Grade A Entrepreneurs

Selling to large companies is the dream of many entrepreneurs. It’s not easy, and they have reasons to be afraid of it. My advice is that they overcome their fears and try. This week, I wrote a post on the American Express Forum, addressing some of the most frequent questions that I get from entrepreneurs on this topic.

I also wrote post at the end of January on the Open Forum: Look at Your Company as a “Small Business” in which I remind entrepreneurs a simple fact: Having huge ambitions doesn’t mean getting carried away. Remember BASIC? It stands for “Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.” That’s also how Bill Gates and Paul Allen started. Their first customer: the manufacturer of the Altair 8800 personal computer, MITS in Albuquerque. Their first year revenue: $16,005. Microsoft wasn’t a small big business—it was simply a small business that grew and grew and grew.

Marylene Delbourg-Delphis