You have reached Savvy Business Resources to find inspiring and useful ideas for your startup.

Starting a new small business is challenging enough. Nonetheless we often need to step back from the fast-moving activity required of entrepreneurship and reflect on what we are doing or seek inspiration to transform and breakthrough what seem like intractable problems. This is especially true if we are creating new kinds of organisation, developing innovative products, or inventing new ways of serving markets. Small business advice abounds. searches for small business advice will yield millions of results and many of the links will be useless, so here's a compendium of ideas to save you time and energy.

Many ideas are emerging within the business world, but it can be very fruitful to look also at spirituality, science, social organisation and other spheres for inspiration that will take us beyond our existing frames of reference.

Equally, there are many sources of practical help from people who have 'been there before' and we should use every opportunity to get such help. We often underrate ourselves and we can learn to do things of which we thought ourselves incapable, if only we would investigate how.

Allow yourself a bit of think time. Prod yourself and challenge the monkey chatter that chitters around your brain. Make some time, especially early in the day (even get up earlier), to reflect. Our capitalistic culture encourages busyness in business—and that's not always productive! Scan the periphery of your vision; notice what's going on outside your box.

This page of the WorkSavvy website has many resources that you can use (that's true of all the other pages, too). Since I take my own medicine, it is consistently updated as I myself discover ideas that challenge my own preconceptions and lead me to my own realizations. I hope you'll make free with what is presented here.

The creativity of an entrepreneur is likely to be entirely spontaneous. An entrepreneur just can't help wanting to set up a business. However, creativity may sometimes seem to be wither or die. Maybe because you're tired or stressed, or perhaps the 'juices' just aren't flowing. It can also be that sparks of ideas happen when you least expect them—through serendipity¹.

Though business ideas can indeed come from anywhere, I have found that one great source comes through reading interesting books, often on subjects not apparently concerned with business.

I take in ideas from all over the place and particularly from books that I read. If they make sense to me for the business, I use them with gay abandon. Of course, I need to be open to the idea of serendipity before I start, though on occasions the stimuli creep up on me unawares.

These un-business books I read tend to be largely in the categories of society, science, success and spirituality - as well as business and entrepreneurship, of course.

The phenomena in social behavior and human psychology are likely to be important to business because, if we are selling something, we are going to be in interaction with other people.

Many scientific developments and discoveries have impacts on the products we use, the way we make or distribute them, our means of communication – and indeed can create and destroy whole market opportunities.

Personal development is a prerequisite for successful business. Without working on your skills set, you'll keep applying habitual behaviours that may not be appropriate in your new context of being an entrepreneur.

The fundamental spiritual beliefs underlying or underpinning the business and values and convictions of the entrepreneur will guide the fortunes of the business. The vital connection to a force, spirit, or sense of the deep self will be a determining factor in success.

1Horace Walpole invented the word in 1754 and defined serendipity as occurring when people are "making happy and unexpected discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of." Note he uses the word 'sagacity' in his definition. Nowadays, we sometimes forget that serendipity also involves 'judgment.

All the books you see referred to here and elsewhere on WorkSavvy are available from my partner, Powells Bookstore. Why Powells? See for yourself by clicking the link to the left, or believe me, for the very good and simple reason is that the bookstore cares and offers good old-fashioned service - with huge stocks and good prices. That can't be said for all on-line bookstores. If you have the slightest problem that is not satisfactorily resolved by Powells, don't hesitate to let me know. If you want to search for a book, use the box below.

Synchronicity: the Inner Path of Leadership by Joseph Jaworski and the book is an autobiographical way of presenting servant leadership, collectively shaping and recognizing unfolding futures. Generon Consulting (where Joseph Jaworski is now Chairman) works by creating breakthrough, system-shifting innovations through the transformation of individual and collective patterns of seeing, thinking, and acting. Their process comprises three major stages: observing the current reality (sensing); retreating and reflecting to allow an “inner knowing” to emerge (presencing); and acting swiftly in order to bring forth a new reality (realizing).

Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society. This book is co-authored by Joseph Jaworski, with Peter Senge, C Otto Scharmer and Betty Sue Flowers; it is equally interestingly presented as Synchronicity (above) and much is in the form of conversations between them (not at all irritating) and articulates a new way of seeing the world and understanding our part in creating it. They say an "inward bound journey lies at the heart of all creativity, whether in the arts, in business, or in science."

The 100-Mile Walk: a Father and Son on a Quest to Find the Essence of Leadership, by Sander and Jonathon Flaum with Mechele Flaum. This intriguing book is by father and son entrepreneurs gives a two-generational view of leadership. It's structured around their walks in different environments and centres on their ten 'P' words: People, Purpose, Passion, Performance, Persistence, Perspective, Paranoia, Principles, Practice and Providence. Many lessons here for entrepreneurs.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. A bestseller and eminently readable. Even though some of the examples do not concern business (e.g. the NYPD), the behavioural aspects carry important lessons for entrepreneurs—especially with regard to marketing. It demonstrates why not to slavishly what the textbooks say about marketing, especially the budgets. Be analytic and trust hunch and above all, go for the message carriers.

Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What it Means for Business, Science and Everyday Life, by Albert-Làszló Barbàsi. This book too, has important lessons for us in business. Of course he talks of the six degrees of separation, so if you're a networker, you'll see just how you can get to the very people you want to contact. The book is harder work to read than Malcolm Gladwell's (who after all is a journalist), but the Professor (of Physics at the University of Notre Dame) has observations not to be missed.

The Field: the Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe by Lynne McTaggart, a British-based American investigative journalist, reveals a radical new biological paradigm — that on our most fundamental level, the human mind and body are not distinct and separate from their environment but a packet of pulsating power constantly interacting with this vast energy sea. Science has recently begun to prove what ancient myth and religion have always espoused: There may be such a thing as a life force.

Funky Business: Talent Makes Capital Dance by Jonas Ridderstråle & Kjell Nordström—two leaders of the new generation of business thinkers demonstrate how to build companies where people can be creative risk takers and where exciting ideas happen, exciting products become reality, and talented people want to stay. The authors set the scene of today and describe Funky Inc as focused, leveraged, innovative and heterarchical (combined from different—the opposite of hierarchical). Business leaders can discover how to lead others in ways that make a profit while they provide understanding, meaning, development, skills and insight. Their new book is Karaoke Capitalism: Daring to be Different in a Copycat World—For Ridderstrale and Nordstrom, the only way to survive is to chuck convention, to embrace your company's individual personality and promote it through everything you do, constantly honing what works and abandoning what doesn't.

Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham, editor-at-large of Inc. magazine. The 14 small companies profiled here have owners who are interested in being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, providing great service to customers, having great relationships with customers, and finding great ways to lead their lives. Most companies have built their strategies around a model of continuous growth. This is assumed to be the model to follow, but here are companies that have created value in other ways. Take a look at the ideas in the book Managing Upside Down. And for challenging your unthinkingly accepted mental models, look at The Power of Impossible Thinking.

Saving the Corporate Soul & (Who Knows?) Maybe Your Own by David Batstone, the founding editor of Business 2.0. He offers companies and their employees eight sound principles for "doing the right thing" Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream says, "If you want to be inspired how to make a buck without selling out, you must read this book. Batstone shows us how to put values at the core of a profitable enterprise." While the focus is more on the big corporate world, entrepreneurs have a lot to learn from this book.

Turning the Future Into Revenue: What Businesses and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Futures by Glen Hiemstra. The author takes the reader through the implications of demographic and technology trends and then shows how to profit by increasing the knowledge content of your product or service. He's sure about the energy trends and where you can benefit as well as suggesting how you can be your own futurologist. His concern for the future is about the four great divides: wealth, education, access to information & technology, and religion but he has positive suggestions to turn them into preferred futures.

The Starfish and the Spider: the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod A Beckstrom. The basic postulation of this book is about the vulnerability of the 'spider' organization with a head, body and legs each of which is vital to its staying alive, by comparison with the 'starfish' organization that survives no matter which bits get chopped off. The authors show how the leaderless (starfish) is both resilient and self-replicating. Nowhere is this more true than on the Internet, and especially the Open Source aspect of it.

I recommend that you read lots of magazines. Ones that cover business and entrepreneurship; ones that cover your own field; ones that concern the business of your customers; ones that take you into the future (science, if that appeals, public affairs if that grabs you) and from time

to time ones that cover functional subjects like accounting or marketing. A lot of the time you can skim them. The purpose is to keep abreast of what's going on, new ideas, big developments, changes in society... all these serve as small business advice.

Be aware that you will need to use speed reading to keep up with just these three. Here are some others that could be worth you considering:

Fortune (twice-monthly). The classic and its little brother Fortune Small Business. Or from the same stable: Business 2.0. Economist (weekly). For the broader authoritative view, news/international emphasis. It calls itself a newspaper. Thirty per cent of the printed version is available online for free ($79 for full access); Forbes (fortnightly). Penetrating stuff, entrepreneur section and personal finance & investment.; World Business (10 issues a year) published in association with INSEAD, the European business school; Entrepreneur (monthly). Many short articles, frequently the source of good tips you can research more fully via the links. Lots on franchising; Business 2.0 is a lively technology oriented magazine with a lot of inspiring ideas and latest developments in entrepreneurship; Red Herring (monthly). Innovation, technology, financing & entrepreneurial activity (you can sign up as a user and get their free newsletter and access to the archive); Wired (monthly). Keeps your eye firmly on the future: technology, culture and politics.

Most of the magazines above have excellent Web sites with free newsletters, RSS feeds and more. You may want to check out electronic editions. Subscriptions are always hugely less expensive than newsstand purchases. I did not put Harvard Business Review on the list, not because I don't rate it highly (its cheapest sub rate is $99). I do rate it highly, especially for new management thinking. But for most entrepreneurs the longer articles and scholarly bias may mean it's too time consuming. Also for many there will be a high proportion of articles that are not relevant. On the other hand, you can get the free newsletter (I do) at Working Knowledge. A very useful pointer to business and management articles is 'What's in the Journals' at the Economist Web site - you can read monthly summaries of what's in other management publications (and then follow up if you want). The big consulting firms are a good source of ideas, too. One I like is strategy+business from Booz, Allen & Hamilton. You can subscribe to the print edition or sign up on line for free. From another big consulting firm, the McKinsey Quarterly is available free by registering when you click on an article (full access is paid, though).

Scanning the periphery: consider the idea of Buckminster Fuller (the American visionary who coined the phrase, 'spaceship earth' and invented the geodesic dome). Apparently when he was passing through an airport, he randomly selected a magazine and read it on his plane journey from cover to cover. Each trip he learned something new 'at the periphery' and so saw the world in a different way.

Here's some by other people, that I think have a lot of ideas that may inspire you.

Start with the Wall Street Journal Online, where you can sign up for the weekly small biz newsletter. Follow that with Business Week's SmallBiz Insider. An excellent newsletter at the top of the business school tree is Knowledge@Wharton from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Not only is the content of a high standard, but the newsletter itself is excellently presented and navigation is sublimely easy. I wait for every issue: sign up now!

There are lots of opportunities to subscribe to Web newsletters on business startup and entrepreneurship. Of course you get quite exposed to ads, but often it only takes one idea that you can use to make subscribing worthwhile and you can always unsubscribe if you in box overflows. One that I keep reading is The Power of Focus.

Trizzle—an on-line resource that's ad-free, simple and straight-forward; you can subscribe to their newsletter as well, though be warned: if your away from your computer it'll fill up with Trizzle issues!

Mind Tools are the best source of tools useful to the business person. Click on the Mind Tools logo and take a look for yourself. I really believe that your time be worth it and you'll find ways to speed your business along! You can get the whole set of tools by clicking here. I know of nowhere on the Web that you can find such an excellent range of tools with instructions on how to use and apply them. You never know when you'll be able to make a short-cut by using Mind Tools outlines of more than 100 of the most important thinking skills in nine essential areas: Time Management, Stress Management, Memory Improvement, Information and Study, Creative Thinking, Understanding Complexity, Decision Making, Project Planning, and Management Communication Skills .

There are some good software tools you can use for your business from a company called JIAN (jee’on). It's well worth you taking a look at these people and their software. They've gone a long way towards 'simplifying business!' Click here to take a look at their website.

Business Owners Idea Cafe® - serves up a fun approach to serious business with hearty advice on how to start, finance and run a small business. Forums give virtual peer feedback on business ideas and questions. Free advice from experts, plus stress-busting fun diversions.

is a wiki-based place to find excellent help on all aspects of small business based on information that is contributed by its users.

is a very practical place to find how-to guides for your business. The guides are all short and include action steps as well as references to sources of further information. This is one of the most useful resources on the web and can lead you to all kinds of help that you will not find anywhere else. I write Guides here, as you will see from the list of my articles above.

Quick MBA is an online knowledge resource for business administration—as taught in MBA programs.

Small Business Dictionary: hundreds of thousands of terms used in the small business world defined and explained.

nPost.com enables you to learn from entrepreneurs; their experiences and insights. There are more than 150 entrepreneur interviews.

Small Business Notes provides information and resources for small businesses that offer quality, that serve their community well, and provide an outstanding work environment for their employees.

The Go BIG Network is an on-line marketplace that connects the startup and small business community. The company allows startup companies, investors, advisors, job seekers and service providers to post requests for help on-line and have those requests routed to other members of the Network who can help them.

Outsourcing Supply is a one-stop-shop for outsourcing services in India. On this site you will find top Indian companies supplying a range of outsourcing services in a variety of sectors.

If you want to consider franchising as a way into business, then try Franchise Direct. It is a comprehensive directory that you can search for opportunities within your skill or interest areas.

Free Patents Online is a very handy site if you are looking for possible patents to license or if you want simply to see what's out there.

US Patent and Trademark Office has a very helpful site. Remeber not to be daunted by what you hear about the subject and that you can file a provisional patent application for a year and it costs only $100. If you are anxious about talking about your invention, do not forget that you can get people to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The most reassuring way is via a mutual NDA. There are several freely available and downloadable documents on the Web (click here for one of them). More good news is that if you want to register a trademark for the ® symbol for brands, product names, business names, slogans or logos, you can do so, using the 'small entity fee' if you apply online, for a mere $75. More details at the trademark section of the USPTO.

For a fraction of what it would cost you to use a lawyer, you can file a provisional patent or a design patent using LegalZoom, who can also conduct a comprehensive patent search.

You can save yourself over $800 to register your trademark by using my partner LegalZoom. They can also do trademark monitoring to ensure that nobody is encroaching on your ground. This is a very tricky area, especially if you are building value into your brandname.

If your work is not protected by a copyright, it can be copied and used by anyone, without your consent. If you are the creator of an original literary, musical or artistic work, such as a book, song or photograph, LegalZoom can help you quickly and efficiently register it for federal copyright protection.

Small Business Trends by Anita Campbell: a blogsite. Blog + site = blogsite. That means a core component of this site is a blog. A blog is an easy-to-update site containing articles of interest written in a conversational tone. The most recent entries of the blog appear on the home page. One of the benefits of a blog is that you can get a mixof news, information and opinion.

The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) is the nation's leading resource for the self-employed and micro-businesses providing a broad range of benefits and support to help the smallest businesses succeed.

Startup Garden is a blog/site by small business journalist Tom Ehrenfeld, based on his book of the same name and has many interesting resources and is a good read. If you follow it, you'll also get lots of links to other helpful resources.

Venture Capital and Startups is a section of The Personal Bee, a new service dedicated to helping information producers and consumers capture the essential buzz from the roar of information washing over us all everyday.Freelance Nation is a place to find freelancers of all kinds.

Zero Million is a very enthusiastically run website with tons of useful articles and ideas; it's run by a young entrepreneur whose business went from zero to a million in sales in 14 months. He wants you to do the same. You'll find my articles there, too.

Bank of America Small Business Resource Center is an excellent source of help. I found the 'course' on building a business plan to be especially good. It presents information in a disarmingly simple, but highly informative manner.

Accounting, Business Studies and Economics Dictionary for students is equally, if not more, useful for budding and not so budding entrepreneurs. You are likely to be thrilled by your product or service and going it alone, but you're going to have to confront and understand lots of business terms that are likely to be new to you. here's the placer to go for help.

Free Business Course from My Own Business. My Own Business was founded in response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Successful entrepreneur and founder of Yum Yum Donut Shops, Inc., Phil Holland wanted to share his expertise and experience in creating businesses with the people whose neighborhoods most required rebuilding. Phil and his wife Peggy later organized material into this free online course.

All Business is a site that offers downloadable (paid) forms and agreements, business advice articles, a searchable database of some 1m business articles from hundreds of business periodicals.

Business Owner's Toolkit has thousands of pages of information and tools to help you start, run and grow a successful small business. Very good templates you can download and use freely.

Working from Home—the website of Paul and Sarah Edwards who come from legal and psychotherapy backgrounds and are authors of many books.

Business Tools from the bizfilings site; here are loads of very helpful ones—make free.

Changing Minds is a very useful site on all aspects of how we change what others think, believe, feel and do. There are a lot of useful techniques shown in good detail. You will find ways of problem-solving, sales closing techniques, creativity and questioning skills...

iBridge links innovators at top US universities with entrepreneurs—ideas and facilitating opportunities for collaboration. Take a look—there might be something up your street.

In a similar vein there is the Space Alliance Technology Outreach program that offers entrepreneurs (in the US for companies with less than 100 staff) up to 40 hours of free technical help from a NASA engineer.

Startupbiz.com has on line resources for people with business ideas. Some are free, some are paid-for (inexpensive). There are templates, forms, agreements and more.

International Entrepreneurship is a resource for global entrepreneurs, international business students, women's entrepreneurship, and academic entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs from around the world can access import and export information, general business data, financing sources, and entrepreneurial success stories for over 100 countries.

BusinessSeek.biz Business Directory - Find companies, products and services on this comprehensive categorized business to business directory.

Business Sites Directory is just what it says; if you're looking for help or information give it a try.

Bytestart is a UK-based but worldly-wise small business portal, packed with information and well classified. It will lead you down all sorts of interesting pathways.

Wikology is a wiki-based business and website directory. Think of it as Wikipedia mashed up with the Chamber of Commerce. Here you can find business profiles, including revenue, employees, partnerships, vendors, and competitors for just about any company.

Entrepreneurship Institute of Canada: distributor of resources for business, training and educational organizations, libraries and resource centers, and other organizations. A wide range of videos, DVDs, CDs, and books are available on this site.

The Ezine Directory has over 3,000 ezines to which you can subscribe. Many, like Lift Off, WorkSavvy's own newsletter, will give you a great source of good and practical ideas.

Note: Throughout this website, there are links to software. It is often multi-platform (Windows, Mac or Linux) or in Open Source. However, there will be cases where Mac or Linux versions are not available for what is suggested. Alternatives will be added progressively, but if you have suggestion, please let me know (write to will @ worksavvy.ws).

Guy Kawasaki's blog: from the well-known and appreciated entrepreneurial venture capitalist who tells it like it is.

The Entrepreneurial Mind: the active blog of Jeff Cornwall, the Director of Belmont University's Center for Entrepreneurship.

Escape from Cubicle Nation: Pamela Slim's blog will appeal to anyone stuck in a corporate rut with dreams of being their own boss.

The Report Blog: from Robert Levin, publisher of the New York Enterprise Report - for small and mid-size businesses.

Small Biz Survival is Becky McCray's blog by and for small business peopple in rural areas and small towns.This is a super resource, even if you are a big city person. Becky is full of good ideas and especially strong on everything to do with networking.

Small Business CEO.This is a huge resource by Steve Rucinski, a 30-year management veteran from Ohio. Steve has worked in large businesses and small and also owned two different small businesses of his own.

If you go to technorati.com or myspace.com, and type in entrepreneurship or startup, you can find many more, albeit you will need to be a bit selective on the links you follow..

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