James Garvin

James Garvin began his education studying biotechnology. In recent years he has turned his interest in technology to helping two internet startup companies. The first business was an online personal financial network and the second was an e-marketing platform created to help entrepreneurs demo their web sites. Currently a student at University of California Davis, James is spending his summer incubating two new online businesses and writing about his entrepreneur experiences.

Articles written by James Garvin

Based on his entrepreneurial experience, James covers topics related to starting and growing a business.

• Accounting Software Review - There are several options, old and new, for accounting software for your firm. Quickbooks has always been the breadwinner in this category, but several new firms are creating web based accounting software that is free to use.
• Affordable Solutions For Small Businesses - Long are the days where small businesses need to spend extravagant sums on communications, software, and travel to meet with clients. Today, there is a host of free and affordable software applications that greatly lower the cost of running a small business.
• Attracting Angel Investors - Part 1 of 3 - Angel investors are often the first professional investors to invest in startups, however very few entrepreneurs understand what angel investors look for and expect from companies that they invest in. The fund raising process is becoming ever more competitive and being able to meet investor requirements the first time around will increase your likelihood of raising the capital you need.
• Attracting Angel Investors - Part 2 of 3 - Every entrepreneur needs to understand the fund raising process, not only from their perspective, but from the perspective of the investor.
• Attracting Angel Investors - Part 3 of 3 - If you’re looking to raise funding for a business, be sure you know what to expect during the fund raising process. Angel investors look for and expect very specific attributes from entrepreneurs that they fund and understanding those attributes will help you better be prepared to meet and exceed investor expectations.
• Billion Dollar Business Idea? - Would be entrepreneurs often hesitate to take the leap to launch their own business because they fear their business idea is not a billion dollar idea. Most businesses that launch and are successful aren’t billion dollar business idea. Entrepreneurs need to understand that a billion dollar business is the exception, not the norm and they should not let a niche business stop them from starting.
• Building an Emotional Connection with Your Customers - Marketing allows companies to get consumers to pay premium prices for brands because of the emotional connection that they instill in their products. When you are able to market your product in such a way that consumers are willing to pay more for it than the competitors, you have a strong competitive advantage over your rivals that can last a life time.
• Building the Right Company Culture - We often hear so much about company culture, but many entrepreneurs tend to not put enough emphasis on building and fostering the right culture within their companies.
• Business Ideas That Work - Rather than trying to invent something new for your business, you might want to try looking at what others are doing and apply it to your own business. This lower risk model has often been the model followed by today’s most successful entrepreneurs.
• Business Innovation vs. Technological Innovation - When starting a new business, there are two distinct ways to innovate that provide your company the ability to create a sustainable business. Understanding the difference between business and technological innovation and how those innovations are developed and sustained will provide you a clearer roadmap for your start-up.
• Business Model Fixes - You’ve launched your business, are following your business strategy, but your business model is failing, what should you do?
• Buying vs. Starting a Business - For will be entrepreneurs, the decision of build vs. buy can be an important one and one that is often overlooked by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs like to create and build off of their own ideas, not buy into other businesses, but buying a business may be the way to go for many.
• Characteristics of a Perfect Business - How do you build the perfect business? What strategies do you need? This article explains the critical factors and strategies you need to have in order to build your successful business.
• Characteristics of Successful Online Businesses - There are three core online business strategies that have proven successful since the advent of the internet. This article will review those three business processes and how entrepreneurs can leverage the insight into these processes to execute their own successful online business strategies.
• Charge For Your Service or Make it Free? - Digital information along with the internet has forever changed consumer expectation of how we pay (or don’t pay) for digital goods and services. Whether your business is internet based or not, deciding whether to charge for a product or service could be the biggest decision for your business.
• Charging for Your Information - In the age of digital information where nearly all information is free and long established newspaper companies are sinking rapidly, how does an aspiring entrepreneur create a sustainable business model by selling their information?
• Competing Against Market Leaders - While you should never directly challenge a market leader, you should not be afraid to enter a market where a strong leader is present. The key is in learning how to compete effectively.
• Constructing a Business Model - Business models are the foundation and core of what determines your business’ success or failure. Using the 7 questions below will help you articulate and analyze what your business model is, how it is constructed, and methods to improve it.
• Creating a Loyal Brand - How do companies, both new and old create products with such loyal customers? Nike, Apple, the North Face and more have created some of the most loyal brands with very loyal customers and you can too.
• Creating Network Effects - Many businesses are natural networks that benefit greatly from network effects. Even if your business is not a natural network, understanding network effects can help you analyze strategies for creating more durable competitive advantages.
• Customer Acquisition & Retention (E-I-E-I-O) - Customer acquisition is the most important yet often the most difficult phase for a company. At this phase you have your product developed and ready to sell, but how do you get customers to notice your product? The acronym E-I-E-I-O will help you remember the 5 keys to acquiring and retaining your customers.
• Customer Acquisition and Product Distribution Strategies - Customer acquisition and distribution channels are vital for a business to succeed, yet many entrepreneurs do not factor these channels into their strategy. The "build it and they will come" mentality has been proven time and time again. Knowing how to build a customer acquisition and distribution channel will help your businesses avoid the trap that others fall victim to.
• Customer Acquisition Costs - Customer acquisition cost is as it states; the cost to acquire customers. Many new business ventures fail to accurately and properly analyze their true acquisition costs, but knowing your acquisition costs can help you improve your profitability and create more loyal customer base.
• Customer Development Strategy - Customer development, the process of using customer feedback to help you define and develop your product, is an often times overlooked, yet critical business strategy that is an imperative process to include in any product development roadmap.
• Deciding On A Business Niche - Decision making is a business. Do you go left or right, up or down? The decisions you make, or don’t make for your business, determine your success. In order to decide on a niche market, it means that you are foregoing other opportunities, or trade-offs, and knowing which trade-offs to make is critical as s business owner.
• Do You Need an MBA to Start a Business? - Entrepreneurs come from a vast array of different backgrounds. Many have doctoral degrees, some just high school degrees, and some have MBA’s. Many want to be entrepreneurs see getting an MBA a means to learning how to launch there own business, but there are many gaps between what you’ll learn in business school and what you’ll need to know to be a successful entrepreneur.
• Do You Really Need a Business Plan? - Investors usually don’t read them, they are based on future assumptions that never materialize, and they take a lot of work to put together, so are business plans required when starting your own business?
• Do You Really Need Venture Capital? - More and more companies are emerging as profitable sustainable businesses with out ever having raised a dollar from outside investors. Sure Venture Capital has its welcome benefits, but it does not guarantee your success. If so many firms are creating sustainable profitable businesses with outside capital, why are you so adamant about trying to raise funding?
• Does First Mover Advantage Exist? - Does your business have to be founded on a new idea? What if there is already a business out there doing what you want to do? Read about the First Mover Advantage. Find out if it is essential to be the first business to market.
• Doing Right While Doing Business - Business used to be seen as the necessary evil to generate a profit, however today’s businesses and entrepreneurs are approaching business as a new means to do social good while generating profits.
• Don’t Solve a Problem You Don’t Have - Entrepreneurs have multiple problems that they must juggle each day to get them through to the next task, but some entrepreneurs get bogged down by problems that they don’t have and distract them from focusing on alleviating current problems.
• Entrepreneurial Vision - Most entrepreneurs are visionaries who can see point B often before they see point A. The future of the business is so clear to them that starting the business is a no brainer, but not knowing how to actually get to point B is an entrepreneur’s double-edged sword.
• Fitting Your Product Into Consumer’s Behavior - Your product or service must fit into to consumer’s current behavior. Learn how Segway failed this basic business premise.
• Forget the Job Search - Unemployment keeps on rising, rising, and rising, with no real end in site. Even as the economy rebounds, available jobs usually languish behind the rest of the economy. These days, everyone knows someone unemployed, but rather than spending hours submitting job applications like everyone else, take that business idea that you’ve had for months now and make it happen, there’s no better time.
• How Not to Charge Your Customers - Firms like Facebook and Twitter are rigorously scrutinized in the media for not charging their users access to these platforms. Many critics argue that since both social platforms have millions of users, they should be able to charge a few dollars for every user and generate hundreds of millions in revenue. We’ll analyze what would happen if they did charge their customers and what you can learn from how to properly charge your customers if you provide free services.
• How to Become an Entrepreneur - Almost everyone has thought about becoming an entrepreneur, fulfilling the dream, but for many the reality is they never even take a step towards entrepreneurship, it only stays a thought and a dream.
• How To Find A Business Idea - Trying to figure out what kind of business to start can be a dangerous way to go about actually starting a business. Very few businesses are started by trying to “select” a business, rather they are started out of passion and interest in a specific topic.
• If You Do Just One Thing - As an entrepreneur and business owner, you can get pulled into many directions, but there is just one thing that you need to do to help give you and your firm a higher probability of success that will help you beat out your competitors and stand out.
• Industries That Porter Would Recommend - Michael Porter has provided a fundamental framework to evaluate and analyze opportunities to generate a profit within a given industry. Using Porters own 5, we evaluate industries that have the highest criteria for each of Porters 5 forces and review how you can use Porters 5 to identify opportunities to start a business.
• Internet Businesses Require Business Models Too - You know the internet super stars – Amazon, Ebay and Twitter. What makes these internet businesses successful? A business model. Learn from the success of these companies when developing a business model for your new business.
• Is Your Business Scalable? - Scalability refers to your ability to increase revenues while your marginal costs decrease with each unit sale and is an attractive feature for many business and business owners because of the profit potentials that scalable businesses offers.
• Keeping Your Company Aligned - Like many companies that start out with several founders, energy and passion drive the team forward developing their products, honing their marketing strategy and coming up with a launch plan. However, as deviations to the business and strategy plan become necessary and apparent, many startup-up teams struggle to keep the co-founders aligned on a single strategy.
• Problem Solving Advice - Entrepreneurs are driven individuals who set out to solve a host of problems that create economic value for themselves and their firms, however many entrepreneurs fall into the trap of trying to solve too many problems. Learn valuable problem solving tips here.
• Profiting in an Unprofitable Industry - Allegiant Air is a story of an airline that did the impossible by defying the laws and rules of the airline industry and became the most profitable airline in the United States. This article describes how they did it and how you can learn from their processes and practices to profit from the unthinkable.
• Profits vs. Passion - Passion is the primary ingredient for any entrepreneur to succeed, but focusing on passion alone will not guarantee success. Avoiding the blindness that can be associated with a strong passion and identifying profitable opportunities can help align your passions with the right business opportunities that provide you with greater probability for success.
• Should a Start-Up Advertise? - Advertising has long been the dominant form of promotional marketing that firms of all sizes engaged in to build brand awareness and increase their customer base. However, many experts argue that advertising should only be used to enforce a recognizable brand, not to develop one.
• Should You Worry About Early Imitators? - Emerging companies often have to deal with larger competitors who take notice of their new venture and imitate their activities as a way to squash any potential threat they may pose. However, if you have the right business strategy, imitation can be flattering, not threatening.
• Showcasing Your Business - Professional networking and marketing is the often times forgotten aspect of launching a new business. Presenting your business at industry events is an invaluable way to show industry peers that you mean business.
• Start With The Problem - Too many entrepreneurs get excited about their feature rich products that they lose sight of the critical issue at hand. What is the problem?
• Starting a Family Business - Starting a family business can be a very rewarding and profitable endeavor, but for some they can also lead to destructive relationships with your business partners, investors, and family members. Be sure you have laid out a personal and professional plan with your family members prior to starting your business with them.
• Staying Organized as an Entrepreneur - Starting a business and running a small business can be a hectic time for entrepreneurs, but if you want to succeed, you’ll need to ensure you know how to stay organized and stay on track.
• Staying Productive as an Entrepreneur - First time entrepreneurs are often faced with the challenge of constantly motivating themselves to stay productive. They are removed from an environment in which tasks are readily handed to them and are for the first time in charge of ensuring that everything gets done. Following a regiment of focusing on delivering at least one tangible good every day will help you keep focused and on track.
• Stick to the Classic Business Books - Every week a new business book promising the secrets to success makes its way to the best sellers list, however many of these books suffer from the Halo Effect and are nothing more than a good story. Rather than trying to keep up with today’s best sellers list, stick to reading the classic business books that created the fundamentals that many business books are based on today.
• Subsidizing Your Network - Network effects have been a successfully utilized strategy for building durable competitive advantages, but are often the most difficult strategy to successfully implement. Understanding the critical components of building your network will help you achieve stronger network effects in the long run.
• Success is Standing Out, Not Fitting In - Fitting in with the crowd is often the norm because it is the easy thing to do, but taking a firm stand, by standing out from the crowd will provide your business with the attention you need to be successful.
• The 2-Minute You - The 2-Minute You is an exercise to help you identify who you are, what you want to do, what you’re good at, and help you find an entrepreneurial path that will help you leverage your skills & knowledge and help you follow your interests & passions.
• The Art of Buying a Business - Many entrepreneurs are foregoing the building stages of a company and rather are opting to buy into opportunistic businesses that the recession has offered. Much like starting a business, buying a business is an art that requires months of research, due diligence and searching to find the right opportunity.
• The Art of Internet Branding - Internet Branding follows different rules than traditional branding and positioning in the offline world. Following the proper branding techniques can mean the difference between failure and success.
• The Biggest Upsets of All Time - This article evaluates entrepreneurs and businesses that were so disruptive, they changed an industry, removed an established leader, and have become a dominant force in their category because of their successful disruption.
• The Developer's Dilemma - Building your company’s first product can be an exciting venture that provides entrepreneurs the greatest creative freedom to design, create, and build great products. However, many entrepreneurs fall into what I call the developers dilemma, the all too often trap of developing too many features for your product or service. Avoiding the Developer’s Dilemma will help you achieve quicker success with your product.
• The Frame Work of Success - Success of a company is based on keeping your business decisions and business strategy focused on one of three core value propositions for your customers. When choosing the activities that you pursue, they should always align with your core value proposition otherwise a firm will find itself losing its ability to maintain its core competitive advantage.
• The New Marketing - Marketing principles have long been based on the 4P’s (Product, Place, Promotion, and Product), but the 4P’s fail to fulfill the individual needs and wants customers have come to demand.
• The Opportunity Cost of Entrepreneurship - Becoming an entrepreneur is a big decision. It’s guaranteed that running your own business will teach you many marketable skills. Learn about marketing, accounting and management first hand with your own business.
• The Psychology of Entrepreneurship - Being an entrepreneur has its rewards, but are you prepared for the psychological aspects of entrepreneurship? Being able to manage the day to day ups and downs will help you keep your focus on achieving what you set out to do.
• Think Like Your Competitors - Game theory and strategy is a common and popular method for analyzing how firms make strategic decisions. One of the most common strategies addresses how established firms must decide is how to compete against emerging companies and emerging threats.
• Turning Your Blog into a Business - Blogging has quickly become one of the mainstream activities that individuals and businesses alike participate in. It has allowed everyone to communicate their individual ideas and beliefs; something that prior to blogging was difficult to do effectively and efficiently. But blogging can be much more than a hobby and many bloggers have made blogging their full-time job.
• Web Tools for Small Business Finances - Consumers have long been inundated with websites that help them with their personal finances, but very little innovation has occurred on the internet for small business financing. This article reviews new web technologies and businesses aimed at helping small businesses with their financing needs.
• Welcome Some Disruption in Your Life - If entrepreneurs have one thing in common, it is their desire to welcome disruption in their lives by taking a risk, leading through change, and their desire to succeed with their own ideas and innovation. Welcoming disruption in your life is the first step you need to take to move toward entrepreneurship and leadership.
• What Business Strategy is Not - Finding a durable competitive advantage can be one of the most difficult challenges for any business; however many businesses often try to compete on strategies that in fact are not true business strategies. Understanding what factors are excluded from business strategy will help you and your business avoid these same traps.
• What Type of Business Entity Should You Form? - Knowing which kind of business entity to form when starting your business is a critical decision that leaves many entrepreneurs scratching their heads as they try to understand the pros and cons and requirements for each entity. Below is a summary of the pros and cons of the core business structures.
• What’s in a Business Strategy? - Your business strategy is the road map that you and your company use to define the actions that you will take to create and sustain economic value for your firm. Not all successful companies have a great strategy, and many firms whom have had a great strategy failed. This article will evaluate how you should approach evaluating and defining your business strategy.
• When Passion Isn’t Enough - There’s no question passion is a requirement for any entrepreneur, but we also know that passion alone is not enough to create a successful business. This article discusses how passion can be both your saving grace and your troubling companion as one entrepreneur shares her story of the challenges.
• When To Become an Entrepreneur? - Those of us who have the itch to start our own businesses ask themselves, when should I do it? Many feel that working in the workplace for several years to gain experience would benefit them as an entrepreneur later.
• Why You Need Business Partners - Going into business for yourself? Consider taking on a business partner. Forming a sole proprietorship can be challenging. A partner can help you make critical business decisions and help you avoid mistakes.
• Your Target Market Segment May Define Your Success or Failure - Should I go after a small piece of a larger market or go after a large portion a smaller market? This question is something many entrepreneurs come across in deciding what markets to go after and which to avoid, but the answer to this age old question is rather simple.