Dr. Jeff Cornwall is the inaugural Jack C. Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. Dr. Cornwall's current research and teaching interests include entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurial ethics.
During start-up, entrepreneurs are desperate to make a sale. Revenues are needed to generate cash flow and affirm that the new company’s business model actually meets a need in the market.
Entrepreneurs will take just about any customer willing to do business with their new company, including those who really don’t fit with their business model. After all, a sale is a sale, and cash is cash! Continue reading When it is Time to Fire a Customer
One of my students sent along an telling tale from Spain. It seems that when times get tough enough, 26% unemployment in the case of Spain, people become incredibly resourceful. Continue reading When Times Get Tough
Unlike small business owners in other parts of the world, U.S. entrepreneurs do not tend to think globally about potential markets for their businesses.
The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) reports that while 31 percent of exports from the European Union are generated by small and medium enterprises, only 13 percent of U.S. exports come from small and medium businesses. And another government report reveals that only 1% of U.S. small businesses engage in exporting. Continue reading American Entrepreneurs Late to the Global Economy
It began as unlikely partnership in the fall of 2010. Jonathan was a sophomore Entrepreneurship major at Belmont University. James was a senior Marketing major at Lipscomb University. Both students were members of the tennis teams of the two arch rival universities, which at that time were still in the same conference.
But, Jonathan and James shared a common idea to start an online grocery store for college students. The idea was to provide college students a convenient and affordable alternative to on-campus convenience stores. They would sell snacks directly to college students and also to their parents bundled up in care packages.
Jonathan and James also have one other thing in common – they are brothers. Continue reading Sweet Success
Have you ever heard of an entrepreneur named George Mecherle? How about George Jenkins, William Durant, James Casey, or Paul Orfalea?
While you may not know their names, we are all familiar with the businesses they founded.
“I’ve got a great idea for a business. I know it will work because nobody is doing it! I need to move quickly before someone else does it first.”
As someone who works with entrepreneurs for a living and hears a lot of business ideas, this type of business pitch puts up a big red flag for me.
Just because nobody has started a particular type of business is by no means an indication that the market needs that type of business. Continue reading Just Because Nobody is Doing it is not a Reason to Launch
There is a lot of conversation surrounding what the term entrepreneurship really means. Too often today entrepreneurship has become a word that is used to describe a lack of planning or impulsive decision making by managers, or worse is used as a term to protect one’s own nest (as in, “leave me alone, I’m being entrepreneurial”).
