets until the aircraft reaches the stratosphere,
uses less energy than other systems that rely on rockets to lift off from the ground.

The carrier plane, WhiteKnightTwo, flies like an airplane, lifting the secondary space plane to a height of 50,000 feet. It was built using a lightweight all-carbon-composite design and is powered by
four Pratt and Whitney Canada PW308A engines; some of the most powerful, economic and efficient available. In time, as we learn more about how best to employ these technologies, we may be able to apply this knowledge in other areas of the space and airline industries.

In the second step of the launch, our rocket-powered space plane, SpaceShipTwo, detaches from the carrier plane at an altitude where the air is thinner and the space plane needs
less energy to reach suborbital space. The hybrid rocket motor is more efficient and flexible than previous models.
The fuel is a solid rubber compound, and the oxidizer
is nitrous oxide in liquid form. This combination powers an economical rocket engine that can be controlled
and shut down easily.

A sustainable future includes space travel and industry in space, so it is worth trying to develop these technologies to be energy-efficient. For our planet’s health, we must reach for the skies when developing green technologies for the space industry.

RICHARD BRANSON is the Founder of the Virgin Group.

©Entrepreneur Inc. All rights reserved.

In India, distribution of income differs from the popular imagery of a pyramid. With only 4% citizens paying taxes and only 10% employed by the formal economy, the prospects of solving this problem through simple redistribution schemes are abysmal. But perhaps it is not about money at all!

The more I encounter poverty, the more I realize that it is actually about the lack of power to change one’s circumstance. If tomorrow I lose all material wealth, no one will call me poor because I am empowered to do something about it.

Generally, you draw your power from the knowledge you have been exposed to, language you speak, tools you have learned and the people you know. There is a reason why most people go on to career paths similar to those of their parents. It’s what people you know can best advice you on. Critical knowledge and connections aren’t easily bought. These are largely inherited and nurtured. Each of us is integrated by our parents and circumstances into social, knowledge and attitude networks that largely define the possibilities of our lives. Money is simply one consequence of the way we play out these possibilities.

The question really is: why are there such large swaths of humanity so limited in their aggregate power? What are the paradigms that have allowed for knowledge and wealth creation in some human systems but not others? All these “basic human rights” emerged in a couple hundred years. How did that pinnacle arise out of a once globally impoverished base? Compare the poor to the powerful and there are a few fundamental structural differences. Most of the world’s poor inhabit highly fragmented social and knowledge networks. They live in small self-similar communities that are relatively disconnected. Progress emerged out of aggregation of people into larger communities with greater diversity. It allowed sharing of diverse information and knowledge and, therefore, greater opportunities for innovation. It also creates larger markets and greater efficiencies. Progress emerged from fast, more effective communication. Long before the invention of phone or internet, the Greeks, the British and the Americans paid great heed to creating effective communication networks via town criers and fast riding message runners. The faster you hear, the faster you act.

The poor are also less likely to organize, instead acting individually or in small family units. Almost half the poor in rural India are self-employed—entrepreneurs of the most micro scale. Compare that to just 6-7% of people in western countries. Progress emerged from people organizing into larger groups, extending beyond family bloodlines—such organization brings together diverse skills and functional specializations that allow more ambitious undertakings and outcomes. So, if we want to tackle poverty, let’s not focus on money. Today, with technology, we can create more integrated knowledge and information networks in these communities. Organization can be taught. With fast flow of knowledge and information, coupled with organization, will come innovation and enterprise. This means more people engaged in value creation. Money will follow.

Dr. Tara Thiagarajan is Chairperson, Madura Micro Finance Ltd. Before joining MMF, she was a neuroscientist in the United States.

©Entrepreneur October 2011

Of course in real life, businesses can’t flip the switch on a Triple-Sling Jigger to instantly produce prospects. But what if you could create a kind of machine on your own company blog, allowing it to help you continuously fill that sales funnel?

Blogs are a great way to increase your digital presence, making you more visible and “findable” via Google, Bing and the like. They can also be a great way to generate leads. It can function as a kind of triage for your sales team, fielding and answering questions organically via the content you produce there.

However, it can perform that function only if you effectively create momentum with visitors who are likely to buy, turning them from mere passersby into something more. Here’s a 10-step prescription to increase your visibility and attract more qualified folks to your site. It may not shoot cherry pits, but it will help you convert your traffic into leads.

1. Make blog an extension of your main website
A visitor’s first experience with your company might be through a blog page. He or she might never land on your main site’s homepage, so link your blog visually (mirroring the navigation and design of your main site) as well as technically. Maintain the blog as a subdomain (may be blog.website.com) versus putting it on a separate domain entirely. Blogging on the same domain that hosts your company site ensures that all inbound links to blog pages also juice up the search mojo of your main site.

2. Solve or share, don’t shill
Your blog should focus on your customers. It should either solve their problems or share your resources. Don’t shill your stuff. This may sound obvious, but too many business blogs seem to be a repository for press releases, regurgitated marketing-speak and other pablum. News about your company and its products and services might be fascinating to you, but it’s not what will attract and engage prospects. Write about what they care about.

How can you determine what to write about? Use inquires or “Frequently Asked Questions” as fuel for blog posts. Ask your frontline folks: What problems do our customers ask about? What advice do they need? What problems do our products or services solve? Also, check your search logs: See what keywords people use when they land on your site to get a sense of what problems they have and what words they use to describe them.
(Of course, questions your customers don’t ask but you wish they did—or Frequently Unasked Questions—also are great blog post fodder!)

3. Show up
Half of blogging is consistency, or just showing up on a regular basis. (Naturally, the other half is producing great stuff!) You don’t have to blog every day, but you do have to create a schedule that’s sustainable for you. Hiring a freelancer or a staff writer or editor can help keep you on track with regular content, especially if you are a reluctant writer. But if you can’t afford that, use an editorial calendar to plan a posting schedule (and stick to it). An editorial calendar, by the way, is simply that: a calendar on which you plan what post will be published when.

Showing up also applies to the ongoing care and feeding of the community you’re creating through your blog. Encourage conversation and engagement by responding to comments (even negative ones). Be part of the conversation, not above it.

4. Avoid War and Peace posts
The best blog posts are punchy and concise, focusing on a single idea. Think short paragraphs or bullet points. And don’t bury the important information. Open with a declarative sentence that sets up the key idea. Framing blog posts this way not only respects your reader’s busy schedule, but also helps address the anxiety a lot of us feel about writing. A blog post can also be a graphic, image, video or even an embedded PowerPoint presentation.

5. Pen a killer headline
I sometimes spend more time writing a headline for a blog post than I do writing the entire post. Why? Because every blog post creates a new page on your site, and every new page creates another opportunity to boost your ranking for one of your targeted keyword phrases in Google or Bing or other search engines. Your blog post title becomes your web page title, so titles matter!

An intriguing headline, or title, is also critical to attracting actual humans to read your post. The title of an article is not merely a promise to the reader (an idea of what’s in store), it’s also the pitchman for the entire post: It entices people to either click or … not.

6. Link to other resources
Throughout a post, link specific words or phrases to other resources on your site. You can link keywords to resource pages you’ve built around those words, or you can link to specific landing pages where you have posted related offers, like the ability for visitors to sign up for a companion webinar, request a white paper or get a free trial.

7. Embed companion calls to action
In addition to linking within the post itself, remember the real estate around the post. There are a few areas prime for calls to action on any blog page, including the “leaderboard” spot at the top of your blog, the sidebar on either side of the post and the often-ignored space immediately following a blog post.

The first two spots are great for banners or buttons. But the space under the post is key: Assuming readers get through the entire post, they should always be given an opportunity to learn more with either a companion offer or related piece of content. (Hint: This is also a good place from which to link to landing pages that require e-mail registration.

8. Offer subscription services.
Allow your visitors to subscribe to get regular updates to your blog via e-mail and RSS. Essentially, every time you publish a post, a subscriber is notified to check it out. Plug-ins to allow subscription options are likely available for your blogging platform of choice (most e-mail marketing providers offer plug-ins that can be integrated into WordPress and other blogging platforms to turn your blog into a comprehensive list-building system). There are also a number of third-party services that can collect names and contact info for you. FeedBlitz and Google FeedBurner are both free services.

9. Trick out with social bling
The more traffic you attract, the more opportunities you’ll have for generating leads. So be sure to outfit your blog with social-sharing icons, particularly the big three: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Doing so subtly encourages your visitors to share your content and allows you to reach your network’s network, which is a key attribute of social media. Of course, this assumes that you are actively participating in social media, i.e., engaging in conversation, and not just broadcasting headlines.

10. Remember one final thing
Fundamentally, a blog is an opportunity: It’s a way to connect with customers in a real-time, accessible way. But your blog needs to be part of your business, and part of your lead-gen efforts. Talk it up in e-mail newsletters, in print collateral and on packaging materials. A blog won’t magically drive business without active and ongoing promotion and participation—no matter how much inspiration Dr. Seuss imparts.

Ann Handley is the chief content officer of marketingprofs (Marketingprofs.com) ans co-author of content rules:How to create killer blogs, podcasts, videos, ebooks, webinars (and more) that engage customers and ignite your business.

©Entrepreneur September 2011 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Many of you mail me, asking me to mentor you. I reply by giving you my phone number and a good time to call. As many as 99.9% of you never call at the time I ask you to. Two days later you call me, saying you were either too busy or did not check your mail! How can you breach the code of conduct twice, once by not calling when you were supposed to and then by calling without even checking first via a text message whether or not it’s a good time to call!

And, when we manage to get on call, some of you ask me what I do! Let’s say someone gave you my reference, shouldn’t you first be doing your homework before shooting out a mail to me?

A few times it has so happened that I fix up a time to speak with you and mark it on my calendar. When I call you at the designated time, you don’t pick up. I sms, saying I called as I was supposed to so please call back. You don’t. Several weeks later I get a mail or text saying: “Oh I forgot about the call, it was set up so long ago.” Duh? Your phone has a calendar! Many of you mail me with my name spelt wrong. How hard is it to google or simply look at my mail id to get it right?

Some of you address me as Mr. I can understand if you are not an Indian and, therefore, are not familiar with the gender of Indian names. But when you are one, and especially when I have don’t have a unisex name (Gurpreet for instance), I find your slackness unforgiveable.

Before hitting the send button, shouldn’t you go over the matter once to make sure there are no typos? Bad enough English has never been our strong point, but do you need to add insult to injury by saying “lust” when you actually mean “list”?

My biggest grievance is that you don’t reply to mails in a timely manner! In today’s day and age, do you really think saying, “I haven’t checked my inbox for days” is an excuse that will wash? It is particularly distasteful to someone like me who hits the reply button the same time you have hit the send button!

Let’s say we crossed all hurdles and fixed a time to meet—tomorrow, 11 a.m., in my office, the address is on our website. You can’t call me at 11 a.m. and say you have fever and hence want to cancel the meeting. Nor can you ask, “I am just leaving home, what is your address ma’am.” Okay, you did neither, and wonder of wonders, ended up in my office at 11 a.m. You want to meet me because you want to present your idea. But I see you are not carrying your laptop. Then you shove a pen drive in my hand and say, “Can you plug it into your laptop please.” Tell me, am I unjustified in asking you, are you out of your mind? I don’t know you from Adam, I don’t know where all that pen drive has been, you think I will plug it into my laptop?

Let’s say you brought your laptop, showed up on time, and took me through the presentation. Will you blame me if I say I couldn’t focus on your presentation as you stank up my room—either by being extra generous with your deo or so miserly with it that I am busy running my fumigation agency’s contact numbers in my head? Whilst I don’t expect you to be suited and booted, am I being unreasonable when I don’t like your tee which has “I love sucking” printed on it? I don’t like your dirty jeans with torn strands and I definitely don’t like you taking me through your presentation chewing gum. Believe me, this is just the tip
of an iceberg!

NandiniVaidyanathan teaches entrepreneurship in several ivy-league business schools across the world. The company she founded, CARMa (www.carmaconnect.in), mentors startups, family businesses and mature enterprises from across domains and geographies. She is also the author of the bestseller, Entrepedia—A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Entrepreneur in India.

©Entrepreneur October 2011