Written by  Linda Hale

What do you think when your advisor asks you to identify your competition? 
If you are like me, the first impulse is to say, "I don't have any competition," or "I'm solving a unique problem, so there is no competition"  

When I was asked this question about my continuing education startup, I thought it was a trap.  
The advisor was trying to kill my dream by showing me that I'd never compete in a crowded market. He clearly didn’t understand my technology. (…sound familiar?) 

I wasn't planning to compete with the existing schools and providers. I was creating a whole new platform that would change continuing education as we know it. 
The current solutions were stale and uninspired. The current solutions were low-tech and irrelevant. My industry Needed my technology to shake things up and inspire attendees to actually Listen and Participate in their professional education. (…sound more familiar?) 
I didn't realize at the time that my “no competition” argument actually proved that competition exists. Continuing education is a requirement for professionals in my industry and they are clearly fulfilling their CE requirements somehow. 
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If my startup was going to improve on the current solution… I needed to understand "how the problem is solved today" to truly differentiate my product from the existing solutions. 

I didn't realize at the time that my “no competition” argument actually proved that competition exists. 

How Is The Problem Solved Today?

Written by Shannon Marshburn

It always seems like when I need to share business cards I never have them on me and when I’m getting dinner with friends I find them in every pocket of my purse, coat and pants. Are business cards even needed anymore in this digital age we live in? 

During a graphic design class in high school, we were tasked with creating business cards for ourselves for a project. Since then I have looked at business cards as an extension of oneself. (This may seem like a bit of dramatic thinking, but keep in mind I am a designer at heart.) The card is small leaving you with a small space to work with. This small space needs to be able to convey the branding of a company or yourself as an individual. At the end of a conference, you will have too many cards to count and this starts the process of weeding out the ones to take back to the office. 

There is an extensive history of business cards dating their first use back to the 17th century in Europe. These cards would be sent to announce the planned arrival of prosperous or aristocratic people to their local town or even to one's home. I suggest you take a read about the full history of business cards here: Business Card History!

So should you put the time and money into some cards?
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Without customers, businesses would not function. It’s that simple, but why does it seem so difficult? After all, customers are everywhere, but the customers that desperately need your product can be hard to find. I often think we are so lucky to be doing business today with social media as a marketing outlet where you can reach the whole world with your content! The hard part is that now that we have the whole world marketing their products right beside us, how do we stand out and find your customers? ​

Written By Nick Glavan

Last week, I attended the VentureWell OPEN virtual conference, which brought together innovators and educators from across the country and beyond to share research, experiences, best practices, trends, and tools to better prepare entrepreneurs and their advisors for navigating early-stage startup challenges. My favorite panel was candidly titled, “Screw Ideas” which presented an illuminating manifesto for developing entrepreneurial thinking in a new way.

Most entrepreneurs are familiar with the term “ideation” and may consider it the first step of building a startup. It often feels like the most fun step too, where we get to think up a new solution beyond the current offerings to solve a problem. But what if we were to cut off the love affair with ideation? The panel pointed to the serious negatives of ideation, especially it’s tendency to marry an entrepreneur to a theorized idea super early in the process. This typically leads to instances of halting progress when founders are inflexibly attached to a solution that is not novel nor impactful for the intended users. Ideation creates an environment where an entrepreneur acquires tunnel vision for advancing only their initial idea, rather than pivoting or adjusting to create a true solution for the market.

Written By Elyse Ball

It’s starting to feel a lot like spring. The weather is a balmy 65 degrees, tiny plants are shooting up from the ground, and there’s only a 50% chance it will be snowing again by the weekend. Since spring is associated so closely with cleaning, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to clean up one of the most essential parts of any business: branding. 

We know consistency is key when it comes to branding, so take a few minutes to clarify the brand choices you’ve made and reflect on whether anything needs updating. If you haven’t done so already, you might want to organize all the key choices you’ve made about your brand in a short “style guide,” using UARF’s Style Guide template. Click here to download the guide!
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Written By Nick Glavan