Our fourth Review Our Blog entry is from Demetrius Pinder of Get Noticed First. His review was recently put up in his blog here: Review: YoungEntrepreneur.com.

Get Noticed First helps job seekers move along their job search by providing them with resume writing and building tools that will impress potential employers and give them an advantage over other applicants.

Thanks for the review Demetrius! If you are interested in doing a review, check out our Review Our Blog initiative for instructions.

Evan Carmichael

• Young entrepreneur just likes getting things done - The 23-year-old Seneca post-graduate student and founder of his own company, UP — which has linked thousands of university students across Canada via www.Uni versityParty.ca — is one of six 2007 regional champions in last month’s Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE) Regional Exposition for student entrepreneurs.

Evan Carmichael

We all know that building links is an important part of any SEO campaign. One tool that I like to use is wholinks2me.com. It shows you how many links you have from the different search engines, what your Google PR and Alexa rankings are, and other important website statistics.

It’s great to have all this information in one spot whether you are measuring your own progress, analyzing the competition, or reviewing potential partnership sites, it’s a cool tool to check out.

Here are some of the stats for YoungEntrepreneur.com:

• Google PageRank: 6
• Total Links: 29,766
• Alexa Ranking: 15,430
• Technorati Links: 304
• Google Indexed Pages: 47,300

In comparison, the stats for my own site are:

• Google PageRank: 6
• Total Links: 6,631
• Alexa Ranking: 49,640
• Technorati Links: 652
• Google Indexed Pages: 8,020

How do you stack up?

Evan Carmichael

Our third Review Our Blog entry comes courtesy of Thomas Craig from Financial Imbalance: Exploring the World of a Young Entrepreneur.

Financial Imbalance is a financial blog that tries to help people establish a positive net worth. The reason for the site is to have a place for Thomas to express his thoughts on everything financial and a resource for his journey towards greener ($$) pastures.

Thanks for the review Thomas! If you are interested in doing a review, check out our Review Our Blog initiative for instructions.

Evan Carmichael

• Young entrepreneur a ten year veteran at age 21 - At age 21, Temple already has a ten year track record matching previous generations, forming his first company — Temple Works, proferring “internal and external housework” — garnering a first year net of $14,000 when he was 11-years-old.
• International Rescue for Young Entrepreneurs and Enterprising Students - Are you a young entrepreneur or student with a business or an idea for a business that you want to get off the ground?
• YAL launches initiatives to promote young leadership in Kuwait - Young Arab Leaders (YAL) - Kuwait chapter - said that it has launched an initiative to promote Kuwait’s young leaders by bringing in their capabilities and resources to building a stronger environment for tomorrow’s leaders.
• Are you a young entrepreneur creating a startup? - LawYours is an exclusive event open only to 50 young entrepreneurs. You will meet the top law firms in the Silicon Valley and fellow up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

Evan Carmichael

I’m a big fan of reading blogs and get new ideas every day from the ones I read regularly. I thought I would share with you my list of favorite blogs:

• Internet Marketing - John Chow
• Internet Marketing - HarpzOn
• Technology - Micro Persuasion
• Blogging - ProBlogger
• Google - Matt Cutts
• Venture Capital - Guy Kawasaki
• Venture Capital - Brad Feld
• Venture Capital - Paul Kedrosky
• Marketing - Duct Tape Marketing
• Marketing - Seth Godin
• Trends - Tom Peters
• Young Entrepreneurs - Mind Petals
• Young Entrepreneurs - JDsBlog

It’s sometimes hard to keep up with all of them with everything else going on but I learn something new almost every time I load up My Yahoo! and review my bookmarked blogs.

Am I missing out on a great blog? Which blogs do you read?

Evan Carmichael

• Is Lifecasting the Next Big Thing? - If you haven’t heard the term “lifecasting” yet, don’t be too worried–it’s only recently been coined by 23-year-old web entrepreneur, Justin Kan.
• Grounded in Coffee - 7-year-old hopes to make big bucks with special blend
  
• Is YouTube a Viral Marketing Tool for Young Entrepreneurs to Broadcast their Message to Investors? - Aydin Mirzaee, Founder and CEO of bOK Systems, has showcased his pitch to investors and a demo of his company’s product on the popular video sharing website YouTube.
• $1.2 million in funding for Queensland small business program - An initiative to provide training and mentoring workshops to young operators in the creative industry export sector is one of five Queensland projects to receive $1.2 million in funding to help improve business performance.
• Imperial awards £25K to young entrepreneurs’ medical safety design - An innovative product which could reduce needle stick injuries in hospitals and embed safety in medical practice was the idea behind the winning entry to the College’s biggest multi-disciplinary business plan competition.
• Young Entrepreneur Competition 2007 opens in Dubai - The third cycle of Young Entrepreneur Competition 2007 (YEC) will open tomorrow (April 3, 2007) in Reef Mall in Dubai
• The Entrepreneur’s Main Barrier Of Entry - Barriers of entry are those things that ultimately prevent you from doing something, regardless of how much you want to do it.
• 5 Entrepreneurial Lessons From the Movie “Rounders” - Throughout the movie you’ll learn about passion, staying motivated, never letting go of your dreams, and learning not to go against your destiny, your life’s calling

Evan Carmichael

I read about Marg Cummins in the The Courier-Mail and wanted to share her story with you. Marg Cummins is a 28-year-old entrepreneur and owner of the West End eatery Wild Pepper in Australia. It has been her lifelong dream to open up her own pizzeria and, considering her clean credit history, she thought it would be easy to secure financing from the banks.

Marg had moved to a new state and had signed a lease for her pizzeria when she received the surprising news - the banks would not give her the loan she needed.

“I kept getting knockbacks from the banks, they just weren’t interested in me or my business. I had a great history with the banks so I just couldn’t understand it,” says Marg.

Marg’s story is similar to many young entrepreneurs who are starting off and looking for financing. Most traditional financiers have restrictions on who they lend money to. They want to see that you have an asset, like a house, that they can take if you do not repay the loan. Unfortunately most young entrepreneurs do not have the required assets to qualify for the loans.

While some banks do have young entrepreneur programs that are worth looking into, you might also want to explore these alternative options for getting your company funded and off the ground:

• Angel investors - friends, family, successful individuals who loan or invest smaller amounts of money
• Government programs - from startup capital to hiring employees to training, there are a host of government programs out there to support small businesses
• Venture capital - if you are serious about growing a big company, venture capital investors like to put money into startups that have a multi million dollar payoff in the end
• Customers - try building around your customers and get them to help finance the initial purchases
• Self-finance - do you really need startup capital? Can you start small and build on your own by reinvesting the profits?
• Suppliers - can suppliers give you credit so you can delay payment or can you convince them to give you a loan / invest in your company if you will be an important customer for them?
• Credit cards - if you use your credit cards make sure to pay them off so you do not get hit with the high interest rates.

These are a few options available to you. The front door is rarely wide open for you to walk though so you often have to look for alternative ways to get in and finance your business.

Good luck!

Evan Carmichael

• Entrepreneurs learn the importance of people skills - Young Tasmanian entrepreneur Kirsty Dunphey had an early lesson in what a lack of people skills could mean for a budding entrepreneur.
• IDB, IPED sign multi-million $$ youth entrepreneurship project - A multi-million dollar technical cooperation project to increase economic opportunities and generate income for economically disadvantaged youths interested in becoming entrepreneurs was signed yesterday.
• A Young Entrepreneur’s Financials - One of the most important things you can do in life is maintain a good credit rating.
• Every Entrepreneur Needs Advisors. Period. - The power of one mind can bring about amazing and brilliant ideas.

Evan Carmichael

This morning I found our second Review Our Blog entry in my Outlook inbox. It comes from The Adam Box and you can read it here: Being a Young Entrepreneur.

The Adam Box is a collection of sites and topics that are in Adam’s virtual box - his mind. So in one way or another, all the information on this site relates is important to him in someway. You can visit his website at http://www.theadambox.com.

Thanks for the review Adam! If you are interested in doing a review, check out our Review Our Blog initiative for instructions.

Evan Carmichael