The Great Startup Game

Scams That Prey on Entrepreneurs

Always remember folks, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Businessweek has an expose of five long running scams that prey on people interested in becoming self-employed.

The scams are:

1. Free Money

The key word here is "grants". Run Forrest run, if you ever come across anyone either asking for grants or offering information on how to obtain them.

2. Patent and Invention Services

This is run by experts who offer to evaluate your idea first, declare it a sure-fire winner, and then sell your services you don't need.

3. Advance Loan Fees

Your loan is ready, please pay the processing fee first.

4. Work from Home

Your fabulous business opportunity is ready, please pay the fee first.

5. Wealth-building Seminars

Free seminars that sell a ton of expensive educational materials and follow-up seminars.

I'm surprised that they didn't cover MLMs or "networking marketing" companies. These things take advantage of more people than the other five combined.

Read the article Would I Lie to You? Five Cons Still Kicking.

Top Business Startup Books

Here's one more book on startups, that I can't recommend strongly enough. You need to know that I only recommend books that I'm use myself. The latest one is:

Go Big or Go Home

This is the book for anyone interested in building a successful online business. The author, Wil Schroter, has built up a number of high profile ebusinesses over the years, the latest of which is www.gobignetwork.com.

I have yet to find a better description of scaling and how to integrate it into your venture, than the one in this book. Wil dissects the strategies of successful sites and shows how you can incorporate their best ideas into your online business.

I haven't been blogging much here of late as my energy has been tied up in my own startup. In my office there is a huge whiteboard with the message, "Go Big or Go Home," scrawled across the top. I find myself leafing through this book on breaks. That's how good and motivational it is.

Get the book today! Click to order Go Big or Go Home.

This is not your father's startup manual

Well, it's been a good month so far at www.antiventurecapital.com. First there was the plug in the Wall Street Journal which created a record day in terms of both traffic and sales. Now the revised 2006 edition of the Smart Startup Guide is completed and selling.

This is most definitely not your father's startup manual.

If you are getting frustrated with sending out business plans and doing dog & pony shows for people who aren't really interested, you need this manual. It will teach you how to start your company today.

Check out the Smart Startup Guide and stop wasting time.

How Savvy Entrepreneurs Do Startups

Tomorrow the 2006 edition of the Smart Startup Guide starts shipping. (You can place your orders today.) Every couple of years I feel an urge to add in some more material or interesting stories on how entrepreneurs launch their companies when outside capital isn't available.

I began collecting these strategies back in the late 1980s and started writing them down in the early 1990s. The first sale of the Guide was in early 1996.

The Guide has had an interesting sales curve. It took off like a rocket in 1996 and then waned during the height of the dotcom madness in 99/00.  Having worked with a number of those dotcoms, I attribute the drop in sales to the mass delusion back then that all you needed to raise money was a well-polished business plan.

Over the past 5 years sanity has returned and sales have been soaring with 2005 being a banner year.

The recent plug in the Wall Street Journal didn't hurt either.

As someone put it, "The way to get investor financing is to show them that you know how to build it without them." That's what the Guide is all about: teaching you how to create capital out of thin air.

Drop by the Smart Startup site which has a ton of freebies which some other sites attempt to nickel and dime you to death over.