Business Life

Dina Yuen, Founder, Asian-Fusion.com shares the five entrepreneurial lessons her father couldn't teach her, and which she learned the hard way.

I grew up in a family of three girl siblings, no brothers, and that’s exactly the way my Asian parents wanted it.

Defying millennia of beliefs and thought processes, my parents were and are a fascinating balance of modern progressives and traditionalists. They strongly believe in the nuclear family, providing a profound sense of love, commitment and closeness that in today’s generation may seem foreign or stifling. To me, my parents are the greatest blessing in my life. They gave openly of their love and constantly reinforced that we girls could and should achieve greatness and to never be intimidated by men.

Without my father’s encouragement to shadow his every step at his office during my pre-teen years, I may never have brought to fruition the innate entrepreneur in me.

The very idea that I could create something of value, that I could be my own boss, that I could build a huge company-these were instilled early on.

Like a lot of entrepreneurs, are you constantly and frantically busy, running on coffee during the day and a few glasses of wine in the evenings, at networking events or to try relax at home after a hectic day? Alisa Burke looks at some small lifestyle changes which will make a real difference to your wellbeing. 

What is the cost to you and your business of compromising your wellbeing? What can you do about it?

Years ago I remember pondering why, despite being successful, I just didn’t feel as happy as I assessed other people seemed to be. Years later I heard another coach speak of ‘self sacrificing overachievers’ - what a great description, and yep, that used to be me!

The question I would like to ask is is it you? Are you so focused on your career goals and balancing your work and outside of work life that you feel you are running on ‘vapour’ perhaps relying on caffeine as an ‘upper’ and wine to unwind? This may be allowing you to achieve (for now); but what are the are costs in the long term to your health, happiness and business sustainability?

We absolutely love Elizabeth's comprehensive series on funding! Click here to view Part 3: Incubators & Acccelerators.

Not sure incubators and accelerators are the best way to fund your company?

I'm happy to report that you can gain some of the same experience and exposure through business plan competitions.

Prize money is growing exponentially for the hundreds of business plan competitions held every year. And the number of competitions is growing, too. The public and private sectors have now joined in what was once mostly the domain of universities, making for a dizzying array of options.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a form of marketing through which a company’s website, or piece of content on a website, reaches a higher ranking on search engines to maximize visibility to consumers thereby creating a higher probability of traffic, which can later translate to sales and/or interaction depending on your business goals.

This is accomplished through creation of “do follow” links within a number of different arenas. While there’s more to making a web-based company successful than just good SEO, it is a very important part of getting clicks and page views.