Start by pitching to someone you know that is intelligent, perhaps from a different field, who can be honest in their feedback and press hard on your plan. This will help you to identify the holes in your plan and prepare you for the professional discussions you will have going forward.

Once you have done this, carefully research your potential investors. Learn about their focus areas and their philosophy. Then, go to venture capitalists who have financed firms similar to your own; they will understand what you are saying. Some VC’s are very hands-off, whereas others regularly become quite involved with the operations of their portfolio companies. Be sure to talk to those that more closely match your needs. Once you have identified a good match, be sure to talk to the right person within the firm. For example, if your idea is in the realm of medical technology, be sure that you are speaking to those people in the VC firm.

In regards to presentation style, VC’s want to see visionaries who are passionate about their idea. As such, you should be able to talk without using notes or looking at the projector screen. The VC is investing in vision and passion, so show it. Your style is important because you have to be able to sell. Even if you secure the first round of financing, if your company is going to go public you will need additional rounds. You have to be able to sell to investors, partners, and customers. When you are giving the pitch, project confidence by not speaking too quickly. Show preparedness by including answers to expected questions in the presentation. Finally, project the image that the train is leaving, and if the VC’s do not get on now they will miss out.

Signs you should not pursue VC:

In my opinion, pursuing VCs may not be the most strategic way for a young person to raise capital early on in their career. Because of the preferential rights included in the upfront agreement, there is less space for the entrepreneur to really capitalize on the later (and larger) successes of the company down the road. I believe it is more beneficial to begin with HNW individuals who share in the same mindset.

So, unless you can reach a great VC independently or with help from others quickly, my suggestion is to wait with testing your CEO skills until Venture Capital, not the economy recovers. If you can.

The entrepreneur needs to be the lead communicator:

You want to over-communicate your plan to your management, your partners, your financiers, etc. Eat, sleep, and live to communicate your vision. Tone, voice, and direction should all come from the visionary. Embracing the responsibility is a powerful and effective means to keep the company focused on the promise and primary tasks. You are constantly selling, even to the point of oversell, the goals and dreams of the company. Whether speaking to employees, investors, customers or press, if the one who created the dream isn’t the champion, they have little right to ask anyone else to believe in it.

View previously written posts by Mouli Cohen about entrepreneurship

Related posts:

1. 6 Steps to the Perfect Pitch
2. Why Unemployed College Grads Should Channel Their Inner Entrepreneur
3. Founder’s Syndrome–When to Step Down
4. Entrepreneur Survival Tips

Photo via CNN.com

File it under trendy but true: Online video will be a transformative marketing tool for entrepreneurs in 2010.

Online viewers consumed 33.2 billion videos in December alone, with the average viewer taking in nearly 190 per month last year, according to recent statistics from comScore. That represents a staggering 2 billion jump in total videos watched from just a month before.

Multimedia represents an increasingly powerful way for small businesses and startups to boost credibility and brand awareness. You don’t need a TV studio and a teleprompter to pull together brief, informative videos that underscore your expertise and help create separation from competitors.

For most entrepreneurs, a bare-bones trinity will do the trick: Handheld camera, tripod and a whiteboard.

The key is adding value. Video is becoming a killer marketing avenue for companies committed to true utility — offer quality information on a timely topic and, more often than not, you shall be rewarded.

If you’re really lucky, that reward will be some serious love on one of the world’s busiest news sites.

CNN: Go Big or Go Home

The demand for quality video and citizen journalism has carved out an exciting new space for entrepreneurs.

Citizen journalism sites like CNN’s iReport and MSNBC’s First Person allow everyday citizens to post videos and photos on a variety to topics. Submissions run the gamut from low-brow nonsense to breathtaking commentary.

These video sites represent a prime marketing opportunity for companies willing to take a leap and develop content rooted in education and analysis.

The beauty is these aren’t social spaces ruled by Digg nerds and social marketers who can easily manipulate success. The video equivalent of link bait isn’t likely to land much success at sites like these, where thousands of submissions pour in every day.

That isn’t to say that getting a piece to go viral is impossible. Just ask David Siteman Garland.

The Rise to the Top of CNN

In mid-January, we posted our first iReport piece for one of our satellite companies. We took a journalistic approach, putting together a three-minute video that explored new regulations for mortgage originators and the potential impact on home buyers.

We also took that approach because we have a former journalist on staff. That isn’t a requirement for success here. These citizen news-sharing sites welcome all manner of video, whether it’s commentary, opinion, a review or any other snippet that imparts information.

A few weeks later, I suggested the iReport route to our friend David Siteman Garland, who runs the phenomenal marketing site The Rise to the Top.

Now, David churns out well-crafted videos every day, so the concept wasn’t foreign. But he soon proved how the combination of quality content and a hot trend can send your site into the stratosphere, traffic-wise.

A day before Apple’s big iPad announcement, David posted a piece to iReport on how the yet-to-be-unveiled device could save the dying publishing industry and bolster innovation and entrepreneurship.

The next day, a CNN producer called him about five minutes before Steve Jobs took the stage and asked David if he would shoot another video after the announcement. He agreed and his second iReport piece soon had top billing on the CNN Tech page and a prominent link on the CNN home page

We’re talking about a site that averaged 1.7 billion page views a month in 2009.

David’s success is still the exception. But here are five suggestions for boosting your chances with public journalism sites like CNN’s iReport:

-Harness a Trend

You have a much better shot at attracting the attention of network producers if your piece is timely. Keep an eye on trends and the news and look for ways to interject your expertise or insight. CNN’s iReport also has an “Assignment” desk that solicits submissions on specific, ever-changing topics.

-Create Quality Content

Video that’s cobbled together with little planning and poor execution is doomed from the start. Look for a way to connect to viewers and explain why this topic or your commentary is important to their lives or their wallets. Take the time to write a script or at least have a solid understanding of why your insight is key at this particular point in time.

-Exude Expertise

Pieces that come off as overly promotional in nature will probably fail to take off. Most of these citizen journalism sites require a producer’s approval before a piece can wind up on the company’s main pages or even on its airwaves. Don’t make this a walking talking brochure; do stake a position as an authority or expert when introducing your topic and your take.

-Sneak in Some Self-Promotion

That said, there are ways to ensure your brand gets out there. Make sure you clearly mention your company at the beginning and probably at the end of your piece. Provide contact information such as an email address or the company website so viewers with questions can inquire further. You can also embed links in the small text area beneath the video player on some of these sites.

-Pound the (Electronic) Pavement

Pump your tweeps and light up your other social networking hubs. Slap an “As Seen On CNN iReport” tag on your site. Driving traffic to your video can also garner the attention of producers and other movers and shakers in your industry and beyond. In turn, use your video pieces to leverage new content and posting gigs.

Nathaniel Broughton is president of GrowthPartner.com, a unique firm that provides angel investment and online marketing expertise to emerging companies. A veteran online marketer, Broughton and his team have built three separate Inc. 500 companies in the last five years.

Related posts:

1. Interview: David Siteman Garland on Entrepreneurship and Running a TV Show
2. 10 Online Trends to Watch this Decade
3. How To Find New Clients and Leads as a Young Entrepreneur
4. Leveraging 7 Types of Social Media for Branding

• Go on a treasure hunt and find an underserved niche
• Buck the conventional wisdom
• Spot a new trend and pounce

If you adopt these strategies as your entrepreneurial mantras, so to speak, you’re more likely to identify and take advantage of real opportunities to expand your company’s product line and customer base. The stories of America’s highest-achieving entrepreneurs prove that applying these strategies in imaginative, clever and timely ways can help catapult a small start-up to the status of industry leader.

Go on a Treasure Hunt and Find an Underserved Niche

In the business world, there’s nothing more exciting than finding an underserved niche that represents a lucrative market that everyone else has failed to spot and target. That’s like finding gold bullion at a crowded beach — it was there for everyone else to see, but you were the one who took notice of that golden glint in the sand.

That’s what happened to Gary and Diane Heavin, founders of the Curves International fitness franchise system. When the company launched in 1992, the Heavins had just $10,000 in savings to invest in their company. Today, Curves is the world’s largest fitness franchise system, with 10,000 franchise locations in 65 countries.

How did Curves soar to the top? Instead of competing head-to-head with fitness giants like 24 Hour Fitness or Bally Total Fitness, the Heavins opted to serve the fitness needs of three underserved niches: middle-age and older women who are eager to get in shape but might feel intimidated by large gyms teeming with young, hard bodies; busy working women whose schedules could more easily accommodate the Curves 30-minute workout; and budget-conscious women who simply couldn’t afford the pricey monthly membership dues charged by the major gym chains. Early on, Curves clearly distinguished itself from the pack of gym competitors; its services and clientele were different.

Targeting an underserved niche is a path that small start-ups can take. Even a huge multi-billion-dollar company can’t offer everything for everyone. Targeting the right niche — one that other business owners have neglected or ignored — can help build a strong and loyal customer base while limiting competition.

Another entrepreneur who followed this strategy was Liz Lange. She launched a phenomenally successful designer maternity clothing company. Liz Lange Maternity eventually sold for an estimated $50 to $60 million in 2007. She also partnered with Target to launch a secondary, discount version of her line.

Like the Heavins, Lange reached the heights of success by targeting an underserved niche. In her case, that meant zeroing in on the needs of pregnant fashionistas — women who refused to let a pregnancy deprive them of their fashion sense. Lange used newly developed stretch fabrics to create chic, fitted and stylish maternity clothes. They were nothing like the tent-like and frumpy maternity clothes widely available in department stores.

Buck the Conventional Wisdom

Bucking the conventional wisdom means ignoring those who say “It won’t work” or “It’s never been done that way.” When entrepreneurs overly rely on conventional formulas for success, they’re left with a business that’s, well, conventional.

The most successful entrepreneurs are willing to veer away from established formulas and ways of thinking. If you’ve launched your own business, don’t just blindly accept the so-called best practices of your industry. Look at them with a hyper-critical eye. Dissect them, slice and dice them, contemplate different “what if” scenarios in your mind.

With no capital to speak of — just $700 in cash — John Paul DeJoria, cofounder of hair products giant John Paul Mitchell Systems, bucked the conventional wisdom when he launched the Paul Mitchell line of hair-care products and decided to sell them solely to stylists and salons — never to supermarkets or drug stores. Today, the company boasts more than $900 million in annual salon retail sales.

That unique system of distribution nurtured exceptional customer loyalty. The Paul Mitchell brand not only provided quality hair products for use in salons; it also created a new revenue stream for the stylists. Many of their own customers bought the shampoos and conditioners for use at home.

Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, bucked conventional wisdom when she approached hosiery mills with the idea of manufacturing footless pantyhose. The product she envisioned was a body-shaping undergarment that would hide panty lines and firm up a woman’s backside so she could wear her favorite slacks and open toe sandals with confidence. Blakely knew there was a market for such a product. But time and again, she was told footless panty hose was simply a bad idea. The mills were accustomed to making hosiery designed to improve the appearance of a woman’s legs. But Blakely was trying to convince them to manufacture a product that was completely hidden under clothes. She got rejection after rejection. It’s a good thing she persevered, though, until she finally found a willing mill in North Carolina. Today, Spanx’s estimated retail sales are in the neighborhood of $350 million.

Spot a New Trend and Pounce

Often, a shift in cultural or economic trends will create new entrepreneurial opportunities. Sometimes that shift arises from advances in technology. Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens was paying attention to such trends when the home PC market exploded. He figured out that most PC owners had limited technical knowledge. If their hard drive crashed, they were thrown into a state of panic. But unplugging their PC and hauling it off to a repair shop, where it would stay for a week or so, wasn’t an attractive option. Stephens spotted the trend, pounced and captured an emerging and underserved niche. Geek Squad made house calls.

When Stephens launched Geek Squad back in 1994, the cash-strapped college student had just $200 to invest in his business. But that same business eventually fetched millions in 2002 when he sold the business to Best Buy.

Andy and Rachel Berliner launched the Amy’s Kitchen brand of organic vegetarian frozen meals because they realized that more and more Americans were trying to eat healthier diets, eschewing processed foods in favor of organic vegetables. Vegetarians themselves, the Berliners were also keenly aware that they’d have no formidable competition. They had personally sampled the frozen vegetarian meals already on the market and they were terrible. The Berliners knew if they used quality ingredients and recipes, their business would thrive. Today, Amy’s Kitchen generates annual revenues of $270 million.

All these entrepreneurs are featured in a new book, The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies for Success. The book explores in depth how hugely successful entrepreneurs have applied these three strategies — and seven others — to propel their business to the top of the heap.

For entrepreneurs, it’s often easy to lose sight of long-term goals when you’re preoccupied with day-to-day business operations. But keeping these three strategies in the forefront of your business planning can help keep you on track to take your company to the next level and beyond. Throughout the life of your business, you can channel your creative energies into finding new and fresh ways to apply these principles to create competitive advantage, expand your product line and customer base, and keep your business vital. Just think of them as your three secret weapons.

Related posts:

1. Entrepreneurs: Do What No One Else Will
2. Little Duck Organics is Moving Forward with Organic Baby Foods
3. 10 Books Every Entrepreneur Must Read From 2009
4. How to Become a Fearless and Successful Entrepreneur

Today he has been featured on things like CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS to name a few. His show The Rise To The Top has grown into an online resource and community for entrepreneurs. As David says it is “The #1 non-boring resource for building your business. Smarter. Faster. Cheaper.”

Also David makes an exciting and exclusive announcement at the end of the interview to the Under30CEO audience!

Find David:

The Rise To The Top

@therisetothetop

Sign-up to our free email newsletter for promos, updates and insider info!

Related posts:

1. How to Use CNN’s iReport to Market Your Company
2. Interview: How Timothy Sykes Made Two Million From His Dorm Room
3. 22-24 Year Olds Running an International Import Company: FBC Worldwide

But there was more to it than that.  While some entrepreneurs work to completely revolutionize an industry or develop a brand new industry all on their own, most are just trying to win within an existing niche.  And when you boil down everything that being successful at starting your own business is all about, you come to the realization that you are going to have to be better in some way than your competitors.  If you’re not, you don’t stand a chance.  And you don’t have to be the best at everything, but you do need to be better in some ways or customers will have no reason to pick you.  You have to be good enough, or pick some area within your business that you will be good enough at to win.

Do what no one else will

The easiest way (easy is such a relative term to an entrepreneur isn’t it?) is to be willing to do the things that your competitors aren’t willing to do.  There is a great quote from the football coach Bear Bryant that goes “it’s not the will to win that matters, everyone has that.  It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”  That’s the mindset we have to have in order to be successful.

I run an internet based fundraising company called Go Green Fundraising.  I found a niche within a niche and worked to win that micro-niche first.  For me, that meant hours and hours of writing content and making sure my site was incredibly search engine friendly.  It meant constantly tweaking pages and keywords.  It meant a lot of time working to find incoming link opportunities.  I could tell that none of my immediate competitors were willing to put in this same level of work because I very quickly surpassed them in search rankings for all of the terms I was targeting.

I still win those terms and have begun working on larger terms and phrases within the broader fundraising industry.  That means going up against some much bigger players and means I need to up the ante and push the threshold of what I’m willing to do to win.

Managing and perfecting my website is definitely not the most fun part of owning my own business and cannot compare to getting to interact with my customers.  It’s boring and mundane and time consuming but I’m the only one willing to do it and it is by far the most important part of my success and that makes it worth it.

What are you doing?

For your business it could be something totally different.  Maybe you commit yourself to making more face to face customer calls than anyone else.  Maybe you are willing to take the time to make the highest quality product possible, regardless of how long that takes.  Or maybe your entire business needs to be focused on doing something nobody else is willing to do (Think about all of the jobs on Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel.  At some point an entrepreneur said to himself “hey, I’m willing to do that and no one else is and I can make money doing it”).

Jordan Gottlieb is the owner and CEO of Go Green Fundraising. He focuses on helping groups raise money in a more eco friendly and healthy way. His primary focus is on revolutionizing school fundraisers by promoting smarter options.

Sign-up to our free email newsletter for promos, updates and insider info!

Related posts:

1. Three Secret Weapons for Entrepreneurs
2. Go Green Fundraising Focuses on Earth Friendly Fundraising
3. 5 Reasons Why You Should Start Dreaming Now
4. 10 Smart Leadership Questions for 2010

Duncan, Ben, Dave and Jonnie have been traveling the country crossing things off their list of 100 things to do before they die. For each thing they cross off their list they help someone else cross something off their own list.  What started off as a summer road-trip and a blog has turned into more then they could ever imagine…

Follow them:

TheBuriedLife.com

@theburiedlife

What does everyone think of the video interview? What do you like better the video or our text interviews? Please leave a comment!

Interview done by Uptin Saiidi

Sign-up to our free email newsletter for promos, updates and insider info!

Related posts:

1. 8 Tips to Win an Interview

What’s with the strut? Psychologically there are many cues that denote the feeling of confidence. They display our intent, betray our falsehoods and reveal our attractions. Many of these actions we cannot control and some of the micro twitches in our face, that we consciously miss, can be picked up by our subconscious which leads to the gut reactions we feel about people. Assume you’re in a conversation with a colleague:

Eyes

The most important indicator of status, the eyes can establish dominance, or subservience. Sounds dramatic but its true, when addressing people it is always considered proper to look into their eyes. For most people this can be difficult, there is an uneasy feeling associated with looking in the eyes of another. Especially in same-sex encounters it is important to maintain eye contact. Most times we know who the more dominant figure is, but when status is in question the eyes are often a deciding factor for the amount of respect you gain from the opposite party. Look away and you’ve lost the battle for respect, the other person feels as though they made you look away or uneasy, a subconscious cue for a bow of dominance. This allows them to take the reigns of the conversation or relationship. This reflects poorly on you as well as makes you seem self-conscious.

Mouth

Second to the eyes, the mouth plays an important role in determining your intent or mood. Disarming a situation is one genuine simile away. The difference between a genuine smile and one that is easily detected as fake or malicious is the micro twitches at the corner of the mouth. When you force a smile these twitches alert the opposite persons subconscious to your mood or intent. Remember this the next time a fake smile is forced, most people can tell.

Chin

Although the movement is not attributed to the chin, the elevation of the chin in relation to the shoulder will determine if a person seems depressed or arrogant. Too high and the prevailing reaction will be that this person has a large ego and knows how important he is. Averting the eyes down along with the chin exposes a mood of depression; chin down with eye contact portrays a sinister intent. One of the most important tips is the continuity of eye contact, this usually insures that the chin reflects the right intent and remains at the correct elevation.

Shoulders

Shoulders back or shoulders forward? Shoulders forward show the world that you are slightly closed off, depressed, shy, or all of the above. The reasoning behind holding the shoulders back is to portray good posture, which is more attractive and authoritative then the opposite. This is just one small piece of the business swagger puzzle.

Hands

In a sense our hands provide a visual cue to describe the words we are saying. The most effective way to use the hands is descriptively to help the listener understand a certain piece of a presentation or conversation. For example the hands could be used to show the difference in height for the comparison of 2 objects.

Walk

Some examples of swagger in a walk motion are to keep the speed of the walk high but not uncomfortable. The walk should portray that you have a purpose, somewhere to be. It should be slow enough to show that the person is not late. Walk with purpose to add an air of authority to your business swagger.

Swagger

Work on each piece of the puzzle and eventually build a complete business swagger portraying importance and authority to all who see it. Remember as much as entrepreneurs hate it, a lot of the authority and status are derived from visual cues.

Brain Cox can be found at AbsolutPurpose.com where his passions include web design, marketing and innovating. Follow him @absolutpurpose

Don’t forget to sign-up for our free email newsletter for Promos, Updates and Insider Info!

Related posts:

1. Coming out of the Recession — Creating an Opportunity Mindset
2. A To Do List: For Newpreneurs

I know you’re not my biggest fan. I’m one of those pesky GenY twenty-somethings that you’ve called “cocky,” “lazy,” and “incompetent.”  It appears our generation has hit a nerve, really gotten under your skin.  Well, I am writing to you because I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Please hear me out.

I’ve thought long & hard about what it must be like from your perspective, and I have some theories about your frustration. I will have to generalize, but from the many papers & articles published about GenY as a whole, I think you will understand.  Here it goes-

Many of you were raised the sons & daughters of hard-working middle class Americans & first-generation immigrants. Growing up, you watched your parents make sacrifices & work incredibly hard to realize the American dream, even when fair employment was rarely offered to those not educated in America. As young men, you faced drafts & as young women you had to break down the barriers of inequality in the work place. You did not have it easy but you were determined to succeed.  Many of you were the first in your families to receive higher education and entered the workplace hungry for success.

For years you worked diligently, providing a lifestyle for your family that you could only dream of as a child. All of the things you had to work so hard to achieve, you happily handed to us, your children.

We gladly accepted the opportunities provided to us and as youngsters, always sought your advice.  However as we enter adulthood, many of us having graduated college; masters programs; and/or started promising careers, some of us are turning away from the path that has been so carefully laid out before us.  As a result, you feel betrayed, taken advantage of, and ignored.  You might assume we are lazy & unwilling to work hard to achieve success the way you did. You think the environment of positive reinforcement you raised us in has created an epidemic of spoiled, self-involved young adults.

Am I close?

If it sounds at all familiar, I think we can clear a few things up. First of all, please know that we are grateful for the sacrifices you made for our generation; we recognize everything you did and know that we could not be where we are today without you help. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That being said, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could consider the below:

1. You are right that many of us do not want to work the way you did, BUT by no means does that imply we do not want to work hard.  While we may not be following the standard 8am-6pm cubicle job, modern technology allows us to be productive from anywhere at anytime and we are taking advantage of it.  You may not consider tasks like utilizing social media or blogging “work” but believe me, if you are contributing anything valuable, it is!
2. We have different definitions of success than you do.  Many millennials are placing greater importance on quality of life than monetary success alone.  After receiving top educations & gaining valuable experience, we are passing up some very lucrative, respectable careers, but we prefer to be passionate about our jobs and are willing to make financial sacrifices to get there. I understand your frustration- tuition costs have skyrocketed and you want to get your money’s worth.  However, instead of judging the worth of our education based solely on our starting salaries, please try to look at the whole picture. You’ve given us the background to find careers that not only support us but more importantly are fulfilling. Perhaps we are starting our own business or following another, non-traditional career path, but trust that whatever we do, we are not treating it lightly.  With the constant restructuring of modern businesses, we are concentrating on building our individual worth by pursuing careers we are passionate about with the hopes to achieve long-term success.
3. (The one that really gets to me.) We’re tougher & more grounded than you give us credit for. When you have gone through such lengths to prepare us for the real world, how is it that you so quickly assume we are making foolish decisions? We don’t expect success to be handed to us on a silver platter; give us a little credit & maybe even a chance to prove ourselves.
4. And finally, we’ve learned from watching you.  Like every generation, we observed your trials & tribulations and have learned from them. Perhaps we saw marriages fall apart or witnessed our fair share of mid-life crisis among the neighbors. Whatever it was that influenced us, it is time for us to start our own journeys, make our own mistakes, and eventually give the generation after us their very own list of problems to avoid!

The best way for us to understand & maybe even help each other is through open communication. I hope this is a good start.

Sincerely,

GenY

Written by: Tina Paparone is the co-founder & CEO of the unique gift company BeMe, which creates products to inspire girls to embrace their individuality. Find out more about BeMe & Tina’s other projects at www.TinaPaparone.com.

Related posts:

1. 5 Reasons Why You Should Start Dreaming Now
2. How to Survive the Difficult Boss
3. 10 Books Every Entrepreneur Must Read From 2009
4. Best Under30CEO Articles of 2009
5. Why Unemployed College Grads Should Channel Their Inner Entrepreneur

Photo via Gawker

First things first, how the hell did you make $2million from your college dorm room?

I traded thousands of hyped up penny stocks, discovering several chart patterns that were predictable 90% of the time, taking small gains nearly every day and those gains added up over time. My first million was made through buying these stocks as they hit new highs, but my second million was from short selling, or betting against, that same pattern on the way down–it’s just really pattern recognition…like a pendulum. I’ve never dealt in the corruption part of penny stocks, but I’ve learned a ton about it over the years so now I teach others how to identify and profit from it. You can read one cool story about how I made $123,000 in one weekend during my Freshman year http://www.my10000dollars.com/AnAmericanHedgeFundChapter6.pdf

For more details see my FAQ page http://www.timothysykes.com/faq/ and my book “An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million…” http://www.timothysykes.com/book

So, you are in college and you have a hedgefund–honestly now, how many times did you use that line out at the bar? Do freshman girls even know what a hedge fund is?

Ha, nobody in college had the slightest clue what a hedge fund was, when I said the word hedge fund, people asked me if I was in landscaping. You have to remember I went to Tulane down in New Orleans so I worked all day and then went out at night–by the time I was chatting with anybody, we were all pretty drunk so it didn’t matter. I can’t stress how important it is to let loose every now and then, whether you’re into drinking, fine dining or even something like fishing…especially if you work 16 hour days like I have always done. Mind you half my days are spent working, the other half are for reading/researching so it’s important.

Your Twitter profile @TimothySykes says “Stock guru to the little people”. Obviously you’ve never lacked confidence.  Tell us how this came to bite you back…

I haven’t always known my strategy would be so crucial for others to learn, but after trading for over a decade and now teaching for the past two years, I have a fairly solid grasp on the curriculum and the problems most people have (90-95% of traders lose money), but yes my confidence does get me in trouble. Because I know what I’m doing is helpful and real (as compared to the industry full of cowards and frauds), I don’t take crap from anybody as my brutally honesty and transparency makes me the friggin messiah of the finance industry. This makes it partnering rather difficult because I can only ever be a one man brand…like Martha Stewart, without the perjury.

Your fund lost 1/3 of its value at one point; how did you bounce back to earn the trust of so many people who take your advice?

As I detail in my book “An American Hedge Fund”, the loss was due to my getting away from my core trading strategy, so it wizened me up which has made me an infinitely better teacher. I would never recommend learning from anyone who hasn’t experienced firsthand such important scarring.

But this isn’t an easy concept to preach so I went back to my core trading strategy and my $12,415 Bar Mitzvah gift money roots to repeat my feat of turning it into $2 million with the goal of detailing every step of the way. Two years and 2,300 blog posts later, I’ve become the #1 ranked trader out of 45,000 on Covestor (a website that verifies all trades and performance) by growing that $12,415 into $115,000….nearly 10x all through the same strategies I employed the first time around…with slight adjustments in order to adapt to current market conditions.

Most people think you are just a trader, but you also operate an internet empire teaching people what you know.   How did you bridge the gap between being an investor and internet marketer?

There isn’t much of a gap at all because my books, DVDs and websites illustrate what I know about finance and trading…they are extensions of the research I normally do except I’m also educating my readers daily…I highly encourage everyone to create businesses around their passion and explore multiple channels of income.

You’ve been quoted by saying “These are the July results of a hardworking internet entrepreneur, think 16-20 hours days, including weekends…it’s all about how bad you want it, f$%^ the 4-hour work week you fat lazy American slobs, working hard, and honestly, is the path to righteousness and fulfillment…” Is money and influence really what fulfills you? If so, give us your most outrageous purchase.

Money and influence are byproducts of success and hard work but they mean relatively little to me. That said, I do love fine dining and have been known to drop a few thousand dollars on dinners at great restaurants worldwide. All starting when I made that $123,000 over the weekend in college and I took my entire dorm out to dinner at Boston’s awesome Fire & Ice. Now some of my favorite restaurants are Sushi Yasuda & Corton in NYC, L’Arpege in Paris, Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo.

Let’s talk about controversy; you write blog posts like: Suck On This John Chow, My Blog Made $45,000 Last Month!, Gawker titled you as “Capital Schmuck”, and you aren’t afraid to speak your mind.  How does this infamy help your personal brand and why aren’t you afraid of it?

I call this strategy “hate marketing” since I know my trading strategy is real, proven and unique, I can say just about anything to get people to remember me and be curious enough to want to learn more about why I am so confident. I wish I could just go about teaching and being normal, but people are dubious of those teaching others to make money so I have to go to extremes to show that I am real. Think about it, my exposure strategy differentiates me quite nicely because all the true frauds can never risk annoying anyone or making so many enemies and risk being exposed. I have ZERO fear because I have nothing to hide and great things to teach. In fact, many of my initial “haters” go on to become my best students–take Michael Goode of http://www.reapertrades.com who I first learned about when he wrote a blog post entitled “Timothy Sykes Is Full Of BS” but now has bought all my instructional DVDs, has profited over $125,000 from my strategy and is my #1 affiliate.

So do you really suggest short-selling penny stocks from your dorm room? What happened to the buy and hold strategy that is so often preached?

Short selling penny stocks when they are manipulated/pumped up is actually one of the safer strategies around because I’m literally betting for frauds and schemes to collapse. Imagine being able to make money off Madoff–that’s essentially what I’m doing Buy and hold was so 1990s…in these dangerous economic times, it’s probably the single riskiest strategy around and it’s sad that so many financial neophytes believe it to be safe. I put all the blame on entertainment-masquerading-as-responsible-financial-advisor outlets like CNBC and Motley Fool.

How can our Under30CEOs get started with their investing empire?

Start learning from all the top rated investment books on my brand new site Investimonials http://investimonials.com/books/ which is gonna be the TripAdvisor/Yelp for the finance world, already with 3,000+ user reviews in the first 2 months since we launched.

Like what your reading? Don’t forget to sign-up to our RSS Feed to stay updated on all the advice, interviews and news!

Related posts:

1. Jack Abraham has Taken Milo.com From Idea to Over 1 Million Monthly Visitors
2. A Lesson Learned: Taking the Entrepreneurial Plunge
3. Interview With Anthony Adams Founder of The Hangover Cure
4. Unpaid Internships: Secret to Success for Gen Y

What is the story behind your company?

The recession was just starting to get into full swing in 2008 and I realized that groups like sports leagues, churches, and schools would be feeling the effects of a downward economy and there would be a greater need for fundraising options.  At the same time, the green movement was beginning to gain a mainstream foothold and eco-friendly marketing messages were dominating the airwaves.  By marrying the two concepts together, I created an entirely new niche within the fundraising industry.

What makes your company unique in its industry?

In the fundraising industry, we are one of the largest players to focus exclusively on offering healthier and greener fundraising alternatives.  Candy, cookie dough and wrapping paper have all had their day and customers have long been searching for options which are higher quality offered at a better price.  We aim to provide that to them in a healthy and green package.

Within the green fundraising niche, Go Green Fundraising is the only place where groups can find traditional brochure based fundraisers that utilize earth friendly and healthy products.  Our competitors have focused on online offerings which tend to return less profit back to the groups and has a steeper learning curve than our brochure based programs.

Future plans for the company?

We plan to introduce a revolutionary donation based fundraising program in the very near future which leverages the best practices from a number of fundraising methods.  There are also plans being created right now to work with schools on a national basis in creating healthier food options and promoting more physical activity in school aged children.

What was the start-up budget?

Around $15,000 for initial inventory and brochure printing runs.

Year Founded:

2008

URL:

http://www.go-green-fundraising.com

Founders and Ages:

Jordan Gottlieb 26

Where can people find the company?

On the web at http://www.go-green-fundraising.com and on twitter at www.twitter.com/greenfund

Related posts:

1. Entrepreneurs: Do What No One Else Will
2. Little Duck Organics is Moving Forward with Organic Baby Foods
3. 22-24 Year Olds Running an International Import Company: FBC Worldwide
4. Startup Profile – Puffing Cigars
5. Staying Fit and Healthy as an Entrepreneur