The Association for Entrepreneurship USA
Success by Association
The Association for Entrepreneurship USA serves independent and small business leaders across all 50 states through community involvement, peer mentoring and education. By joining forces for greater purchasing power, we offer todays entrepreneur the competitive edge needed to compete in todays digital world.
Discussion Forum
Entrepreneurship can be tough, but you don’t have to go it alone. Connect with other entrepreneurs.
Newsletters
Learn about member benefits and AFEUSA news from our past newsletters.
Library
A collection of resources to help you achieve your entrepreneurial goals.
Joel Weldon
Get some inspiration from one of the country’s top motivational speakers.
Recent Articles
Someone Is Where You Were Two Years Ago
THE IDEA The easiest way to see how far you've come is to talk to someone who's just starting. What you know now would have saved you months back then. When you spend most of your time looking ahead, at the people further along, the bigger businesses, the goals you...
“I’ll Find Out” Is a Professional Answer
THE IDEA Experts don't know everything. They know how to find out, and they're honest when they need to. A client trusts that more than a confident guess. It happens to everyone eventually. You're on a call with a client, things are going well, and then they ask a...
You Don’t Have to Love Every Part of It
THE IDEA Every business includes work you'd rather not do. Disliking some of it doesn't mean you chose wrong. It means you're running a real business. There's an idea floating around that if you've found the right business, you'll love all of it. Do what you love, and...
How to Turn Your Knowledge and Experience Into a Side Business
Turning knowledge and experience into a side business requires packaging your expertise into services or products that generate revenue. This allows professionals to commercialize skills with minimal startup overhead and zero inventory constraints. The process begins...
Understanding and Addressing Stress
Feeling stressed? You’re not alone. Recent studies show that more people are experiencing higher levels of stress these days and for longer periods. Stress is often defined as a normal reaction to everyday challenges. It can be short-term, long-term, or recurring. It...
Find Out How Much Trouble You’re Actually In
When a business starts to slip, the owner usually feels it before they can measure it. Fewer calls. A quieter inbox. A bank balance that seems lower than it should be. That feeling is useful as an alarm, but it's a poor guide to what to do next. Some owners panic over...
Listerine Spent 40 Years Looking for Its Problem
In 1879, a St. Louis chemist named Joseph Lawrence created an alcohol-based antiseptic and named it Listerine, after Joseph Lister, the surgeon who championed sterile surgery. Lawrence first promoted it as a surgical antiseptic. Two years later he licensed the formula...
Angry Birds Was Rovio’s 52nd Game
In 2003, three university students in Finland, Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert, won a game development competition and used the win to start a small studio called Relude. Two years later, after bringing in its first angel investor, the company renamed...
Book the Recovery Day When You Book the Deadline
THE PRACTICE Whenever you agree to a demanding deadline, block the day after it as a light day at the same moment, before anything else can claim it. Big deadlines have a familiar pattern. The week before is long days and late nights. You hit the deadline, send the...
Nobody Set Up Your Desk
THE PRACTICE Give your own workspace the same check an employer would: chair, screen height, lighting and how often you get up. Fix the worst problem first. At many larger companies, someone thinks about how you sit. There's an adjustable chair, a monitor at the right...
Your Phone Is Your Office, So Give It Closing Hours
THE PRACTICE Set your phone so business apps and notifications go quiet at a fixed time each evening and come back at a fixed time each morning, automatically. When you had a job, the office had a front door. You walked out, and the work mostly stayed behind. Even the...
Your Work Keeps Going After You Hand It Over
THE IDEA Your part of the job ends when you deliver it. The difference it makes keeps going long after, mostly where you can't see it. One of the stranger parts of running a small business is how often your work disappears. You finish the project, send the files, get...