What’s the one thing business owners worry about most (aside from Is my idea good, Do I know what I’m doing? How do I find customers, How do I…)? You got it.  Every entrepreneur worries about where the money will come from to get that new business off the ground.

BrandU is excited to announce a new partnership with Stratacution Ventures designed to solve this last piece of the business puzzle for our Interprise Business Incubator Elite members.  Stratacution specializes in working with small businesses to secure capital from a variety of sources, including venture capital, crowdfunding, and bootstrapping.  They’ve raised over $9 million dollars for clients in just the last 18 months. Now they’re putting their formidable skills to work for BrandU.

Together, BrandU and Stratacution Ventures are providing the rocket fuel to launch your business high and fast. Read all about this exciting alliance here.

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.” Ayn Rand

Does the word “entrepreneur” seem a little overworked these days? Some might think so. Some think entrepreneurs are just all about get-rich-quick schemes. Billionaire Ted Turner called it another name for unemployed.

So…would it surprise you to know that just about everybody in American history was an entrepreneur?

Ha! Thought so. “Entrepreneur” means a person willing to engage in business without an assurance of profits, someone willing to assume both the risk and the management of a business. It comes from a very old French word meaning simply to do or to undertake something.

All the people who came to America looking for a new life came to do, and they came without a safety net. They were farmers, shopkeepers, craftsmen, each with a dream and the passion to make it come true. They knew that no one else was going to make it happen for them. So they rolled up their sleeves and created farms from wilderness, cities where there was only forest, and the strongest, most vibrant economy on earth based on the idea that what they dreamed could be achieved if they worked hard enough.

Now that’s entrepreneurship!

That spirit is alive and well today, but it’s been overlaid by the “get rich quick” hype that has given entrepreneurship a bad name. You know the spiel: “Buy this program and you’ll be rich!” As if anything, ever, came without work.

Real entrepreneurs know it’s not that easy. Those who succeed and make the rest of us envious went in prepared to put in some sweat before reaping the rewards. If you put in nothing of yourself—nothing is what you’ll get back.

Entrepreneurs flourish anywhere there are people with ideas—and that’s all of us! Who hasn’t toyed with the thought of being free of that dead-end job, being our own boss, living the life we want? It takes courage to cast yourself loose from the day job—but there’s plenty of that still out there, too.

Today’s most celebrated entrepreneurs often are not the ones who bring a new widget to market, but those who find ways to make what they do best—what they love—pay off.

At the age of 13 Debra Jane Sivyer was already using the proceeds from her first job to buy ingredients for the cookies she would later parley into a chain of over 600 stores. Cookies are nothing new. It was her drive to turn her passion into her life work that built Mrs. Fields Cookies.

All of us are entrepreneurs down deep inside. We’re born that way. We are all creative in our own way, all fired by some deep passion that we think “Boy, if I could do that all day, it wouldn’t even feel like work.” Real entrepreneurs aren’t focused on getting rich, but on doing what they love, all day, every day.

Work that doesn’t feel like work is the wellspring of true happiness.

So what’s your passion? And what’s holding you back? Maybe it’s time to take your vision and start down that new road. Roll up your sleeves and get going!

If you need help to turn your idea into a multiple-million dollar business, and you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, we’d be honored to sit down next to you and commitment our 20+ years of developing and producing brands for you.

The cookie is in your corner. What will you do with it?

Every dark cloud has a silver lining, they say, and recessions are no different. BrandU co-creator W. Vito Montone gives his thoughts on how the recession is proving to be a blessing in disguise for many people.

Discover how adversity is driving the creation of myriad successful small businesses on PRWeb today.

Q. I keep reinventing my ideas instead of getting started, and believe the reason is that fear is creating a smokescreen, or is keeping me from moving forward. How to get past the fear that keeps me from achieving true clarity around my business idea and brand?

A. Interesting trap isn’t it?  You grab hold of an idea, start going down its path, and before you know it all this other crap gets in the way; causing you to slow down and eventually stop. Or worse flip-flop to another idea.  Vicious cycle isn’t it?!

At the risk of co-opting a phrase from AA, awareness really is the first step. Literally, it’s the first step of our Clearing the Path program. Of course we go into greater detail in the simple five step process,

In fact, before we create a single business development plan or design a brand, we take all of our members through this powerful process to immediately remove any fears that are in the way of clarity and their building a brand big, and to arm them with a tool to zap any future fears that arise in the middle of growing their biz.

Each thought is like a weed growing unattended in the fertile garden that is your mind. The roots of fear are deep. The challenge is two fold; a lot of the fear thoughts you’ve captured aren’t even yours, and often you don’t know they’re even there until you’re caught in their grip.

So you can do one of two things to clear through them quickly,

1) feel the fear and do it anyway, which I don’t believe really works.  The fear comes back and hits you harder for trying to sneak around it.

2) pull out the weeds at the root and clear your path permanently so you can run to turning those ideas into a business great and utmost clarity without all the heavy stuff.

Written by Kim Castle

Do you feel like your business is going nowhere? That maybe launching out on your own was a mistake? Well, you’re not alone—but don’t worry, the answer may be a lot simpler than you think.

Many small businesses fail, not because the idea was bad or the product didn’t sell or the entrepreneur ran out of money, but because the business owner fell into one of the common traps we’ve identified in 15 Mistakes That Kill Business Success.

This free report, available here, offers some surprising insights to entrepreneurs who think they’ve been doing everything right, only to discover their business is failing for reasons that have nothing whatever to do with things taught in business school.

“My name is Deb Craig and I am new small business owner.  I just read your 15 Mistakes That Kill Business Success report and was surprised to discover that I have been making most of them. I am in the process of writing my business plan to obtain financing and am hoping for the best.  I thank you for opening up my eyes as to the mistakes I was making.”

Part of our mission here at BrandU is to make sure you don’t fall into these traps… or, if you find yourself stuck in one, to help you get out of it. Nothing is worse than struggling alone with no idea how to get where you want to go.

See if you’ve fallen prey to one of the 15 Mistakes That Kill Business Success. Download it today, and discover how to recapture the passion and excitement that will set you on the path to creating the successful business you’ve always dreamed of.

When we started BrandU seven years ago, we made a deep commitment to support entrepreneurs—fostering their own understanding of their innate power to literally create their entire world around them through business.  This commitment extended to how we added folks to our team.

We select empowered people who bring their entire self—full responsibility and all—to our united goals and challenges as if they are working in their own business…because, to us…they are.

It’s certainly been an interesting approach to growing our own team.  One that hasn’t been a straight line.

How do you assemble and unite a group of entrepreneurs, each empowered in their own business to guide and support a vision other than their own and keep them engaged and in the fold?  Honestly…you can’t.

While we do our best to create many opportunities for team members to find themselves fully in our plans to support entrepreneurs worldwide, sometimes it’s necessary for team members to step out and experience that glorious feeling for themselves.

It is with mingled excitement and sadness that we announce that Chris has decided to take this entrepreneurial leap for himself.  He has been a big part of BrandU’s growth and success for the past five years and we’ll miss him. We’re also excited because he is about to join the ranks of the very people we support—you!

Ever since Chris started as a part-time associate in 2005, he has impacted virtually every aspect of our operations, from helping us work more effectively behind the scenes to serving you in MemberCare. As our Head of Operations, he has been our technical guru, who helped advance our business in ways we never dreamed possible.

Under his guidance we put in place the best practices surrounding virtual technology, without which we could simply not operate on the ever-expanding virtual team model that we do. He generously shared his passion for these technologies with our members in our very popular Business Expansion Makeover in the fall of 2009. We’re still getting emails from happy attendees a year later.

Thanks to Chris’s pushing, prodding, and unbelievably detailed research, we have fully embraced social media at our core and are passing this knowledge along to our members. He is the mastermind behind our social networking strategy, which is allowing us to take advantage of all the tremendous technologies available to help us help you better.

Chris is a genius at finding new ways to connect with people and to work more productively. And after five years of getting us ready to fly, he’s decided it’s time to fly on his own. And we’re here support him while he does it.

We are very proud of Chris and everything he has brought to BrandU: his passion, his enthusiasm, his many ideas, his desire to never compromise, his endless knowledge and curiosity, and his never-ending drive to simply do things better. Without a doubt, we will miss him very much, but we are in the business of helping people achieve their own dreams. It’s simply time to help Chris achieve his too.

We’re not saying goodbye, because Chris will always be a huge part of BrandU. Please join us in wishing Chris all the best of luck as he takes the next big step in his life…becoming a full-fledged entrepreneur.

Welcome back! We know you’ve probably noticed that our PowerPlay site has been out of action for the past few weeks while we shifted things to a new server and got ready to launch some major new initiatives. But we’re back, and we want to say… hang onto your hats! Things are getting very exciting.

With so much happening in the BrandU universe, we wanted to make sure that we never, ever forget the main focus of our business… you. The entrepreneurs we mentor are the whole reason for our existence, our pride, and our joy. You have the power to change the world through your business and how you operate in it.  That’s why YOU are our focus, and this blog is for you.

We’ve decided to dedicate PowerPlay to focusing on the very special entrepreneurs and micro business owners we help develop and grow in their business, and on what we can do to continue to help you all prosper in your businesses and in your lives.

Each week, we’ll spotlight one of you to understand how you’re using what you’ve learned from BrandU and how you’re applying it. There are many, many success stories to tell, and you have wisdom to share, too!

PowerPlay is now the forum for you to share your experiences, to pass on what you’ve learned, to help your fellow entrepreneurs avoid pitfalls and to showcase things that you’ve learned that could help them as well. It’s a great way to take stock of where you are as well as show off your business and your success to an appreciative crowd. Yes, we want to showcase the business you’ve developed as well.

Didn’t we teach you that free advertising never hurt?

In keeping with shining a light on you, our members, we will also be showcasing new programs we’re creating to continue helping you grow. We’ll provide you in-depth understanding of the programs we’ve developed and tested over the past seven years, as well as give you the inside track on program updates and improvements.

So stay tuned – we’re building one of the most successful and tight-knit communities of entrepreneurs in the world, and we’re very proud that you’re part of it.

Hang on! It’s going to be a great ride! AS we change the face AND the soul of business.

Kim, Vito and the entire BrandU team

P.S.— You may wonder what happened to all the great information, articles, general business tips and strategies we previously shared in PowerPlay. Not to worry! We are creating a companion blog called Ascertainment, coming within the next week or so, that houses all those great insights,  business information articles, and much, much more. It’s designed to help you find answers to questions on a wide range of subjects. Be on the lookout – it’ll be available real soon!