Mike Hofman


Remembering Jeff Timmons, Top Entrepreneurial Thinker

By Mike Hofman |  Apr 14, 2008

Jeff Timmons, a trailblazing professor of entrepreneurship and a longtime member of the faculty at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, died on Apr...  Read story

How to Get on Oprah

By Mike Hofman |  Apr 14, 2008

Writing on the blog Marketing Sherpa, a publicist named Susan Harrow of Harrow Communications in Oakland offers readers a list of do's and don'ts for gett...  Read story

Taking Forced Scarcity to the Extreme

By Mike Hofman |  Apr 8, 2008

"Forced scarcity" is one of those business strategies that seems easier said than done. Book publishers are thus encouraged to sell limited editions and w...  Read story

New Brands, Old Familiar Ads

By Mike Hofman |  Apr 4, 2008

Some PhotoShop geeks at a small Long Island company called Worth1000 are running an online contest that...  Read story

A Patch for the H-1B Visa System?

By Mike Hofman |  Apr 2, 2008

The H-1B visa debate is heating up once again, as the government began accepting new visa applications covering the 2009 fiscal year on April 1. The H-1B ...  Read story

"Fear and Doubt" in the Valley

By Mike Hofman |  Mar 18, 2008

How will the demise of Bear Stearns and the concomitant credit crunch affect the financing options of entrepreneurial growth companies? "[A] cash drought ...  Read story

Title Creep: the Chief Revenue Officer

By Mike Hofman |  Mar 1, 2008

Why a job title left over from the dot-com days is suddenly ubiquitous.  Read story

Updates

By Mike Hofman |  Mar 1, 2008

From Tinkerer to Franchiser Since being featured in our start-up issue ("Read story

Neighbor's Recruiting Stunt Targets Yahoo

By Mike Hofman |  Feb 15, 2008

Employers have long turned to troubled companies to recruit talented employees. But they don't always bring their charm offensive to a venue as intimate a...  Read story

To Help Business, First Help the Banks

By Mike Hofman |  Feb 6, 2008

Congress has put together a stimulus package that would provide rebates to taxpayers and allow businesses to write-off more expenses. That's all fine and ...  Read story

Being Al Gore

By Mike Hofman |  Feb 1, 2008

Entrepreneurs offer advice to the veep-cum-venture capitalist.  Read story

How Much Would You Pay to Interview Me?

By Mike Hofman |  Jan 28, 2008

Entrepreneurs are fond of saying that, in the war for talent, they'll do anything to attract the very best job seekers. A new website suggests a fairly si...  Read story

Affordable Luxury, R.I.P.?

By Mike Hofman |  Jan 24, 2008

"It was a retail juggernaut that swept through America's shopping malls and bedroom closets, rewriting the rules of class and consumption. But affordable ...  Read story

An All-American Brand Goes Public on the Dutch Exchange

By Mike Hofman |  Jan 15, 2008

Tommy Hilfiger, the purveyor of preppy apparel that won a loyal following among hip hop artists and their fans in the 1990s, is set to go public. The comp...  Read story

What is Zagat's Worth?

By Mike Hofman |  Jan 14, 2008

Zagat's, the publishing company whose ubiquitous maroon books rate everything from barbecue joints to posh golf courses, is for sale, the New York Times r...  Read story

Do Company Bloggers Deserve Hazard Pay?

By Mike Hofman |  Jan 7, 2008

"Some Brand-Name Bloggers Say Stress of Posting Is a Hazard to Their Health." So headlines the Read story

Is a Bad Boss Good for the Bottom Line?

By Mike Hofman |  Jan 4, 2008

Earlier today, I was interviewed by Stuart Varney on Fox Business News, about a column Leigh Buchanan wrote that listed seven signs that your employees ha...  Read story

Is a Bad Boss Good for the Bottom Line?

By Mike Hofman |  Jan 4, 2008

Earlier today, I was interviewed by Stuart Varney on Fox Business News, about a column Leigh Buchanan wrote that listed seven signs that your employees ha...  Read story

Why Entrepreneurs Shouldn't Be Allowed to Drive

By Mike Hofman |  Jan 3, 2008

Okay, I'm kidding. Nobody deserves that BMW 5 series more than you. Honest. But two news items today suggests that perhaps you are unwittingly the cause o...  Read story

Breaking Through

By Mike Hofman |  Jan 1, 2008

How companies just like yours mushroomed into powerhouses in their industries. A conversation with Keith R. McFarland.  Read story

All Hail Crisco

By Mike Hofman |  Dec 26, 2007

If you or someone in your family baked a pie or cake using Crisco this holiday season, you were using a product that has been a staple of the American kit...  Read story

A Smarter Segway?

By Mike Hofman |  Dec 17, 2007

Some students at MIT have developed a fold-up scooter for use primarily in cities in Asia, where car traffic is reaching staggering levels. According to a...  Read story

An Entrepreneurial King... and Kingmaker

By Mike Hofman |  Dec 11, 2007

The latest issue of Inc. features reporter Ryan McCarthy's round-up of the notable entrepreneurs who have died this year. The Read story

Am I Reading This Right?

By Mike Hofman |  Dec 6, 2007

A new survey of 139 American entrepreneurs found that 35 percent identify themselves as dyslexic, according to the New York Times. The research was compil...  Read story

Exit Strategist of the Year

By Mike Hofman |  Dec 1, 2007

Mary and Gary West are probably the richest American couple you've never heard of--and they did it the new-fashioned way. They took their...  Read story

Notables '07

By Max Chafkin, Nitasha Tiku, Leigh Buchanan, Mike Hofman and Stephanie Clifford |  Dec 1, 2007

More great people, ideas, and businesses...  Read story

CEOs Give Thanks

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 21, 2007

At the risk of being corny, I asked some entrepreneurs I know what they were thankful for this year. Dan Hoffman, the CEO of M5 Networks, a compa...  Read story

Obama Speaks at Google

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 19, 2007

Various presidential candidates have been making the pilgrimage to Mountain View to speak at the offices of Google. It's good PR, not to mention access t...  Read story

The Best Packaging is None At All

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 15, 2007

Lush is one of the hottest retailers in London, a hip cosmetics company with an environmentally friendly repuation. So how does a company with that kind o...  Read story

The Best Packaging is None At All

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 15, 2007

Lush is one of the hottest retailers in London, a hip cosmetics company with an environmentally friendly repuation. So how does a company with that kind o...  Read story

Building a Better Baby Bottle

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 14, 2007

Jennifer Morrill's father was constantly inventing things, from a wind generator to a baby bottle. That last product seemed to have legs, so he set up a c...  Read story

Building a Better Baby Bottle

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 14, 2007

Jennifer Morrill's father was constantly inventing things, from a wind generator to a baby bottle. That last product seemed to have legs, so he set up a c...  Read story

Managing Those Pesky Millennials

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 12, 2007

The 80 million millennial workers born between 1980 and 1995 are now streaming into the workplace, and they are hellbent on rewriting the rules of America...  Read story

Bullying Bosses Beware

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 9, 2007

Are you a screamer? Demanding when it comes to your assistants? Well, you may want to reconsider the old Read story

The Modern Dilemma: "Who Owns What?"

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 7, 2007

At first blush, the concept of a writer's strike strikes me as, well, funny—pencils of the world unite! And I happen to be a writer. I imagine for m...  Read story

The Modern Dilemma: "Who Owns What?"

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 7, 2007

At first blush, the concept of a writer's strike strikes me as, well, funny—pencils of the world unite! And I happen to be a writer. I imagine for m...  Read story

Office Munchausen Syndrome

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 5, 2007

Years ago, a co-worker and I used to joke about a boss who constantly swooped in to "get everyone back on schedule." We felt that the manager's efforts, w...  Read story

Office Munchausen Syndrome

By Mike Hofman |  Nov 5, 2007

Years ago, a co-worker and I used to joke about a boss who constantly swooped in to "get everyone back on schedule." We felt that the manager's efforts, w...  Read story

Superpoking Bill Gates

By Max Chafkin, Bobbie Gossage and Mike Hofman |  Nov 1, 2007

Ten questions we'd like to ask Microsoft's founder about his company's play for Facebook.  Read story

Good News for Growth Companies

By Mike Hofman |  Oct 31, 2007

While most business pundits are delighted by the fact that the economy bested expectations and grew at 3.9 percent in the third quarter, I think that ther...  Read story