THE ANGLE: Line up your customers first, then create a business around them.
1. Identify an overlooked need for services kicked up by, for instance, relatively obscure regulatory changes.
2. Construct a first-rate website with a generic domain name that will draw in prospective customers.
3. With clients in hand, create the business, providing the service yourself or subcontracting to established players.
More at Business 2.0
…when you think of the benefits of small loans, achieving peace and stability isn’t the first idea that springs to mind. But it is exactly what Yunus, 66, is aiming for. While he may not be brokering treaties, he’s actually promoting peace by uprooting one of the root causes of conflict: poverty. At the same time, he’s demonstrating how effective entrepreneurialism can be.
More at Businessweek
It’s official now. Google acquires YouTube for a whopping US$1.65 billion, in an all-stock deal.
While the markets reacted favorably and analysts seem happy, here is an interesting (and expected?) reaction from Steve Ballmer, as reported by Patrick Thibodeau of Computer World.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today all but dismissed Google Inc.’s just-announced $1.65 billion purchase of video-sharing service YouTube as a waste of money … “If you look at most of the content up at YouTube today, it is copyrighted material,” said Ballmer. For all the chatter about how YouTube is all about home video, in the end people want to see things like replays of the recent 60 Minutes interview with former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairman Carly Fiorina, said Ballmer.
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