Welcome To Startup Students

Many of you are fresh out of college or approaching your final semesters.  Now is the time to start exploring your opportunities.  Here is 27 fresh links to do just that.

1. Collegiate Career Coach Blog Specializes in coaching college bound students, currently enrolled college students, and college graduates. Learn how to live up to your full potential and make your dreams reality.
2. CollegeRecruiter.com Blog: Learn how to bargain for your salary and impress the hiring manager. A good tool for acing the job searching process.
3. The Creative Career Observations on the transition from college into career. Insight on how students can adapt to the aspects in public relations, communications, and marketing that are always changing.
4. Job Hunting Tips Suggestions on resources and advice to help you choose a career before hunting for a job.  Topics are on best medical careers to salary negotiations.
5. Work Coach Cafe Work Coach Cafe is a place to get advice on job interviews, job searches, workplace issues and much more.
6. The Emerging Professional Learn how to be distinct while still fitting in. This Ivy League career counselor’s articles include employment trends and what the recruiters are thinking.
7. Graduate Career Coaching Get detailed posts on recruiting, interviewing, training and development. View job searching from an insider’s perspective.
8. Brazen Careerist This blog is anything but your classic career site. Formed by a group of top Gen Y thought leaders, these posts provide forward thinking and encouragement to define your own path.
9. Student Loan Blog With topics on everything from budgeting your student loans to how to make a lasting impression at that interview, this blog gives helpful hints to college students and graduates to help them be successful and choose the right career for them.
10. One Day One Job Provides listings of job opportunities for recent college graduates. Daily employer profiles are given for entry level jobs and search tips.
11. Daily Career Connection For individuals interested in growing as job professionals. When you’re just starting out or have been looking, this blog has many tips that can help.
12. EduPlan Blog This blog will inspire students and graduates into uncovering their true potential through education and maximizing opportunities for success. Brought to you by a consulting firm that offers over 15 years of expertise in the field of career development.
13. Internet Marketing Tips Denise Wakeman is a skilled internet marketing strategist, whose observations can help you grow your business. Her blog is full of marketing tips including 101 low and no cost marketing tools.
14. SoloPreneur.biz Janet Slack is the owner of Life Adventure Coaching and gives tips on business, marketing, the entrepreneur, and technology. In addition to her blog, you can download her free eBook, “Biz Tips: Entrepreneur Edition.”
15. The Savvy Entrepreneur Cristina Favreau helps virtual office assistants find their authentic marketing voice. You can make a ton of extra money by following her tips or sign up for the Get Clients Now!
16. Your Career by Design Learn from this bloggers experience as an entrepreneur running an executive recruitment firm.  Gain knowledge on how to differentiate yourself from my competitors.
17. Deb Bailey Transition Coach Get great advice from this sought after expert to discuss today’s most pressing workplace issues. Deborah Bailey helps entrepreneurs by helping them connect with their personal power in order to move forward in their transition from employee to entrepreneur.
18. Escape From Corporate America Pamela walked away from a six-figure job and a twelve-year corporate career to start her own business. Her posts are filled with practical guides for entrepreneurs and other renegades.
19. Purposefulentrepreneurblog.com dedicated to helping visionary entrepreneurs build successful businesses and share their spiritual gifts through articulating their purpose, activating their passion, and accelerating their profits.
20. Center for Balanced Living Existing solopreneurs can expand their success by leveraging their assets and clearing the inner blocks. There are also numerous articles on effective and authentic marketing to create wealth while doing something they love.
21. Instigator Blog – Lots of great entrepreneurial advice here. This Canadian entrepreneur’s blog is for entrepreneurs and small business owners, with an emphasis on how to start a business, run a business, marketing and technology.
22. Shaboominc.com A thriving business requires and provides resilience and continuity. How do you go about building a thriving career or business? Learn to regard mistakes as stepping stones to mastery.
23. Entrepreneur’s Journey Interested in Internet business and entrepreneurship? If so, you’ll love Australian entrepreneurs Yaro Starak’s blog. Perfect for those of you who are interested in making money online.
24. Gaebler Ventures Resources for Entrepreneurs At least once a week, serial entrepreneur Ken Gaebler posts a helpful article that provides great entrepreneurial advice. A must read for entrepreneurs.
25. Home Office Voice Martin Neumann shares his experiences as an Internet entrepreneur. There are nuggets of gold in his tips for building a web-based business.
26. Paul Allen-Internet Entrepreneur This Utah entrepreneur knows what he’s talking about and offers great advice and insights on all aspects of internet marketing and entrepreneurship.
27. Mind Petals Smart, creative, and young entrepreneurs from all over the world hang out at this site. It’s a community that produces informative, inspiring, and motivating content to spark the minds of all entrepreneurs.

Class dismissed.

Young entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes.  But what truly makes an entrepreneur, is his or her desire to win.  A willingness to lead and a commitment to succeed.  These are just a few common characteristics that successful entrepreneurs share the world over.  Do you posess the traits below?  Any other traits you think should be added to the list?

1. Laser Focus – The best entrepreneurs stick to their guns.  Find your passion and then follow it through.
2. Confidence – You need to have the confidence to make a decision without always being concerned about other’s opinions.  Stand by your decisions without caving in to the pressures around you.
3. Creativity– Young entrepreneurs must think outside the box in order to stand out in a sea of conformity.
4. Fearlessness – Don’t fear the competition. the consumer, the reaper, or failure itself.
5. Leadership– You must have the ability to lead your ideas to fruition, and leverage those around you to do so.
6. Scholarship – True entrepreneurs never stop learnin, especially those young entrepreneurs out there still in college!
7. Financial Savvy –  Knowing where your money is going and where it is coming in is very important.

Did I miss anything?

Class dismissed.

Entrepreneur Magazine has a great article on the top five fears of entrepreneurs. But why stop at five? I’d like to expand the list to 10 common fears I hear about during my work as an executive coach.

First, Entrepreneur’s top five fears of entrepreneurs. They are:

1. Fear of Failure: “Without a doubt, an entrepreneur’s biggest fear is failing–understandably, because 95 percent of all businesses fail within the first five years. When you’re starting with those kinds of odds, it’s OK to be a little freaked out.”

2. Economic Uncertainty: “Five years ago, the economy may not have been of forefront concern for a startup entrepreneur. But today, businesses big and small, young and old, are worried about what the declining economy means for them.”

3. Being your own Boss: “As a small business, especially during the startup stages, there’s very little stability and security. Unlike traditional employment, you probably don’t have an office, employees, benefits or a paycheck. And what you definitely don’t have is a boss, someone guiding you along.”

4. Consuming Your Life: “The idea of not having any time for yourself, neglecting your family and giving up your social life can be terrifying.”

5. Staying Afloat: “You need money to start up; you need money to operate; and you need money to grow. Throw the dismal economy into the equation–when people are spending less and it’s taking longer for small businesses to get paid–and money is even harder to come by.”

Why stop at five? Here are five more:

6. High-Wire with No Net: When you have been in your own small business and survived the early years that weed out most startups, you have the fear that you can never turn back to “the devil you knew” (i.e. traditional employment). The struggles of entrepreneurship make you forget why you left corporate America in the first place and your memories become revised to dwell on how easy and happy it all was “back then.”

7. Losing Ground to the Jones’s: Even though your business may be getting more profitable every year, you look at your old car in the driveway and the Jones’s new Lexus and feel that if only you’d stuck to being a corporate (fill in the blank) you’d have new toys, too.

8. The Merry-Go-Round Stopping: Your business is cooking, but you worry that somehow, someday, and soon, the phones will go silent and no one will want what you sell anymore.

9. Stuck in Third Gear: You know how to cruise at 40 MPH but you need and want to do 90 (this is metaphorical). You fear you will never break through the wall of your business being merely “okay”.

10. Emperor Has No Clothes: And the big-daddy of all entrepreneurial nightmares–you dream that you’re walking down the street and suddenly you discover that you forgot to put your shorts on. Perhaps if you act natural no one will notice. Lots of entrepreneurs think everyone else is smarter than they are and live in fear of the world finding out their secret.

I could go on. So could you, so let’s have it: five more entrepreneurial fears from the front lines.

Oh, you were waiting for some advice on how to cure yourself of all these? How’s this: You can’t! Not completely, anyway. And I don’t think you’d want to. Fear is a great motivator. Ask anyone who owns a business if fear helps them get up in the morning and do what has to be done.

Contributing blogger Mitch York coaches executives who are evolving into entrepreneurs. Find York — and his personal blog — at www.e2ecoaching.com.