Entrepreneurs Website: Resources in Context
Jinfo Blog

1st December 2010

By Jan Knight

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Whether you’re a corporate librarian, independent business researcher or entrepreneur, the Business Stages for Entrepreneurs website (http://www.jjhill.org/business_stages/) will be a valuable addition to your bookmarks. In September the James J. Hill Reference Library, in their “Best of the Business Web” newsletter, highlighted their new site, and although there are many similar sources aggregating these types of resources, this one is different. In addition to categorizing and listing research resources, it assigns them into 5 stages that entrepreneurs should be fully aware of. Think of it as your own business consultant guiding you through the steps (the why) of creating or growing a business in addition to providing you with the resources on how to do it (the what). It’s an easy-to-use resource that can be useful when starting a brand new venture or for planning for growth in more mature businesses. The five stages covered are: 1. EXPLORING: This stage focuses on testing a business concept to see if it’s viable. It includes market research on potential customers, the industry and review of competitors. 2. BEGINNING: The 9 major steps in starting a new business are dealt with in this stage and focuses on the nuts and bolts of business planning, funding, legal and insurance issues and more market research on industry, customer and competitors. 3. GROWING: This stage helps entrepreneurs to understand how to grow or expand the business. It focuses on marketing and sales, online marketing, direct marketing, benchmarking and again, funding and market research. 4. MANAGING: This fourth stage provides Tips and Tools to help businesses to stay successful. It includes resources on leadership, organization of information, advertising, public relations, and various business tools. 5. MATURING: This final stage discusses options for when businesses have reached their business goals and are ready to move on. Valuation of the business, succession planning, going public, selling the business, are all highlighted in this stage. Within each stage the site guides you on why you need the information and how to use it. It then provides links to the best and most pertinent Web resources (free and fee based) for those entrepreneurs. Providing this context along with the sources is what makes the site unique. The James J. Hill Reference Library is a private non-profit business reference library, located in St. Paul, MN. The Hill Library “houses a world-class comprehensive collection of practical business information resources”. On a personal note, one of my favorite things about the site is that it recognizes the importance of market research throughout each of the entrepreneurial stages.

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