The Wall Street Journal:

Where can entrepreneurs find office space, a research assistant, mentors and access to reams of market research — all free of charge?

Try your local library.

In an age where Google has become a verb and entrepreneurs have easy access to information from their home computers, libraries have been trying to evolve as well.

Some have seemingly become small-business incubators in their own right: places where cash-strapped start-ups and established business owners alike can gather sophisticated information on a target market, draw up a business plan, bounce an idea off a seasoned executive, or perhaps, even find funding or build a Web site.

While resources will vary across institutions, most libraries subscribe to a number of commercial databases, which can cost thousands of dollars a year.

(via BizOpps)

Business 2.0 magazine offers their 31 Best Business Ideas in the world. 

Ideas include:

1. Build cheap Wi-Fi networks for Brazilian resorts.

2. Become a biodiesel producer in Argentina.

3. Create an ad network for India’s mobile content developers.

4. Launch an exclusive social network for Russian millionaires.

5. Open an American-style restaurant in one of China’s fast-growing cities.

6. Remodel homes for China’s burgeoning middle class.

Even though this is out of the reach of most American small businesses, this is still a great resource for brainstorming new business ideas.  As the saying goes “ideas are the currency of the Entrepreneur”.

From The Lazy Way to Success:

10. You are unemployable. You can’t hold a job. You don’t want to hold a job. And you react to getting a job the same way a cat reacts when you try to give it a bath. 

9. You are anti-authoritarian. You can’t fathom the thought of being anything less than Boss, President, Chairman, Don, and/or Emperor. 

8. You have the uncanny ability to get other people to do all the work. 

7. You are always looking for and/or seeing economic opportunity everywhere and in everything. While at a concert, you occupy yourself by estimating the evening’s take and its gross margins instead of listening to the music. 

6. You spend more time and energy looking for easier, faster, cheaper, more effective ways of accomplishing something than if you just did the task outright. 

5. You would enthusiastically trade a life-time pass to Disneyland for one ride in the Vomit Comet. In other words, you would give up a secure, even-keeled, bland existence for a life that whipsaws uncontrollably between exhilaration and terror. 

4. You don’t see lack of money, lack of knowledge, and lack of experience as barriers to entry. You are also not deterred by the existence of formidable competition. 

3. You favor multiplication over addition and you lull yourself to sleep by calculating price-earnings ratios. 

2. You would happily invest your home’s equity and your life savings (and your mother’s life savings) in your start-up. 

And the Number One sign you are made to be an entrepreneur . . .

1. When you project future earnings, your spread sheet shows that by Year 5, you can buy Argentina and sell it to Brazil. 

Great post by BusinessPundit on what he’s learned about the key to entrepreneurship:

The first blow came when I realized that ideas are mostly worthless. Somebody else has thought of your invention, they just haven’t built it. If no one had thought of your idea, then it is probably beyond current technology to build anyway. That is why you don’t see business plans for time machines.

When that was stripped away, I realized it was all about being first to market. Right?

The second blow came when I realized that too was wrong. Google wasn’t first to market. Neither was Microsoft. Few companies successful over the long term were first to market. First to market means you get to learn from your own mistakes… and so does your competition. But it costs you more than it does them. So I put that aside and started to think it was about the execution.

I was getting warmer now, and at least I hit on something that really makes a difference, but the third blow came when I realized execution wasn’t enough. Peter Drucker wrote that “nothing is worse than doing something very efficiently that shouldn’t be done at all.” He’s right. I could execute the hell out of a dumb business plan and I might have enough for a bus ride at the end of it, if I borrowed $0.50 from you.

He comes to the conclusion:

Good ideas for startups basically come from recognizing an opportunity that could perhaps be described as “productivity and/or value arbitrage.” You see a chance to do something better in a way that encourages people to pay for it. You see a way to let people trade time for money, simplicity for money, productivity for money, or some other combination.

If you want to start a company, study the economics of various industries. Look at how you create value for customers. Not assumed value. Not vapor-value that you think exists until you try to move from free to fee and realize no one will pay your fee.

If you want to start a business, please read the whole thing.

Top 10 reasons to become an entrepreneur from Everyday Entrepreneurs.

From the upcoming book The Entrepreneur Next Door:

Personality matters in becoming a successful entrepreneur. Recent studies show that successful entrepreneurs share a number of common personality traits that are the predominant indicators of success, outweighing education, family ties, skill, and experience.

The site offers an Entrepreneurial IQ test (you can skip the survey and just hit submit to start the test).

(Via Start Up Guide)

Looking for a franchise to start based on your experience or interests as a Mom or Dad?

From SmallBizMentor:

These companies offer services or products that appeal to parents due to a focus on children (their safety, fun or education, for instance) or parents (women’s health and wellness, streamlining the family’s lifestyle).

1. Kidzart (Fine arts education for kids)
2. Pump It Up (Children’s parties)
3. Liberty Fitness for Women (Women’s fitness program)
4. Abrakadoodle (Another art program for kids)
5. Mathnasium (Children’s learning centers)
6. Educational Outfitters (Children’s school uniforms)
7. CHIP (Child ID program)
8. Gymboree Play & Music (Parent/tot programs)
9. Supper Thyme (Pre-made meals)
10. Best Personalized Books (Personalized children’s stories)
11. Massage Envy (Massage therapy)
12. Kumon (Children’s learning centers)
13. Oxford Learning (Children’s learning centers)
14. The Tan Company (Tanning salons)

(Via BizOpportunities)

BusinessPundit offers this advice:

“Here are the top ten things I either did, or wish I had done, before I started my first business.”

Read them here.

Marketing guru Seth Godin offers his advice on vetting your business idea.

(Via BizOpportunities)

Dave Pollard offers 10 Reasons Why Young People are Afraid to Start Their Own Business and what to do about it.