Female entrepreneurs, I think you’ll really like this video -

I found this neat video I think everyone will appreciate:

Do you own an iPad?  If you are one of the over 50 million iPad users, here are a couple cool applications I found in a post on mashable.com.  As the tablet becomes more and more widespread, it seems more and more everyday we are looking at the successor to the laptop.  Not only a good reading and entertainment tool, the iPad is a valuable asset in business.

The sleek, trendy design seems to be a cool way to make checkouts, share menus and various other creative uses.  The iPad is what you make of it.  It is the entrepreneur’s hand tool.

The better question should be, is it a good decision to say not to Apple.  Drew Houston thought so. He is the Founder and CEO of Drop box. If you don’t know what drop box is, it is a cloud file share application that you can download on you computer. There are other companies that offer such services, but none that do it way drop box does it.

You might be asking why Dropbox didn’t sell out to Apple for a lucrative $800 Million. The answer lies in the incredible success that they are having. After raising $250 Billion in second round of venture capital, Dropbox received a$ 4 billion dollar valuation and is ranked # 22 in the world’s top 25 most Innovative companies by Fast Company. This success came from the way they have positioned themselves in the market of cloud file sharing. Rather than targeting just business or just consumer, Dropbox realized that customer want to use the same file sharing cloud at home as at work, just like one would use the same Search Engine in both places. Dropbox has been able to tap into this by offering free file sharing up a certain amount, or if they want to use it for bigger project, you can upgrade to an annual subscriptions.

So in light of the facts, it has been of great success for Drew Houston not to sell out to Apple, although I’m sure he thought twice about it. With the company positioned where it is, and our society becoming more and more digital, I think that Dropbox can make many more millions apart from Apple. As Drew Housotn said “we focused on creating service that just works” and that has worked, even competing against one of the largest computer companies.

Many entrepreneurs in the making think that in order to have a successful business they need to offer something that is completely new.  They struggle day in and day out to think of something that hasn’t been tried yet.  This method of idea generation is incredibly difficult.

1.  Through my experience as an entrepreneur in the making I have found that the best way to think of a “new” business idea is to look at what is already on the market.  Make a list of the business concepts that you have an interest in and a compatible set of skills.

2.  Take this list and then look for one or two concepts that are relevant to an activity or group of people with which you have a connection.

3.  Take the smaller list and combine peices of each concept to fill the needs of a niche within the larger market.  When you go after this niche you can change the concept to better fit the needs of the unique group.  This will differentiate your business from the competition.

Do you have entrepreneurial ideas, but don’t know how to make it happen? Quirky is a unique solution that allows people, who constantly have entrepreneurial ideas, to implement them easily. 

All you have to do is answer two questions:

1. What problem are you trying to solve?
2. How do you intend to solve it?

Once you have answered those questions, your idea will go to Quirky where they rate and sort all the ideas for the week. Each week the top 10 ideas are selected and those ideas go through the process of research, design, and branding. As long as the idea is still a viable product, it then goes through a pre-sale. Once it hits the threshold (the amount that need to be sold before mass producing), the product is manufactured on a higher level. Quirky is a great way to get a new product in the market fast and an easy way to make some money!