SOMEWHAT FRANK

My Thoughts on the State of Entrepreneurship

Today I attended the Kauffman Foundation State of Entrepreneurship address in Washington, D.C. at the National Press Club. The event was packed with range of bootstrap entrepreneurs like myself to high ranking government officials. Kauffman President and CEO Carl Schramm addressed the crowd with a wealth of statistics on entrepreneurship which included the following:

• 36 percent of entrepreneurs reported reductions in head count in the past year; only 8 percent have added employees.
• Nearly two-thirds have seen their sales volume and their profitability decrease.
• 71 percent of entrepreneurs do not expect to add any new jobs in 2010.
• 61 percent of entrepreneurs think the economy is on the wrong track.

I covered the event on TECH cocktail (here). I also covered the event real-time on Somewhat Frank Tidbits (here).

Wolfram Alpha Co-Founder Interview

Last week I traveled to the Midwest to Champaign, Illinois to speak to a group of entrepreneurs about building brands and social media as covered by the Champaign News Gazette and to host another TECH cocktail. The event was sponsored by Wolfram Research which is based in Champaign and has been creating products like Mathematica for over 20 years.

Wolfram Research recently received quite a bit of buzz on TechCrunch, GigaOm Network, ReadWriteWeb and Mashable among others for the launch of the consumer facing product called Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha is a the computational research engine that helps to find anwsers to questions that don't exist on the Web.

I got a chance to visit with Co-founder, scientist and author, Theodore Gray and discussed the lastest from Wolfram Research. He was a joy to talk to as his office was filled with a number unique items which all had an interesting scientific story behind them. Theodore also created periodictable.com and authored the book Mad Science - Experiments You Can Do At Home But Probably Shouldn't. Check out the video interview with Theodore Gray (above). It is episode 82 on the SOMEWHAT FRANK Video Adventures Podcast which is available on iTunes.

Video: TECH cocktail DC 2 Community Builder

TECH cocktail DC 2 the community builder event that took place last Thursday evening in Washington, D.C. showcased six startups from the local area. The event united over four hundred guests for an evening of tech conversations and fun.

This is the last event before the upcoming TECH cocktail CONFERENCE which will unite all the various TECH cocktail cities for a full day conference in Chicago on May 29th. The list of speakers is pretty amazing and the focus of the conference is to help anyone in business to take a more "no nonsense" approach by leveraging technology and the Web (i.e. running a "real" business rather than one setup to simply attract as many users as possible with no real monetization strategy in mind).

FreshBooks For Web Invoices & More

What are some good invoicing applications to use? A friend of mine recently asked me this very question and I surprisingly drew a blank. So I made it my mission to seek out an anwser. FreshBooks, a Toronto-based startup, offers an online invoicing and time tracking application that nicely fits the bill. 

I do not consider invoicing systems the least bit moving but I was pleasantly surprised with FreshBooks as it offers some design elements that resemble a 37signals product. With FreshBooks a company can customize the layout of the application and all of the invoices and reports. I have included a screen-shot to the left of sample invoice I created (click it to enlarge). Interestingly, FreshBooks recently integrated with the 37signals project management product Basecamp to offer a super small business mashup and API.

Aside from its design elements, Basecamp integration and invoice customizations, FreshBooks' billing options caught my attention as you can send bills via email or by ground mail with return envelopes directly from FreshBooks. FreshBooks also offers storage for documents and the ability to create reports. 

Bottom-line: FreshBooks offers a free online application for managing your small business invoices and time-sheets.

Startup Dreams? Bootstrapper's Bible Could Help

The web 2.0 movement has shown that it is a great time to start an online business with limited funding. As a number of startups have emerged some have received funding while a large number of others that have turned to 'bootstrapping' to keep their startup dreams alive. Bootstrapping in financial terms is the idea of starting a business with little or no money (outside funding). There is not a right or wrong approach however bootstrapping does allows a startup to maintain more control of their product or any eventual returns as the startup does not have to answer to a bank, VC or other investor.

Seth Godin, a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change, has written several helpful and inspiring books including The Big Moo which I highlighted previously. The Bootstrapper's Bible, one of Seth's latest books, is focused on the concept of bootstrapping an idea he touched on briefly in Making Money On The Web. The Bootstrapper's Bible is currently available for free download. I would highly recommend taking a look at is as it has some helpful hints on that can be applied to startups and large corporations alike.