Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. Advice at the intersection of work and life.
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Browsing category "Entrepreneurship"

New gender gaps for the new millennium

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Money |  Parenting |  Women
June 2nd, 2009
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I have said about ten million times that there is no more glass ceiling, there is no more salary gap between men and women, and there is no reason to keep bitching about sexual harassment because it’s merely a legal issue, not a men-are-evil issue.
Okay. So if the gender gaps are not around these feminist [...]

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Tips for coping when your startup is out of cash

May 15th, 2009
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My company is running out of money again. Well, really, it already happened. But it’s happened so many times that I am sort of used to it. It's a routine. You may recall that part of the routine is not paying my electric bill. But there is more.
1. Focus on something you can control.
You might [...]

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6 Tips for being a CEO without ruining your kids’ lives. I hope.

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Money |  Parenting
April 29th, 2009
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I get questions all the time about how I manage having kids and a startup at the same time. After trying to answer the question a few times, I realized that there's the pretty-much-BS answer about how it's all about being clear on your values. Or there’s the complicated, too-long-for-interviews answer.
To really get tips for [...]

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Starting a company in Silicon Valley is stupid

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
March 20th, 2009
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One of the reasons I moved from New York City to Madison, WI is that I knew I would start another company. I wasn't sure what it would be, but I had already launched two startups, and I could feel another one coming. It's a sort of itch I get when I have too many [...]

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Get your next mentor by being slightly annoying

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Mentoring
March 3rd, 2009
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Brian Wiegand is a very low-profile guy who has sold three companies, most recently to Microsoft. He is big enough that TechCrunch writes about him as a good bet for anyone betting. But the bane of Brian’s existence is that his exits have all been for under $50 million.
This is enough for him to [...]

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For a startup, money doesn't solve problems, it just changes them

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Money
February 26th, 2009
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We finally locked up funding for my company. There are some catches, though, and one of them is that we can’t use the funding to pay back debt.
This is a problem because our company has been out of money, pretty much, since November. We have revenue, but not enough to cover operating expenses. So we’ve [...]

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8 Blogs I read when I'm stressed about funding my company

Posted to: Blogging |  Entrepreneurship
January 29th, 2009
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People ask me all the time, "What blogs do you read?" The answer is that I read different ones at different times. It's a mood thing, I think. I could give you my favorite blogs for finding cool research, or my favorite blogs from my friends, or my favorite fashion blogs for when I don't [...]

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7 Things to consider before launching a startup

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
January 5th, 2009
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My company is out of money, which you are never supposed let happen. And definitely never supposed to confess to. Because then investors can give you any terms they want. Rape. Carnage. Pillage. Everything. And in our case, it's coming from the angels who invested in our first round of funding, which means that the [...]

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Startups are still fulfilling, even though getting funding in a recession stinks

Posted to: Blogging |  Entrepreneurship
December 15th, 2008
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I can always tell when things are really falling apart for me by how many days in a row I wear the same outfit. Last week, I wore my I'm-a-successful-CEO outfit four days in a row. In case you need a visual, it is black all over with ruffle near the neck – a little [...]

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Work stuff that makes me happy

Posted to: Diversity |  Entrepreneurship |  Parenting
December 8th, 2008
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It's a season of joy, right? You are probably thinking that you can count on my blog posts to be a respite from seasonal joy. But still, I'm susceptible to peer pressure. Mostly because I think it's an obligation of a friend to be sort of cheery. Because cheeriness is contagious. And on some level, [...]

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Live call today, 3 P.M. Eastern time

Posted to: Blogging |  Entrepreneurship
November 11th, 2008
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I will be on a live call today with Guy Kawasaki and John Jantsch. You can sign up to be on the call here.
John is the force behind the Duct Tape Marketing blog, which is a great example of how to use a blog to grow a whole business. Today, his blog looks like an [...]

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The entrepreneur's guide to a good divorce settlement

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Negotiating
July 25th, 2008
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Here's what happens in every meeting I have with investors: They ask about my divorce.
Many people ask about my divorce. Usually it's because the person cares about me. But with the investors, there is no pretense. They just want to know if Nino is going to get a large percentage of my stock in the [...]

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How to sell anything to anyone

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
June 25th, 2008
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People are always asking me what our business model is for Brazen Careerist. Now that we have a network of 150 great bloggers, we are focusing on companies. A lot of companies come to us asking for access to the bloggers. Not surprisingly, companies want to recruit from the bloggers and their friends. But we [...]

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Start-up skill: Find people who compensate for your weakness

April 2nd, 2008
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The update on my company is that Ryan Healy and I are not talking to each other. Well, he is talking to me, but I am giving him the silent treatment.
Still, I am confident that things are going well. First, because I am bad at the silent treatment—I have too much to say all the [...]

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Announcing the launch of BrazenCareerist.com!

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
March 3rd, 2008
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It's the big moment where I tell you to go check out BrazenCareerist.com. It's the first stage of our company, and it's a network of fifty young bloggers who I love, all blogging about their professional interests.
This would be a great time to tell you the grand story of the birth of my grand company.
When [...]

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How to decide if you should start a company

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
February 22nd, 2008
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Do you want to know how to tell if you have a business idea that will succeed? You know what? I don't know how you know that. And if I did, I'd be a venture capitalist, right? But I do know how you can tell if you have a business idea that is worth reorganizing [...]

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Use the entrepreneurship boom to improve your corporate job

Posted to: Entrepreneurship
February 6th, 2008
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The new wave of entrepreneurship is changing the startup landscape for sure. It's nearly free to start a company online, even teens are having wild success, and young people are flipping web sites like boomers flip houses.
Life as an entrepreneur has never been so fun, but that is very annoying to hear if [...]

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Obama’s victory in Iowa sheds light on today's workplace

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Women
January 4th, 2008
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My brother just started school at the University of Iowa, and this was his first caucus. He describes a room totally crammed full of young people: "It was basically all the students caucusing for Obama and the adults dispersing among the other candidates."
In the end, in his Iowa City precinct, the students sat victorious at [...]

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Yahoo column: 4 Ways to sidestep corporate hierarchy

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Managing up
December 21st, 2007
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Most people stay at a company less than seven years. Most young people stay at a company less than two. So why are companies still set up for people who stay 40 years and climb the ladder? It makes no sense, and frustrates nearly all workers.
Well, all workers who aren't at the top of the [...]

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How to recognize the good and the bad of team diversity

Posted to: Diversity |  Entrepreneurship
November 21st, 2007
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Ryan and Ryan P found this great test by JT O'Donnell to find out personality type. Of course, we have each taken tons of personality tests, but what I really liked about JT's test is that it was only twenty questions, and it revealed each of the three of us perfectly.
The test immediately explained why [...]

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