Category Archives: Print

INC Magazine: Day Dream Your Way To Success. Really!

By Monica Mehta.  What we can learn from Susie Crippen, who used visualization to quit her waitressing job, get out of debt, and build JBrand in an $80MM jeans empire.

For the entrepreneurial underdog, day dreaming with your eyes open can hold the key to realizing the seemingly unacheiveable. Your mind actually has a hard time distinguishing things you are doing now from actions you anticipate and memories of the past. That’s why visualization is so powerful. As you visualize yourself accomplishing a goal, your brain can’t really tell if you’re remembering something you’ve already done or planning for something you will do.

Read more at Inc.com

INC Magazine: Shane Battier and Your Winning Streak

By Monica Mehta. Entrepreneurs can leverage the same brain chemistry that helped the Miami Heat’s Shane Battier shine in the NBA finals. Here’s how.

In business, sports, or anything else, getting on a hot streak isn’t luck. It’s physiological.  If you can understand how the brain processes success and failure, you can create your own winning streak, jump-starting your productivity.

Read more at INC.com

BusinessWeek: Structuring a Business with Investors in Mind


In the early days of starting a business, you might be tempted to gloss over ownership structure, equity stakes, and other seemingly boring details. After all, you might think, as long as you keep taxes low, paperwork uncomplicated, and partners motivated, better to deal with the big stuff first. But these decisions can have a significant cost down the road, particularly for entrepreneurs who seek outside investors.  Read more of my latest column at businessweek.com

BusinessWeek: Get your personal finances in order before startup


Aspiring entrepreneurs preparing to start businesses will find that savings, credit access, and credit scores matter more than market research and investor presentations

Read my latest story for BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek: Making your business more appealing to lenders

As the recovery limps along, small business owners looking for bank credit and loan officers assessing their applications have their work cut out for them.  Read more from my latest story for Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

BusinessWeek: Don’t undercut your equity stake

By Monica Mehta

After a decade’s lull, the IPO is back, stoking dreams of entrepreneurs looking to cash out. Yes, dramatic market swings have changed some game plans recently, but in the first two quarters of 2011, 79 companies issued initial public offerings generating $24.3 billion, more than double the amount raised in the same period last year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Often overlooked by newbies: By the time a company is ready to go public, the founders usually have diluted their personal ownership stakes considerably through previous financing rounds.

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BusinessWeek: Coping with Rising Costs

Check out my latest story for BusinessWeek: Five Ways to Cope with Rising Costs. From introducing new products to foreign markets, entrepreneurs in diverse industries share their strategies.

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BusinessWeek: The Science of Risk-Taking

Conventional business planning teaches us how to identify risks, not how to take them.  For aspiring entrepreneurs seeking to take a leap, learn from veteran entrepreneurs and the scientists that study them.   Check out my latest story in BloombergBusinessWeek on how to take entrepreneurial risks.

BusinessWeek: Raising Seed Capital Now

Investors and entrepreneurs who won at the fundraising game during and after the Great Recession offer advice on landing equity money

By Monica Mehta

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BusinessWeek: Raising Capital With Convertible Notes

Converts look like equity, but taste like debt. To serial investors they’re brussel sprouts. But to certain entrepreneurs and angels, they’re what’s for dinner.

By Monica Mehta

(Read the full story)