Campers Everywhere!

MAKE Camp 2016 CollageThe Cumberland Business Incubator was full of young life last week. We hosted two different youth camps – Make Camp, our 3rd annual week long camp, and Maker Girl, a special 3D printing camp for 1st grade to 6th grade girls. Continue reading

Completion!

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There are really only four ways to “do” something: completion, deletion, delegation, and deferment.

Completion– doing the task – is the option most people think about. If you keep a to-do list, you’re probably assuming that those tasks are all your responsibility to get done. That’s not quite true – completion is best for important tasks that only you can do particularly well. Everything else can be handled in another manner. Continue reading

Entrepreneurs Among Our Founding Fathers

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We all think about Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin being true entrepreneurs before the word was even in use. But what about the other Founding Fathers?

In an 1829 book, Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence by Rev. Charles A. Goodrich we learn more. As it turns out, most of those who signed the Declaration of Independence were entrepreneurs. Continue reading

MakerGirl Comes to the CBI!

Calling all 1st – 6th Grade Girls

A group of students from University of Illinois are touring the country this summer with MakerGirl Mobile with a mission to encourage young girls to become leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields through 3D printing. Roane State Community College’s Cumberland Business Incubator will be hosting the group on July 15th. Registration is limited to 20 girls from 1st through 6th grade. Continue reading

Helping Veteran Dreams Come True

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Memorial Day, a time to honor all vets. Did you know that Cumberland County has one of the highest concentration of veterans in the 95 counties of Tennessee? Continue reading

Maker Space Volunteer Highlight: Paul Falk

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Paul Falk worked for nearly 40 years with GE. He worked with the fabrication, design and packaging of high reliability electronics primarily for bio-medical and spacecraft applications. Most notable projects that Paul worked on include participation on spacecraft teams that were first to land on an asteroid, the first to orbit Mercury and a flyby of Pluto. If you saw the photos sent back to earth from Pluto, Paul played a part in developing the equipment! Continue reading

6 Secret Questions Successful Entrepreneurs Ask Themselves

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Want to become a successful entrepreneur? My friend Joe Kapp suggests the following:

Change your mindset and start thinking like a successful entrepreneur by asking these six secret questions they ask themselves!

Based in part on research by Dr Saras Sarasvathy, a professor at the University of Virginia, the following common themes emerged after interviewing successful serial entrepreneurs of companies worth $200 million to $6.5 billion. This set of questions, adapted from her research, outline how budding entrepreneurs can use entrepreneurial thinking to increase the likelihood their new endeavor has the best possible chance for success. Continue reading

Your Invitation to Pitch Night

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The Cumberland Business Incubator invites the community to attend the Crash Course MBA Accelerator Pitch Night, May 3rd at 6pm, Roane State Community College, 2569 Cook Road, Crossville. Presenting will be the participants completing the 15 week long Crash Course MBA program. Pitch Night is the final night of the program where the accelerator participants will share their ideas with the community, answer questions and accept feedback.

Participants in Pitch Night will include: Continue reading

Planning for What You Don’t Expect

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Planning is difficult for any business. It takes time and intention – and knowing the results you want and how you’re going to get them. How often has one of your plans fallen by the wayside for unforeseen circumstances and pivoting meant starting over from scratch? If you’re like most business owners, that scenario is probably more true than not. So what can you do to reduce your vulnerability? How can you plan for the things you don’t expect?

The answer….you don’t, and yet, you do. Continue reading

How to Use Birdseed to Get Clients & Customers

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I think it was a scene in a movie, but something made me think about how that scene related to getting clients and customers.  Picture in your mind you are watching people in a park feeding the birds.

Children are chasing after the birds trying to catch them.  Almost every child eventually starts to chase the birds. It was quite amusing because the birds always scattered away! Camera pans and now we’re watching the adults interacting with the birds and noticed something fascinating… Continue reading