Penelope Trunk

Entrepreneurship

How to have faith in yourself

January 30th, 2012
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Sunday nights at our house are dinner with me, the kids, the Farmer and the Ex. They are always fun dinners, and I always feel very lucky for that.
My six-year-old talked about his new baby cousin, Eva (who is pictured, in utero, above). "She has a terrible name," he said, "for Pig Latin. Its Vaeay. [...]

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Investors fund mostly men, which is fine for women

Posted to: Entrepreneurship | Fulfillment | Women
December 11th, 2011
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This post is cross-posted at TechCrunch.
We need to get more guys who are running tech startups to decide instead to be stay-at-home dads.
What do you think of that? Stupid, right? That’s what it sounds like when anyone suggests that we need to get more women doing startups.
If you are worried that women don’t feel capable [...]

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What startup life is really like

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
October 26th, 2011
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(This post was originally published on Venture Beat. This photo is by Melissa.)
Brazen Careerist is my third startup. People ask me all the time why I gave up my position as CEO. If you knew what startup life was really like, you would ask me why I was CEO for as long as I was.
When [...]

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Finance Tips for the Self-Employed

October 19th, 2011
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This is probably what you think self-employed looks like:
I'm at an amusement park with my kids, in the middle of the week, and I'm on a conference call while I watch my son try to get on a ride.

Being self-employed looks so nice at an amusement park. The self-employed are always free to go on [...]

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Techniques for Looking Normal

October 11th, 2011
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Last week was a board meeting for my company, Brazen Careerist. I used to hate the board meetings because there is so much to prepare beforehand, and if everything is not going great, then you have to really face that.
1. Hide your feelings if they are going to be trouble for someone.
I am still a [...]

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Do this for your career right now: Start a company and sell it for a dollar.

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
July 28th, 2011
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This is the column I wrote for BNET. Usually I keep my best ideas for my blog, but after I posted this on BNET I thought: Hold it! This is a great idea! Everyone should be doing this to make their career great. So here's the post.
If you want to make yourself stand out as [...]

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On Sunday my son sold his pig

Posted to: Entrepreneurship | Parenting
July 19th, 2011
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When the pig litters came in January, the Farmer helped my son pick out pigs for his 4H project. They picked four, because you never know, really, how a pig will grow. So you start with four and pick two after a few months.
My son woke up every morning and fed his pigs, for six [...]

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You can reframe anything

Posted to: Entrepreneurship | Negotiating
June 6th, 2011
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Melissa is driving through Darlington trying to avoid the police. If they see me they’ll arrest me, and we know they know my car. I put the front seat back all the way so I’m out of view. I keep my seatbelt on because in case they see us, I don’t want to be breaking [...]

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This is the new, reliable me

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
May 27th, 2011
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Welcome to the world-famous board meeting for Brazen Careerist.
For those of you who have not been to a board meeting since I had a miscarriage in the board meeting, let me tell you, this one will not be so interesting. At least at a biological level.
What’s interesting, maybe, is that there is always tension in [...]

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What it looks like to start a new business

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
May 12th, 2011
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Thanks to American Express OPEN for sponsoring this post as part of the Big Break for Small Business program. Visit FaceBook.com to learn more about the Big Break contest. Enter your small business for a chance to win a trip to Facebook headquarters for a one-on-one business makeover and $20,000 to grow your [...]

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I'm starting a new company!

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
May 6th, 2011
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In case you don’t remember, I really got exhausted doing Brazen Careerist. The pressure was insane and it made me nearly lose my mind multiple times. Now Ryan Healy is running the company in DC, and I sort of miss the startup life — sort of like women endure labor and then a year later [...]

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How to know if you're an entrepreneur

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
April 14th, 2011
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Here's an interview of me in Inc. magazine. John Warrilow did the interview. The topic was how to know if you're an entrepreneur. I basically said that you know you're an entrepreneur if you are crazy, in a manic way, and you are willing to risk the health of your family and have no chance of [...]

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Goat cheese is the new veal

Posted to: Entrepreneurship | Fulfillment
January 25th, 2011
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I have two new goats.

In a nod to Tom Sawyer and his fence, I told my sons the goats are for me only, and I want to take care of them. When my sons thought of 100 names for each goat, I told them that the person who takes care of the goats gets to [...]

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The coming decade will be about trust

January 21st, 2011
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I think the next decade will be about trust. This is the only decade in history that will be formed wholly by Gen X—we are so small that our age of power is brief. But research from sources like Tammy's Erikson's book, What's Next Gen X?, shows that the most pronounced traits of Gen X are [...]

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Women Don't Want to Do Startups. They want children.

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
October 9th, 2010
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This was originally posted on TechCrunch.
My company, Brazen Careerist, is moving from Madison, WI, to Washington, DC, where our new CEO lives.
Running the company has been absolute hell. Not that I didn’t know it would be hell. It’s my third startup. Each has had its own hell before we were solidly funded, but this one [...]

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Brazen Careerist opens an office in DC

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
October 6th, 2010
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Brazen Careerist is opening offices in Washington, DC.  Our CEO lives in DC, so Ryan Healy is moving there – along with Photis, the developer (who I convinced to move from Philadelpia to Madison by telling him that his life would suck and he would die a slow, painful career death if he did not [...]

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How to take intelligent risks

September 29th, 2010
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Recently, I covered my hallway in wallpaper I bought online (via Wallpaper Weekly). Everyone I showed the wallpaper to said the it would be too busy a pattern. But I loved it. So I bought it anyway.

There are a lot of problems with my hallway now — most notably, I used Elmer's glue instead of [...]

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How to get good ideas for startups

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
August 5th, 2010
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The majority of people in the US would like to be self-employed, according to Dartmouth economist, David Blanchflower. This makes sense because people who work for themselves are happier than people who work at someone else's company, according to research from Estaban Calvo at the Harvard School of Public Health. However the majority are not self-employed, and [...]

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Thanksgiving drama on steroids: Adding a family business to the mix

Posted to: Entrepreneurship | Money | Negotiating
November 25th, 2009
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I think its safe to say that for the majority of people, Thanksgiving is not about goodness and gratitude, but rather, family drama.
Until now, I have been pretty much on the outside of this American tradition: The tradition of building up Thanksgiving to be a great family moment and then the family not living up [...]

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How to find the right job for you

September 23rd, 2009
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We reorganized the company today. We brought in a new, interim CEO, who’s not me. For many entrepreneurs, that is their worst nightmare.
But I couldn’t be happier. For one thing, it’s a sign that my company, Brazen Careerist, is doing well. Remember when the company was running out of money and my electricity was getting [...]

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