The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

I just wanted to take a minute to let you all know that the StartUp Blog is now the primary syndicated blog for the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business entrepreneurship blog.

UGA’s Terry Entrepreneurship Program, directed by serial-entrepreneur Chris Hanks, instructs aspiring entrepreneurs with a student-driven focus. It seems like much of what powers the program to extend its reach is instigated by the students themselves. I’ve done a little research on Terry Entrepreneurship, and it looks like a great option for both graduates and undergraduates interested in a well-networked, close-knit environment. Anyway, I’m excited and proud to be a part of this program, albeit a very small part. I encourage you to check out their blog to learn more.

I’m thrilled to announce today that PartnerUp has been acquired by Deluxe Corporation (NYSE: DLX), a Twin Cities-based Fortune 1000 company that offers small businesses products and services to help owners manage, grow and promote their businesses.

So what does all of this mean for you? Well, on the one hand it means nothing. I’ll still be running the business, the entire PartnerUp team is staying on and will still be working to grow the business and help our customers, and together we’re still going to provide you with all of the useful tools and content that we have been all along.

On the other hand, Deluxe is presenting us with the opportunity to give you even more. Deluxe has been around for more than 90 years, generates $1.6 Billion in annual revenue, employs more than 7,000 people, and has more than 6 million small business customers.

With these additional resources from Deluxe, we’re going to do things bigger and better, and we’re going to keep doing them just for you without changing our focus one bit. In addition, by welcoming Deluxe’s more than 6 million small-business customers to the PartnerUp community, we hope to greatly boost the number of people, opportunities and resources that you’ll be able to find on PartnerUp.

Why did we decide to sell PartnerUp? The answer is mostly Lee Schram, the CEO of Deluxe, and the team that he’s assembled. In my career, I’ve had an opportunity to meet a lot of CEOs and leadership teams, but I’ve never met a management team who so passionately recognizes where they want to be, has such a strong sense of urgency, and is willing to commit the resources necessary to get there. Lee and his team truly understand PartnerUp and our model, and their excitement about our business was one of the key factors in our decision to sell to Deluxe.

This is an exciting time both for everyone here at PartnerUp. We look forward to taking things to the next level here and working hard to give you the tools and resources that help you do the same with your company.

I just wanted to take a second to let you all know that posts will be lighter this week. I have a bunch of different jobs here at PartnerUp, and this week I’m going to be pretty swamped working on some exciting new initiatives—more on those later. Posting will pick up again later this week.

You may have noticed some changes on the Startup Blog during the past two weeks or so. Posts are becoming more frequent, and content is hopefully becoming more engaging.

Well I will gladly take credit for that (unless you don’t like the changes, in which case it was someone else’s fault). As of today I am fully in charge of the blog, and along with that I am looking to kick it up a notch.

From now on posts will be daily, Monday through Friday that is. I’m a firm believer in working hard during the week and living it up on the weekend, so don’t expect anything out of me Saturday or Sunday, or any time after happy hour starts on Friday.

I’m also looking to tweak the content a bit. My goal is to provide you with material that is engaging and current. There are tons of issues plaguing entrepreneurs and small business owners these days, so if there’s a pressing matter that I’m neglecting, I encourage you to let me know (email me at: startupblog at partnerup dot com). I promise I won’t be offended.

I also welcome your comments—good or bad. Nothing drives discussion like a good debate. I’m not afraid to unapologetically go round-for-round with you, so don’t be afraid to do the same with me. I really do enjoy it. Honestly!

Now that I’ve outlined the “new and improved” Startup Blog, I suppose it’s time to do the obligatory “tell you a little bit about myself.” Well, I have a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota. My background is in all-things writing, but not necessarily small business writing. Since I’ve been working at PartnerUp, however, I’ve learned more than I ever expected about the fast-paced, innovation-driven world of small business and entrepreneurship. I swear, you people are machines—in a good way of course. I also hate acronyms, am obsessed with checking the weather. Oh, and if you didn’t already catch it in the byline, my name is Megan.

So I guess that is my “in a nutshell” introduction. I look forward to writing for you, and I sincerely hope that I can live up to any expectations that I may have set with this post.

Welcome to this week’s Carnival of The Capitalists. 

This blog (The StartUp Blog) is a brand new blog that we just launched last week and we’re honored to have the chance to host the carnival. We’ll be focusing entirely on entrepreneurial, startup, and small business topics and will feature a variety of content ranging from Q&A’s with successful entrepreneurs, startup news, tips and advice on building a business, and more!

This blog is written by members of the PartnerUp team, including Steve, Dane, and Mike. In case you’re wondering what PartnerUp is, it’s a social network for entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, and people who are interested in getting involved in business. If you get a chance, check it out. We’re sure that you’ll find it interesting.

We received some great submissions this week, so without further ado, here’s the carnival:
 

Editor’s Choice

Rob presents The Introvert’s Guide To Selling posted at Businesspundit.

Tim Berry presents Do You Need a Business Plan? at The StartUp Blog.

Leon Gettler presents Interview with Brian Bacon, head of the Oxford Leadership Academy posted at Sox First.

Mike Buckley presents Bad Ideas posted at Mine Your Own Business.

Jay Deragon presents The Creativity Factors posted at A Relationship Economy…. With Whom & What.

Sales and Marketing

Gavin Ingham presents Stand up if you like cold calling! posted at Gavin Ingham.

Anita Campbell presents Tracking Trends: It is All in the Data at SmallBizTrends.

Douglas Karr presents Blogs are not Forums - Making them a Great Corporate Marketing Tool  on Marketing Technology Blog.

Drew McLellan presents Are you giving your marketing tactics enough time? at Drew’s Marketing Minute.

Technology and Innovation

Karel Vandenberghe presents Best Practice Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing Examples posted at Open Innovators - Open innovation and crowdsourcing.

Erick Schonfeld presents E-Commerce Sales Up 23 % in Q3 at TechCrunch.

Graeme Thickins presents Compellent: Three Guys in a Basement to an IPO at Tech~Surf~Blog.

Jack Yoest presents Management of New Media: 4 Lessons From The Washington Briefing posted at Yoest.com.

Leadership and Management

Wolly Bock presents Leadership development: The way we do things now posted at Three Start Leadership blog.

John Crenshaw presents Are You Proactive or Reactive? posted at Dominate Your Life.

Michelle Cramer presents Taking Business Ques from Nintendo posted at GreatFX Business Cards.

Steven Lohrenz presents Giving Is the Beginning of Receiving posted at Steven Lohrenz.

John Crickett presents How To Motivate Employees posted at Business Opportunities And Ideas.

Wayne Hurlbert presents Recession proof your business posted at Blog Business World.

Andy Birol presents Commitment and Independence: Your Greatest Entrepreneurial Strengths! posted at Birol’s Blog.

wilson ng presents SME 1- Should you get an MBA? posted at Reflections of a BizDrivenLife.

Pamela Slim presents Reality vs. theory in a high-growth, bootstrapping business at Escape from Cubicle Nation.

Tony Clark presents The Life of an Entrepreneur Is Like Picture-In-Picture at Success from The Nest.

Scott Allen presents The Important of Income Automation at Scott Allen’s Entrepreneurs Blog.

Dee Barizo presents The Secret to Getting Motivated at Net Business Blog.

Shannon Cherry presents Begin with the end at StartupSpark.

Dane Fox presents Negotiating Tips for Startups at The StartUp Blog.

Finance and Investing

FIRE Finance presents TIPS for Inflation and Deflation! posted at FIRE Finance.

Matthew Paulson presents How To Keep Your Money Federally Insured After the $100,000 FDIC Limit posted at FinanceIsPersonal.com.

Amy L. Fontinelle presents Alternatives to Investing in Socially Responsible Funds posted at Saving Advice Blog.

Charles H. Green presents Short-termism, ROI and Green Economics posted at Trust Matters.

FMF presents Key to Credit Card Success: Pick the Right Credit Card for Your Spending Habits posted at Free Money Finance.

Dereck presents If At All Possible, Leave Your Chips On The Table posted at The Best Stock Trading in the World.

Sanjay Kumar presents Getting paid faster posted at SimplifyThis.

George presents A review of Active Value Investing, the book on Fat Pitch Financials.

The Economy, Law, Government, and Policy

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Nope, Not Selling Our House. Not Even For 1000% Rate Of Return In 2 Years! posted at The Digerati Life.

Henry Stern discusses Health care at InsureBlog.

James Hamilton of Econbrowser examines some of the long-run factors behind this week’s new highs for oil prices in Why is oil above $90?

Menzie Chinn of Econbrowser presents Have Net Exports Ever Prevented the U.S. from Going into Recession?

Ian Welsh presents There’s No Free Lunch In Private Equity Or Nursing Care posted at The Agonist.

rocketc presents The Ethics of Rewards Credit Cards posted at rocket finance.

Stirling Newberry presents Don’t shoot your friends posted at The Agonist.

Adam presents Peaked oil posted at Sophistpundit.

Thanks for stopping by. We’re excited to officially launch PartnerUp’s StartUp Blog today.

This blog will feature news, trends, strategies, and advice for startups and entrepreneurs.

The blog is written by members of the PartnerUp team, including Steve, Dane, and Mike.

PartnerUp is a social network for entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, and people who are interested in getting involved in business. We come across hundreds of questions and stories from entrepreneurs each week and we decided that a blog would be a great place to offer some insight, share our thoughts, offer up some resources, and share some success stories from entrepreneurs.

Initially, we’ll be updating this blog daily. But, we hope to start publishing much more frequently within the next month or two.

We hope that you enjoy the blog!

If you have any suggestions for how we can improve the blog, please drop us a note at startupblog (-at-) partnerup.com.