Cinventure – For the Cincinnati Entrepreneur

Four Greater Cincinnati universities have been ranked in the Top 25 Entrepreneurial Colleges by Entrepreneur Magazine and The Princeton Review.
The Princeton Review, a leading provider of educational services, surveyed more than 700 undergraduate and business schools about their offerings in entrepreneurship. The survey included questions covering everything from mentoring, experiential learning and specific course offerings [...]

How well do you understand intellectual property laws? Understanding these laws can provide your business with huge advantages if used correctly. Answer “True” or “False” to these questions to assess your comprehension:

A United States patent is enforceable in any country in the world.
It is a safe strategy to wait until sales of a product before [...]

You’ve recognized a great idea, poured hours into a well-written business plan, registered your company name and acquired your first few customers. Now you are home free – new customers will start beating a path to your door without any more effort on your part, right? You wish.
StartupNation has completed research focused on how to [...]

As advertising reaches new levels of intrusivness, people are honing their abilities to “tune out” and ignore it all. When it comes to marketing your startup, mastering the art of Permission Marketing is a necessity. Even so, you must first attract a potential customer’s attention — even if only for a breif moment — so [...]

Rob Finn of Ventureblogalist has compiled a list of 75 blog posts that he suggests reading before approaching a venture capitalist for funding. The posts have been categorized into these topics:

Advisory Capitalists
Liquidation
Startup Strategy
Characteristics of an Entrepreneur (Please don’t let these discourage you!)
Selecting a Venture Capital Firm
When to Raise Capital
Entrepreneur’s Pitch
Term Sheets
Success Stories

Read the full article: [...]

Robert Scoble (Wikipedia), ex-technical evangelist for Microsoft, provides us with 11 best practices for creating an effective business card. Here are the top 5 suggestions:

A good business card starts a conversation
Make sure your card can be scanned
Don’t make non-standard sizes or shapes
Make sure the basics are on there
Include a line about what you do

Read on [...]

Last week we brought you a review of the top online invoicing services, including FreshBooks. The makers of FreshBooks have announced a Fall “Build Your Business” Teleseminar Series that brings together a group of industry experts to share their knowledge and experience with participants. Participants will also have the ability to email questions and [...]

Fourteen of the people behind Internet pioneers like PayPal, Yahoo!, and Netflix offer their advice to entrepreneurs doing business online. Highlights:

Don’t get burned by user-contributed content. It’s tempting to create viral, open-source information, but there are issues around liability and the truth of the data.
Focus matters — don’t lose sight of your core capabilities.
Don’t believe [...]

According to a recent survey by the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, the typical start-up is funded by less than $10,000 and does not have a business plan. The survey also gleaned some insights from these bootstrapping entrepreneurs:

While more than half of the approximately 600 business owners surveyed said it would have been easier to [...]

Cincinnati-based Isabella Capital, LLC. is an investment firm inspired by Queen Isabella of Castile, who was the patron of Christopher Columbus‘ venture to the Americas.
Fund Isabella is the firm’s flagship offering, which is targeted towards early stage, women-led companies or those operating in the women’s market. Isabella believes that female-led entrepreneurial ventures are an untapped [...]