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I am teaching an on-line class in innovation and entrepreneurship this summer. While preparing for the class I came upon this article in LinkedIn by Betty Liu, Founder and CEO at Radiate, Inc.. For BAM startups, it seems to be a “must read.” Larry Sharp, Director of Training, IBEC Ventures Larry.Sharp@ibecventures.com   What You Should […]

I recently went fishing with my daughter in the Kenai river of south-central Alaska – first for king salmon, then for the famous sockeye (red) salmon. Fishing was slow so I began to contemplate parallels to the world of Business as Mission (BAM) startups. 1. Love what you are doing. There were maybe 50 men

Dave Kier is an IBEC Board member and CEO of DFS Feed in Iowa. He writes a daily devotional for his more than 200 employees. I am privileged to be allowed to read them; one of which is reproduced here with his permission. Feedback from a recent Business as Mission conference I attended revealed a

The facts of this story are real and true; but due to security issues, names have been changed. As I travel around the US and Canada, I am often asked, “are you seeing any results for all your work with Business as Mission?” In short what they are demanding is “Show me the money”. It

Recently I watched a “60 Minutes”1 documentary describing the phenomenal rise of Chobani Yogurt to become the top selling yogurt brand in the United States. Founded in upstate New York in 2005 by Turkish immigrant Hamdi Ulukaya without outside investors, Chobani is a charming feel-good story of entrepreneurship. The story seems to have all the

Not long ago, I was talking with Ken Leahy, former IBEC Director and board member. He was giving me an update on the for-profit Discovery Eye Institute (DEI) in Ethiopia (owned by Sight for Souls in the USA). Ken is the treasurer of DEI and along with Gwen Rapp provided IBEC consulting services for DEI.

Historian Richard Morris suggests that there are seven key Founding Fathers.  Predictably they are John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington. If you are an entrepreneur or a business owner, you may identify most with Benjamin Franklin. Arguably he may have been the most successful inventor, entrepreneur

I recently traveled to Brazil which required a total of 48 hours in airports and on airplanes, so I bought David McCullough’s recent book The Wright Brothers and loaded it on my kindle. I thought I needed an old-fashioned story closer to my generational understanding. I had just designed curriculum for a West Coast university

“Everyone wins when a leader gets better” – Bill Hybels Have you every read a blog or an article and you say, “I wish I had written that!” Well, this is one for me. I immediately thought I would pass it on, even in a world where it seems everyone has something to say about

Trivia Question: What do these countries have in common: Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro, South Sudan and East Timor? Answer: All are new countries since 2000! And the newest of them is South Sudan which is also the poorest. Imagine this landlocked country with 12.2 million people (and 60 major ethnic groups), newly independent in 2011,