“Spotlight Entrepreneur” Jill Salzman on the Long and Short of It

“Are you ready to be entertained?  Meet Jill Salzman- sassy CEO of Founding Moms. A graduate of Brown University and law school after that, she ditched bankruptcy law to begin her entrepreneurial journey with two successful companies; Paperwork Media LLC and the Bumble Brand LLC.  Her third venture, Founding Moms is focused on connecting mom entrepreneurs around the globe.  Jill brings great advice to this Q&A with lots of humor.  Enjoy!

If you had to give a piece of advice to a girlfriend that was thinking about starting her own small business, what would that be?

I’d ask her to sell me on her idea.  Then I’d tell her to go out and find friends, family and strangers and pitch her product or service to them.  My first piece of advice for anyone is to figure out whether there’s a market for what they’re selling.  Too many people spend far too much time planning, thinking, planning, waiting, wondering if it’s the right time, creating a laundry list of worries, and then planning some more.  I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs spend upwards of 2 years prepping their product launch only to find out, post-launch, that no one is interested in buying it.  I’m very much a dive-in-first-and-then-plan kinda gal, and since it’s worked for me three times, I’m confident it’s going to work for someone else, too.

What small business resources can you not live without?

Twitter.  And Tadalist.  And LessAccounting.com.  And Google Docs.  And WordPress.  And Evernote.  And Skype.  And most importantly, My First Ticonderoga #2 pencils.”

Read the full interview on The Long And Short Of It here.