The Industry's #1 Resource




Entrepreneur -- Last April, the city of Seattle began rolling out an incremental minimum-wage increase. Employers with 500 workers or fewer would bump hourly wages up to $15 over the course of seven years; larger businesses would have to reach the mark in three years, with an immediate raise to $11 per hour. (The federal minimum wage is $7.25.) It has been a controversial law on many fronts, but no more so than in the franchise world. For the purposes of the law, any franchised business is considered a large employer -- even if the local franchisee has only a handful of employees -- because, the city argues, franchisees that are part of a larger system have the financial wherewithal to absorb the pay raise sooner than other small businesses can. Seattle is not alone in putting pressure on franchisees. In June, the Los Angeles City Council voted to increase the minimum wage there to $15 per hour by 2020. In September, the state of New York raised the minimum wage for fast- food workers to $15 per hour, to be phased in over three years in New York City and six years in the rest of the state. Other municipalities, including…
Read more...
In the January issue of Mobile Electronics, 2015 Top 12 Retailer Prestige Car Audio showed why they are both worthy of their name and on the most prestigious list in 12-volt. Read the story below: Disasters are caused by many things. Earthquakes, tornados and volcanoes are on the list. Some cause buildings to collapse, cities to burn and lives to be lost. Others, like hurricanes, are known to cause flooding. When a flood occurs, the water in the area rises and often damages homes, equipment and vehicles.  In Metairie, La., a city that is part of the greater New Orleans area, rainfall is common, as is the threat of hurricanes. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck land in New Orleans and caused over $180 billion worth of damage and took an estimated 1,836 lives, with 1,577 of those taken in Lousiana alone. Needles to say, residents of Louisiana take storms very seriously. Such was the mood when a storm hit in Metairie in 1990, causing a fair amount of flooding. While no lives were lost during this particular storm, many vehicles were damaged. Interested in a career fixing cars, Cory Himel offered to replace carpet in his neighbors' damaged vehicles, working…
Read more...
Entrepreneur -- I’ve always viewed zero as a special number. You can add as many zeros as you want in a sequence, and the end result is still zero. You can multiply any number by zero and you get zero. If you divide a number by zero, you get a spirited debate among mathematicians.  The concept of zero has marveled mathematicians and philosophers alike, but businesses can also take something away from its unique properties. That’s because something magical happens when a price falls to zero -- all of a sudden, demand rises to infinity. For software companies and startups that offer their services over the Internet, zero or “free” should be a central consideration in your business model. It was for me when I founded Wattpad, and it continues to be one of the core reasons we remain so successful today. Here are a few things to zero in on when examining this model. Related: 5 Tips for Setting Your Optimum Price 1. Rapid user adoption When Microsoft announced in August that its new edition of Windows 10 had hit 75 million downloads in its first month, many people reacted with surprise. After all, it took Microsoft six months to hit 100 million downloads…
Read more...
Entrepreneur -- You don’t become an entrepreneur because it’s easy or convenient. You decide to start your own business because you want your life to be meaningful, because you want to feel like your life has a purpose, because you are trying to build something bigger than yourself. What does that feel like? How does it feel to chase -- and achieve -- your dream? How do you know that you are heading in the right direction? Finding your purpose doesn’t always come with a parade and a champagne celebration. Sometimes it appears as a quiet, simple moment. That’s how it was for Adrian Gradinaru, co-founder of New York City-based boat rental marketplace Sailo. The website allows people to search, compare and book boats online. Earlier this summer, Gradinaru was heading home one night this summer, walking through New York City after a long day at work, when he realized he truly was doing work that provided him a sense of purpose. “I felt this interior calm that was sort of amazing,” says Gradinaru. “It’s not about money, it’s not about profit, I feel like we are providing a service that people are actually using and they are enjoying it.” For…
Read more...
Entrepreneur -- You know them. By name. By reputation. They are the living legends, the household names, the superstars. They are the entrepreneurs who have succeeded against all odds and beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. How did they make it? What catapulted them to the pinnacle of success? Related: A 30-Day Challenge for Entrepreneurs: Tap Into Your Courageous Leadership Was it some genetic mutation, raw brilliance or freakish bit of luck? It was none of these. Yet it was all of these. And it was something more. Beyond their sizzling hot businesses and flashy personal brands, many entrepreneurs have a depth of character. They think in ways that few others do. The sayings quoted below encapsulate such thinking. These sayings aren’t inscribed, framed in some museum or attributed to any entrepreneur specifically. Rather, these quotations comprise the mental attitude of an entrepreneur who knows what he or she wants, knows how to get it, and knows that success is going to happen. If the entrepreneurial ethos could speak, here is what it would say.   1. 'I don’t care what they think.' Lao Tzu said, Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. Successful entrepreneurs know this to be true. It sounds callous to not care…
Read more...
Entrepreneur -- When it comes to success, it’s easy to think that people blessed with brains are inevitably going to leave the rest of us in the dust. But new research from Stanford University will change your mind (and your attitude). Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying attitude and performance, and her latest study shows that your attitude is a better predictor of your success than your IQ. Dweck found that people’s core attitudes fall into one of two categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you’re challenged because anything that appears to be more than you can handle is bound to make you feel hopeless and overwhelmed. Read the rest of the story here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253095
Read more...

The Magazine

Magazine Quick Links







Copyright - Mobile Electronics Association 2020