A Good Entrepreneur Chooses a Good Exit Strategy

If you have spent any time in Nashville you have probably heard of the Bluebird Cafe, the iconic music club founded by Amy Kurland back in 1982.

After twenty-five years, Amy decided it was time to exit her business. From the Tennessean:

Amy Kurland, who started The Bluebird in 1982 as a gourmet restaurant, is selling the now-legendary club to the Nashville Songwriters Association International. The group promises not to change a thing.

"I wanted to retire, but I didn't want The Bluebird to go away,"' said Kurland, 52.

Amy could have sold the club for a lot more money than she did. But, money was not the only kind of wealth that Amy created in her business. She measured her success as much in terms of her ability to create a venue to help launch the careers of struggling songwriters and musicians as she did by the income and wealth that her business generated for her.

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Advertising key to putting Internet in every cellphone

The emergence of "smartphones" has put the Internet, music and videos in the palm of the consumer's hand, but the technology will need a flow of advertising cash to reach its full potential.

Cellphone makers and service providers meeting at the Mobile Internet World conference here picture a world five years from now where the consumers will be able to pay bills, read the news and communicate with their mobile devices.

Few cellphone owners are currently using their devices to access the Internet -- nine percent, according to the Yankee Group, a technology consulting firm.

But the IDC research firm says that more than one in five cellphones sold in 2011 will be "smartphones," devices with Internet access that can also play videos and music.

Three billion cellphones circulate in the world, three times more than computers. While Internet connection over the cellphone is often slow, it is improving.

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Teens turn to IM for awkward conversations

WASHINGTON - Sure, instant messaging is fast and efficient. For many teenagers, it's also a great way to avoid those OMG moments - that's "omigod" - of mortifying face-to-face confrontations.

More than four in 10, or 43 percent, of teens who instant message use it for things they wouldn't say in person, according to an Associated Press-AOL poll released Thursday. Twenty-two percent use IMs to ask people out on dates or accept them, and 13 percent use them to break up.

"If they freak out or something, you don't see it," said Cassy Hobert, 17, a high school senior from Frenchburg, Ky., and avid IMer who has used it for arranging dates. "And if I freak out, they don't have to see it."

Overall, nearly half of teens age 13 to 18 said they use instant messaging, those staccato, Internet-borne strings of real-time chatter often coupled with enough frenzied multitasking to fry the typical adult brain. Only about one in five adults said they use IMs - though usually with less technological aplomb or hormone-driven social drama.

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An Introduction to Business Plans

Why is a business plan so vital to the health of your business? Read the first section of our tutorial on How to Build a Business Plan to find out.

A business plan is a written description of your business's future. That's all there is to it--a document that desribes what you plan to do and how you plan to do it. If you jot down a paragraph on the back of an envelope describing your business strategy, you've written a plan, or at least the germ of a plan.

Business plans can help perform a number of tasks for those who write and read them. They're used by investment-seeking entrepreneurs to convey their vision to potential investors. They may also be used by firms that are trying to attract key employees, prospect for new business, deal with suppliers or simply to understand how to manage their companies better.

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