A few weeks ago I gave some advice on a business forum. I noticed that the largest thread on the entire forum was focused on business book reviews – 20+ pages and hundreds of posts from members spending countless hours reading these business books when they could be taking action.

I’ve always learned by doing, so I decided to chime in and share my philosophy – Stop reading and start taking action!

Someone responded and informed me that I “was stating the obvious” and gave me a whole list of reasons why reading is good (the guy seriously needs to bring back reading rainbow if the whole entrepreneurial thing doesn’t work out for him) and he was going to make seven figures from all of the books he read (note that he said make, not made).

I come across people like this all of the time. They believe that bringing an idea to market and building a profitable business requires a certain type of elite knowledge only gained from books written by guru’s who became rich selling business books – very similar to what I discuss in this post.

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Many developers killed it with iPhone apps in 2010, however 2011 is the year of the tablet.

As always, there are huge opportunities for those who get in early, and even though the iPad has been out for a year the game is just getting started.

The media is still completely obsessed with the iPad and holiday sales for the iPad 1 were through the roof. I have never seen a single product receive so much hype and essentially free press. It’s just crazy to think that 12 months ago the tablet market was created out of thin air and yet these products now dominate tech news on a daily basis.

A few days ago Apple announced their second quarter earnings and iPad 2 sales were a bit of a disappointment, not because of slow sales but because Apple can’t produce them fast enough – now thats a good problem to have!

The Blackberry Playbook was just launched and will add fuel to the fire, however the reviews are a good indication that RIM and Motorola are still a year or two behind Apple with the hardware and software. This confirms that developing for the iPad is still the place to be, at least for the next year.

A recent poll showed that even though iPad sales were high this holiday season, only 5% of adults in the US currently own a tablet computer. Think about that for a second, 95% of consumers are not yet a part of this market.

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When starting a new project there is one saying that I always have in the back of my mind “Build for the masses to eat with the classes”. This saying was passed on to me by my grandfather. His company developed a lot of the Philadelphia waterfront and took on a few big projects in England. My grandfather has since retired and moved out to Colorado, but doesn’t hesitate to give me great business advice when I need it.

During a phone call yesterday, I told him I was thinking about writing a blog article about his saying. He was quick to point out that although he would like to take credit for it – the saying was actually passed along to him when he was first starting out by a very prominent builder at the time named Mayer Blum.

Like many self made entrepreneurs, my grandfather struggled when first starting out. One of his first projects was rehabbing historic homes in a very wealthy area of Philadelphia. Selling high priced items to the wealthy, should make you a lot of money, right? Unfortunately this isn’t always the case, my grandfather found himself putting a lot of effort in but making a very small profit. However his entire mindset and business strategy changed after Mayer Blum took him out to lunch one day and gave him some advice that he would never forget.
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Today a “financial expert” in the Wall Street Journal proposed that you can save $2000 by holding off on an iPad 2 and investing the $500 over the next 30 years. Yeah seriously….

You don’t have to look far to find bad financial advice these days. Many of these so called financial experts will tell you the same thing: Find a steady 9 to 5 job, pinch pennies for 30 to 40 years, and if you’re disciplined enough you will be rich by the time you retire.

The truth is that many of these so called financial experts, like Suze Orman (who is worth $25 million dollars) do not live by their own advice. They haven’t become rich because of their frugality. They are rich because of their entrepreneurship, million dollar book deals, tv shows and seminars.

Popular sites like GetRichSlowly encourage readers to live as cheaply as possible and avoid any kind of debt like the plague. Ironically this site was secretly bought by Quinstreet, a company that focuses on generating new customers for the credit card companies and banks.

I’m a big believer in having a solid portfolio of assets, putting your money to work, and developing a comprehensive long term financial plan. However my long term plan doesn’t include living broke now so that I can live rich when I’m a senior citizen.

Living “broke” doesn’t necessarily mean financially broke. Many people don’t realize that money is not your most valuable asset – time is.

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Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong are singing “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” The music is the perfect compliment to the big comfy chair I’m sitting in while sipping on a tall latte. I’m by myself but not alone. I’m surrounded by a number of green-aproned Barista’s and thirty of my closest friends, well not exactly friends in the traditional sense. They’re other Starbucks customers.

This is my local Starbucks. One of a few in my neighborhood, the one I have the most affinity to. I’ve been coming here since they opened the doors fifteen or so years ago and have seen the store and the brand change considerably in that time. It was a few logos ago. Before wi-fi. When all they sold was coffee, mugs and pastries. But today’s shop is filled with sandwiches, salads, assorted granola bars, CD’s, iTunes cards, gift cards and more. Most striking too is how one side of the place looks like a room at my local library with long tables and countless electrical outlets where people come to plug in. Students. Business people. A cup of coffee could buy you hours of time. Not just any time. Digital time. A digital network to be precise.

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