Lesson 1 - Small Business Creation

I know that keeping this online journal will be beneficial to me from experience. I’ve been required to keep one of these before, and while I haven’t journaled in it for a while, I’ve loved going through and reading my old posts! I can’t wait to get back and read them once I’m in the thick of my business!

I was excited to start working on my ‘points of pain’ assignment because I thought it would just be so fun! While it was fun, it was so much harder than I expected. After about five ideas for the $100 challenge and my ‘big idea’, I was at a loss. After a while I started just jotting down every idea that came to mind, even if I knew it was lame. The experience was great! I thought of new ideas in different and unique categories that I never thought I would be interested in. This taught me the importance of brainstorming. Even when I have my perfect idea, I should never stop brainstorming on how I can make it even better.

My favorite thing that we did this week was look through a bunch of business and entrepreneur blogs to find our favorites. I found so many that I believe will not only inspire me business-wise, but in everyday life. These bloggers dedicate so much to help others do what they love and I’m sure it’s great for them, too. It’s like their entrepreneur journal, just for everyone to see.

I’ll include my post: “I’ve had the hardest time choosing just one blog to write about. I eventually narrowed it down to Guy Kawasaki’s entrepreneur blog and Penelope Trunk’s business and life blog. While I still don’t have a favorite, and plan on following multiple blogs throughout this semester, I believe that each is very useful in its own way. These two go especially well together. Trunk’s blog headline caught my eye, “Advice at the intersection of work and life.” This blog is perfect for anyone, especially women, who is trying to balance their life, family, hobbies and work. One article reiterated the fact that life isn’t a race. We shouldn’t be competing with others based on our personal bests. Kawasaki also taught me a very important lesson based on business. Our business plans should be based on our ‘pitch’, not the other way around. The plan is the whole story, and the pitch is like an outline. Who writes a book without first writing an outline?”