This morning I read an article entitled: Obama Promises More Than 600,000 Stimulus Jobs http://bit.ly/a28T5

YAWN…let me just call it now- Stimulus Jobs and Stimulus Bail Out- EPIC FAIL. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it >:-) I have been reading the stimulus bill. If you want to peep it you can check it out here: Read the Stimulus (1500+ pages and counting).

But before I break out into the anatomy of a Stimulus Job, let me just put it into you in simple terms. In the famous words of musician T.I. It is not who gets it first but who has it last.

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Today Mike Michalowicz, the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur did a video blog post on how to manage (focus) your time as a bootstrapping entrepreneur.  Here is a link to the video post: http://bit.ly/COeK1

If you don’t know Mike, you should. He is a really funny guy, brings a lot of value to the business community and he has some incredible tips on how you can bootstrap your way to the top. Want to be featured on his blog (over 40k visitors a month)? There are a few ways:

1. Are you a CEO under the age of 30? If so, you can be featured on his site where he does a little online mini interview with you. If you click on the contact form and send me a message saying you want to be on TPE I can help you with that process.

2. For everybody and anybody else: Send Mike a really clever question via video and you could be featured in his vlog. I want to see you there so send in your question. It could definitely bring good traffic to your website or blog so make sure its current before you send your question!

This is a quickie! While surfing the’net today I found this article of ways people can make extra money without ‘technically’ getting a second job. In the case of a teen entrepreneur, I thought it would be a good option if you are trying to get your business off the ground and need a fast way to raise some start up funds. So I thought I would share the article. While I don’t think suggestion #2 would go over really well with teens of today, I have to tell you….sometimes we have to make short term sacrifices for long-term gains. Dats all I’m sayin’

You can peep the article here.

And just because it’s Friday and I am ready to get my full throttle fun on, I will leave you with Asylum Street Spankers and their Hick Hop  (Country Western Ballad meets Gangsta Rap) video that I discovered a few months ago (be advised: it contains profanity). Cheers.

So the TEEN CEO question of the year seems to be: How do I earn some side money during slow times in my business without cutting into my business marketing and work time? Translation- how do I earn quick and easy money without having to work too hard for it?

And the survey says…while I know a number of ways I can’t share all my best secrets at one time… so for starters- write freelance articles for your community newspapers. You soooo didn’t think I was going to say that did you? Well here is the quick run down on the benefits:

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Back in November 2008 in the Washington Post (online edition) I read a story (courtesy of Tech Crunch) about Teen Entrpreneur & Blogger Jessica Mah (and her colleagues Arielle and Andy) who launched their company which is a website community called InternshipIN. Their site matches students to Internship opportunities with start up companies. While Jessica states that there are a host of other internship companies their niche is that they are focusing on those start up companies who want to connect with university students (where larger companies tend to currently dominate that space).

Also worth noting is that her start-up costs for the business including the prototype and build out of the website totaled 500 bucks!! And being that I read about them in the Washington Post it means someone also figured out a way to get some great media exposure.

Well here we are, not even 3 months later and today on her fellow Teen CEO’s Daniel Brusilovsky’s blog is a post about Jessica participating in his upcoming Teens in Tech Conference January 31, 2008 in San Francisco, CA. She will be one of the featured speakers. How is that for kicking butt out the gate?  Just 3 months into really getting the business going and she is already out there on the speaking circuit. Talk about dreaming and doing! That is what it is ALL about (and also the premise behind my next blog post).

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They say that history belongs to those who write it….and with my Teen Authors in the making it seems that they are making good on the Renegade’s brand. Without a doubt they are determined to make history and not follow it…those doggone Gen Y’ers :) It has been a tremendous and inspirational week for me and my rebellious and deviantly curious teen boys…all whom I LUB very much <3! Everyday they never cease to amaze me with the things that they are dreaming and DO’ing!

November 20, 2008:

Murph, a 17 year old teen from the U.K., kicked things off last week. He wrote to me on Thursday November 20, 2008 and said he had an idea that he hadn’t told anybody about and he wanted to share it with me. So he told me about it with much enthusiasm and how he had been eating, drinking and sleeping this ‘thing’ for the past 6 years. He had been trying to build an online community but coding was taking forever and the project was getting overwhelming. Well I explained to Murph that if he is a Pioneer in his niche industry that he needed to get his idea out there in a big way that made a statement- he had to be fast and first because indeed someone else somewhere in the world was thinking about something very similar and trying to put their idea in motion as well. So he explained to me that he didn’t have much disposable income as he is brand spanking new in the entrepreneurial start up phases. So I basically said to him, well thanks for the VIP Pass to the Pity Party but I am afraid I’ll have to pass.  I told him to work it out and focus on what he would be able to creatively do with the resources (i.e., translation, read between the lines, get a clue, aka) your intellectual property. It’s something you have at your disposal NOW and it is free and you have an unlimited amount of it. Then I told him to get back in contact with me once he was able to think of something. Well…let me tell you—LOL,  when I get my boys fired up and thinking on their own of the possibilities and what is at stake they think of solutions and ideas fast.

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Tomorrow is Blog Action Day and the theme is poverty. So I decided to focus on my specialty ‘teen entrepreneurship’ and the importance of operating & managing your small business and your LIFE from a mindset of opportunity as opposed to one of poverty.

The mistake that many (adult) small business owners make when they start out on their small business endeavors is they look for the cheapest deal when buying start up equipment, marketing collateral and services. And then they subconsconsciously carry this way of doing business over to the entrepreneurial side of their business- by offering their services at significantly discounted prices and offer ‘more for less’ to ‘get started’ and build customers. And somehow this gets intertwined and all jumbled up and confused in their personal life. The big, big, problems that begin with operating a small business from a mindset of poverty vs. opportunity is:

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This post comes courtesy of Chris Pund over at Dorm Room Biz. While he is already on our blogroll as a site we love, I am going to go ahead and share the link again for his site while you are here….so you don’t have to search for it: http://www.dorm-room-biz.com

If you aren’t already familiar with it, Chris’ site is geared towards college students who want to start a business while they attend school. Check out his actual post to see his diverse list of 12 bootstrapping friendly websites that I definitely know that teen ceo’s would find beneficial esp for their online marketing needs.

p.s. while you are on Chris’ site be sure to check out the contest he is currently running.

Do you know what the most valuable asset in your business will be in the next five years?

Your email marketing list! Yes, I know it may be difficult to believe right now, but imagine if you were a baker who acquired tons of clients throughout the years and, all of a sudden, something called the Atkins anti-carbohydrate craze comes along? Sure you could come up with an alternative carb-free product, but how could you quickly get in contact with all the people you sold to throughout the years to let them know before they bought into the hype and took their business elsewhere?

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