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Category Archives: Business
It doesn’t matter how “good” your idea is.
Once a week I get someone that comes to me and pitches me a brilliant idea. The problem is that it doesn’t matter. Before they start their pitch I know that their idea will not come to fruition. And it’s not because their idea isn’t brilliant. It’s because ANY idea is only one of 10 necessary elements that lead to success. Here are some of the things that I think are necessary to take a good idea to market:
- a network of talent for hire
- a dependable team or partnership with diverse talent
- personal experience in project management
- relationships with people in the perspective field
- experience with technology
- the ability to sell your product to investors and consumers
- the ability to get sh*t done Continue reading
Entrepreneurial Crash Course: 6 resources to help you think like an entrepreneur
Over the last 5 years I’ve had many conversations with aspiring entrepreneurs and people looking to break out of the 9 to 5. Here is a list of resources that seem to come up again and again that I think are worth sharing. (All of the titles link to the resource)
1. “Rich Dad Poor Dad” book – by Robert Kiyosaki 
If you can get past the cheezy title and simplistic writing style this book is a good primer to break out of the “think like an employee” mindset. His most valuable concept is in defining “wealth” and explaining how to achieve it in the broadest terms. Wealthy people keep their income higher than their expenses and use the excess to accumulate assets. “Poor” people have increased expenses and accumulate liabilities feeling like it is outside of their control.
Time: 3 hours
Value: 8/10 Continue reading
How to Post on Craigslist
(Updated 2/10/11)
In the last 5 years I’ve probably sold $10,000 off of Craigslist. The following are some of the procedures and tips that I use.
This is how I deal with pricing. Keep in mind I am not taking into account what is the best policy for your personal ethics or for that of protecting the craigslist “community”. I will leave someone else to write about that. The purpose of this post is to discuss how you can get the most money for you junk.
- Price your items high. Don’t be a desperate seller. Post it higher than you think. If you post it and get 10 offers in the first day, your price was too low. Do not reply to anybody and RAISE THE PRICE! If someone notices the same item for a higher price tell them “Sorry, I had the price wrong originally” BECAUSE YOU DID!!!
- Do not negotiate on price. Negotiating with an individual is time and energy consuming and limits your ability to sense where the market is at. Write that the “Price is Firm” in the ad. Also, anytime I arrange a meeting with someone I always let them know this to let them know I am serious. Continue reading
Filed under Business
How I Went From Waiting Tables to Being a Professional Blackjack Player
Over the summer I put quite a bit of time into developing a new biz plan for a blackjack educational website. One of the projects I had was to write some content that we would be giving for free as a way to build trust and generate publicity.
I ended up writing out my story of how I became a professional blackjack player. It was a really fun process that involved about 2 weeks of writing, 1 week of proofreading, and one week of design.
Click the Book Cover to DOWNLOAD for FREE
In the end, I am really happy with the product. For me it has done quite a few things Continue reading
Filed under Business
Solving Communication Problems one Google Group at a time
UPDATE:
To Whom It May Concern,
I regret to inform you that google groups suck. They have universally been a headache and over-all declined my quality of life and the people who have been in groups with me. BenCrawfordLIFE.com would like to formally apologize for any influence that we have had in promoting or encouraging googlegroup involvement. Unfortunatley, we have not found any viable alternatives for productive online multiway conversations….BUT WAIT! This just in…Google Wave (a new service that melds e-mail, instant messaging, online forums, and wikis into a grand messaging service).
Looks like it’s going to be a while until it is released, so until then, the majority of the productivity that cannot be accomplished by “liking” friends status updates will simply have to be halted. This could really be it though.
Once again, I apologize for any misdirection you have received from this site. Here at BenCrawfordLIFE.com hope to remain on the cutting edge of technology and culture and are not afraid to admit when we are wrong if it means keeping the trust of our avid readers
Ben. Continue reading
Speaking to 5th Graders about Casinos and Gambling
Many of you have heard this story, but about 2 weeks ago I went into my old 5th grade teachers (who I found on facebook) classroom and talked to her kids about casinos, gambling, and card counting.
I actually put quite a bit of work into preparing for the little presentation and decided to record a little voice over of the keynote multimedia presentation that I used. I only included about 75% of it. The original presentation was an hour long and there were a lot of questions. 
Continue reading
Another Business?!?
This is a business idea that I’ve been partnering with Jeremy Pryor, Jon Collins, and Stephen Mowry on. I’m pretty excited about it even though none of us know which way it’s heading. The business is built around creating and organizing a collection of “epipheos”. To learn what an epipheo is…just watch the video.
How to Select a Business Partner
In Kingdom Capital I wrote about how I plan on using business partnerships to accomplish my long term business goals. I am writing this post for two reasons. The first and primary is to work out some ideas in my head that I would like to personally implement in the next 16 months. The second is to share what I have learned about business partnership from the last 5 years of my own experience.
I originally attempted to create a list of roles or positions that need to be filled in any basic model but started to realize that this is a ridiculous task. Instead what I am going to do is create a list of contrasting traits of which I think both are essential. These are listed more as natural inclinations as opposed to values.
Aggressive Vs. Conservative
There are people that will naturally “go big or go home” and others that just want to go small and have a home. Continue reading
Filed under Business
Partnership Model of Benchmark Capital
For the last 3 years I have been pretty fascinated with a company called Benchmark Capital.
Sorry for the cheesy picture but you'll notice that none of these guys are wearing ties
In 1997 the turned $6.7 million into $5 Billion by backing a small start up called eBay. They are a venture capital firm based out of the Silicon Vallley. But they aren’t exactly the cut throats that most of us might make your average billionaire to be. This is taken from their website: Continue reading
Filed under Business
