Author: wildgreenquest@gmail.com

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways Leaders tend to blame cultural problems when performance stalls because it’s broad enough to describe everything and specific enough to implicate no one. Leaders who have stopped spending hands-on time with their people often don’t know what’s standing in their way. Ask how they’re feeling about the work, the pace and the environment. Ask people above you, your peers and your direct reports what they see as your strengths and your weaknesses. Reward people who raise problems before having a solution. Otherwise, issues stay hidden until they’re harder to trace…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways The best mentors treat every conversation as a two-way exchange, asking questions that sharpen the other person’s thinking while staying open to having their own views challenged. A four-step process of building self-awareness, gathering feedback from five people, separating perception from reality and refining your defining stories creates growth for both mentor and mentee. Early in the evolution of social media marketing, I was interviewing a recent college graduate for an entry-level position. During the conversation, I found myself explaining how organizations were beginning to embrace social media as an…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways When revenue levels off, review your financials and talk to frontline employees to find where you’re losing time, money and accountability before you launch another campaign. Use the following weeks to collect outstanding invoices and cut unneeded expenses, align every leader on the same 90-day priorities and give each fix an owner, a deadline and a measure of progress. Every entrepreneur eventually reaches a season when growth slows. Revenue levels off, referrals become less predictable and sales meetings run longer because everyone is searching for answers. Before long, someone around…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways U.S. merchants paid a record $198.25 billion in card processing fees in 2025, up 219% since 2009. The card networks’ top interchange rates have barely moved in that time. Much of what merchants overpay is processor markup and add-on fees, and those can be negotiated. Five questions, answered in writing, can expose the markup before you sign and protect you after. In 2009, U.S. merchants paid $62.1 billion to accept credit and debit cards. In 2025, they paid $198.25 billion, according to Nilson Report figures published by the Merchants Payments…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways More free time does not automatically bring fulfillment. You have to learn how you like to spend it. Money improves happiness when it buys back time and you decide deliberately where that time goes. At 36, I sold the fintech company I had spent years building and walked away with an eight-figure exit. No client needed an answer. No product roadmap demanded a decision. No inbox confirmed that I was useful. I thought it would feel like freedom. It felt like an identity crisis. As CEO, I had been time-starved…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways The modern workplace has long rewarded the ability to package thinking into tidy output over the quality of the thinking itself. AI now handles structuring, summarizing and formatting, which favors fast, associative thinkers, including many people with ADHD. Everyone is asking who AI will replace. Almost nobody is asking the better question: Who will AI release? It will release the person whose mind produces 10 ideas before breakfast and loses eight by lunch. The person who sees connections nobody else in the room sees but cannot get them into a…

Key Takeaways Apple and LG are working on smart home products, including a doorbell and thermostat. The accessories will be LG-branded, with LG handling manufacturing and customer support. The partnership would put both companies in direct competition with Amazon and Google. Apple’s next move could change how you walk through your front door. According to a new Bloomberg report, Apple is developing new smart home devices as it pushes beyond phones, tablets and laptops. The iPhone-maker is teaming up with LG on a doorbell, lock and thermostat — and the unusual partnership will power its upcoming smart home initiatives. As…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways Careers rarely split on one big decision. They split on small daily choices that compound over 20 years. Before any significant decision about your time, health or money, ask whether your future self will thank you or pay for it. There is a difference between enjoying your youth and destroying your future, and most people don’t see it until they are well past it. I think about that difference often, as an executive evaluating young leaders and as a father and mentor to founders who are just starting out. The…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways You can be deeply confident in what your company has built while recognizing that the right partnerships can help take it further. To successfully collaborate, you need to know what must remain yours and where partnership adds value. Where do you create unique value, and where could another organization’s expertise multiply it? Choose partners for what you can unlock together. Don’t evaluate partnerships by the name on the other side. Understand that the best partners make each other smarter and that you need to set clear boundaries before you collaborate.…

Key Takeaways Workman and his co-founders launched wearable baby monitor Owlet in 2015. In 2021, the company went public — then received an FDA warning letter. Owlet got FDA clearance, focused on lean profitability and has monitored over 2.5 million infants. This as-told-to story is based on a conversation with Kurt Workman, co-founder and CEO of Owlet, the only over-the-counter, FDA-cleared wearable baby monitor. Workman and his co-founders Zach Bomsta, Jordan Monroe and Jacob Colvin met in college and launched Owlet in 2015, building it from $0 to $20 million in revenue in its first year. The company went public in…