Startup & Entrepreneurship

New research by Melbourne Business School Professor Karen Jehn has revealed that, in 80 percent of cases, customers who were actually being told the truth thought that they were being lied to.

New research by Melbourne Business School Professor Karen Jehn has revealed that, in 80 percent of cases, customers who were actually being told the truth thought that they were being lied to.

You can choose your friends and business colleagues, but you can’t choose your family. However, many people choose to start or continue running businesses with family members. Of course, the common stresses of family and business are usually multiplied in a family business, so it’s important to establish the ground rules early on. Here are 20 tips to keep your family business on track.

Success in online marketing requires excellence in two areas – an understanding of the ‘purpose’ and ‘personality’ of any given project. ‘Online Marketing by Design’ will draw on the experiences of real business owners and creative professionals to determine what constitutes well designed and commercially effective online marketing.

Nominations for the 2010 Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award opened on October 1, 2009.

Recognise yourself in any of these? Then it could be time to get back to work.

Business leaders must learn to preserve the old while ushering in changes. The example of Test match, One Day and Twenty20 cricket is illuminating, writes Kim Wingerei.

These days it’s a normal thing for anyone to write about what people should and shouldn’t do. But do you really do everything you tell others they should be doing? It seems that people who give advice (including me) don’t always adhere to it. So does that make us hypocrites?

Leon Hayes began his web startup, Switchselect.com, in the energy market and developed Australia's first free comparison website, providing a one-stop-shop for the retail sector.

An experiment that created diamonds from Tequila, research proving that named cows produce more milk and analysis into why pregnant women don't fall over. Yes, it's that time of year again for the significantly insignificant 'ig nobel' wards.

A company’s culture is set early and by the founder. If you hook in from the get-go, the resulting stories can become the stuff of legend that sustains staff morale long into the future, says Sahil Merchant.

It makes sense to build a company’s investment plan that has the interlocking qualities of Lego pieces, tightly fit, all supporting and connected to each other. To do that takes a carefully constructed financing plan with these specific elements:

In August, we decided to explore the many facets of capital raising - from angel investment and grants to venture capital and private equity. For want of a better name, we called the exercise Anthill’s Venture Capital month. The theme tossed up plenty of investment advice and discussion. But it also triggered some strong reactions from Australian inventors who think that the investment culture in Australia needs a dramatic overhaul. Trevor Rose was among the most ardent, so we invited him to provide a 'right of reply'.

All of us would applaud moves toward greater openness and transparency in government, but is the bureaucracy ready to reveal all its cards by making hard-to-find data available in web and mobile device software applications?

Girls are not known for having a harmonious connection with bugs. However, for Skye Blackburn, insects have been an obsession since childhood. She even built a butterfly release and insect education business, Butterfly Skye, around this passion.

Some of the best startup concepts fail to gain funding or traction from customers simply because the entrepreneur behind them doesn’t do enough to present the opportunity in the best light. As a result, the buyer, venture capitalist or distributor sitting across the table doesn’t warm to the idea and it falls over. I learnt this lesson the hard way.

Australia’s IT industry received a shot in the arm this week when Silicon Valley firm GitHub spurned its selection of local providers - some of the world’s biggest hosting companies - in favour of Sydney web developers Anchor. Why? Anchor founder Andrew Rogers cites the vampiresque habits of programmers.

California-based Australian retail export advisor Chad Hetherington has met with hundreds of Aussie entrepreneurs all hoping to crack the lucrative US retail market. Of the products they offer, he says, less than one percent has a realistic shot at making it big in the Land of Opportunity. So what does it take to make it?

Chances are, you’ve had to make some changes to your company’s internal structure in response to the economic downturn and in preparation for the slow recovery that appears to be underway. As with everything in business, restructures can be done well and they can be done poorly. Here are seven principles to help you avoid unnecessary complication.

Combining his passion for drawing, construction and architecture through multimedia technology, Adrian Bold and his startup Bold Impressions creates Hollywood-style animation for the corporate world.