CEOs: Can You Imagine Having More Time and Brain Space in Your Day?
How can you actually make progress towards your objectives if you don’t have a firm grasp on the end goal? The simple answer is, you can’t....
06
Mar
24
Jan
Economic Development: What it is, its Importance, and How to Facilitate in Your City
To some, the term development is scary because it’s associated with government spending. Although development efforts do require money, their result should be a positive gain in tax revenue from smarter, better-equipped residents who are creating and filling valuable jobs and business. This is the third article in...
17
Dec
Community Development: What it is, its Importance, and How to Contribute in Your City
Picture a young girl with dreams of owning her own business. Her family doesn’t have the means to pay for private school or hire coaches. She’s curious and motivated, but isn’t sure how to pursue her dreams of starting a business and lacks the money...
08
Nov
Shopping Confusion: What Does Buying Local Mean to You?
The temperature is dropping, leaves are falling, and the holidays are right around the corner. As we’re scrambling to accomplish the tasks left on our to-do lists for the year, it’s hard not to think about shopping. From advertisements telling us what we need to...
01
Nov
3 Keys to Developing Cities and Improving Lives: An Introduction to Community, Business, and Economic Development
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” - Theodore Roosevelt In a time when it seems hard to agree on anything -- one thing we all can agree on is our desire to improve our quality of life. Regardless of how nice...
25
Jun
Why Bloomington/Normal Needs a Startup Incubator and How The Community Can Build One The Right Way
“Building a startup community is not a zero-sum game in which there are winners and losers: if everyone engages, they and the entire community can all be winners.” — Brad Feld Developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem takes years, if not decades, of hard work, collaboration, and investment. But...
21
May
What Should Your First Round of Investment Go To?
What will you use your startup's funds on? Before you do anything, read this. ...
08
May
Let’s Take A Step Forward And Work Together To Bring Bloomington/Normal “Back”
Change can be scary, especially when we can’t control it. For the first time in what feels like a long time, there’s real fear in Bloomington-Normal. The economy and where we’re headed is in question. For decades, we’ve been blessed to have large, well-respected companies,...
29
Mar
Bloomington-Normal’s First Bitcoin Mining Operation: Why and How We Worked as a Community to Do It
For business owners, it’s important to understand the expected return on an investment. But there’s a problem. The impact of everything you do can’t always be measured directly in dollars and cents. But an investment in your community, while it might not benefit you financially,...
22
Mar
6 Ways To Avoid Wasting Your Startup’s Seed Round of Funding
“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” -- Tony Robbins Too often, “funds raised” is used by companies as a mark of accomplishment. It’s important to understand that raising money for your business will not solve any of your startup’s current...