The Reynolds Center has announced its 2008 fall workshop schedule.
Select a workshop and register from the drop-down menu below.
The Reynolds Center has opened registration for select 2008 free online seminars.
Topics include:
*Intermediate Business Journalism
*Covering Private Companies
*Business Journalism Boot Camp
Everyone wants to hit it big. But do you have what it takes to become an entrepreneurial superstar? Two business magazines this month offer guidance for wannabes in the startup world.
To begin with, if you're thinking of launching a new business — and funding it with private capital — the timing couldn't be better.
"Among
Cover story "Do This, Get Rich," reports that the amount of money invested in startups in 2004 — $20 billion — represented the first annual increase in four years. Venture capital firms are amassing plenty of new capital to deploy and the initial public offering market has finally emerged from the doldrums.
The writers interviewed venture capitalists and entrepreneurs alike to learn what business ideas are hot. Concepts driven by technology and demographics prevail. Given sky-high oil prices, investors also like anything energy-related. The magazine came up with 11 startup possibilities, requiring varying amounts of capital, that passed muster with 10 top VCs. Business 2.0 did this exercise a year ago and four of the ideas are now real companies.
This year, some of the business opportunities include "Pimp My PC," a company that "modifies customers' staid PCs into screaming speed demons for gaming, music and more;" "Baby Pad," a business that sells "modular, expandable baby and kids' furniture to style-conscious urbanites;" and "NurseSwap," which would "solicit and certify a roster of freelance health-care professionals available for short-term jobs across the nation."
It's fun to muse about possibilities, but how about someone who really did it? The May issue of Inc. magazine profiles Steve Lipscomb, founder and president of World Poker Tour, in the cover story, "Jackpot!" Writer Larry Olmsted details how Lipscomb launched a public company that's become a national obsession, without — ironically — risking a dime of his own.
"In three short years, Lipscomb has taken poker from smoky backrooms to the NASDAQ and prime-time television, with ratings that regularly top network coverage of the NBA and PGA," Olmsted writes.
Olmsted relates how Lipscomb thought ESPN was televising poker all wrong. He knew he could do better — and more. He wanted to create something like a major professional sports league, with merchandising and foreign licensing, and mimicked the model of golf's PGA Tour.
The article explains how Lipscomb raised $3.5 million from a casino-gaming consultant to launch the business. The Travel Channel, of all places, picked up the show and bought an entire season. The WPT now attracts 3 million to 5 million viewers a week and has lined up foreign distribution deals in 57 countries.
In addition, the company has signed a multivolume book deal with HarperCollins and plans to launch a wireless platform to play WPT poker on a cell phone. Table game versions of WPT All-In Hold 'em Poker are coming soon to casinos nationwide. There are even WPT scratch-off lottery tickets in seven states.
Three short years after that original — and only — investment of $3.5 million, the company went public in August 2004 and raised $32 million. The stock now has a market cap of $300 million. Now that's a bet that paid off.
Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism
