15 Websites To Sharpen Your Business Skills
Posted February 10, 2009 in Business, Tools/Resources 39 Comments »
From management, to marketing, to finances — business skills of all varieties are critical to have in this economy and incredibly beneficial no matter what your situation.
In this article we’ve collected 15 different websites that will help you sharpen your business skill set in a number of different ways. Each of these sites is an incredible source of information, and some of them are easily worth reading on a daily basis.
Here’s the list:
1. BNET
Category: Management, General
Bnet is a new-ish website that has become a major resource for anything having to do with business. They specifically focus on management, and much of the advice is directed towards working with other people and larger companies or situations.
2. Harvard Business Blog
Category: Management, General
A collection of Harvard’s best business bloggers, this site is a virtual goldmine of intelligent information. Most of the articles revolve around conceptual ideas and business practices, with a significant amount of real-world examples.
3. Get Rich Slowly
Category: Finance
Get Rich Slowly is a personal finance blog with advice that is beneficial to all types of people in many different situations. For a basic overview of good personal finance habits, and some very motivational stories, definitely check this out.
4. TechCrunch
Category: Online Business, Technology
There’s no better site for following online business news and announcements than TechCrunch. For anyone involved with web startups, blogging, or other online businesses, this is definitely a must read.
5. VentureBeat
Category: New Ventures, Technology
VentureBeat covers a broad range of topics with a focus on new ventures and other entrepreneurial news. Most of this content relates to technology or the internet in some way. Reading this on a regular basis will ensure you are kept up with the newest business trends.
6. Knowledge@Wharton
Category: General Business
Another of the nation’s top business schools has decided to take some of that knowledge and place it online in a blog format. Knowledge@Wharton covers a number of topics including finance, investment, leadership, management, ethics, and many others. This is an incredibly informative and useful resource.
7. Entrepreneur Magazine
Category: Entrepreneurship
This is the website of one of the top entrepreneurial magazines in the world. With most of the content coming directly from the same editorial staff and sources as the magazine, you are guaranteed to find useful and informative content here.
8. The Motley Fool
Category: Investing, Finance
The Motley fool is a great website focused on investing and financial advice. They cover just about any topic in those areas, and offer a great way to improve your financial knowledge and decision making.
9. How To Change The World
Category: Business General
Guy Kawasaki’s Blog provides an insider look at the many interesting bits of information that are learned by a venture capitalist and entrepreneur. Guy blogs on a wide variety of topics, but all of it is very interesting and sometimes hard-to-find information.
10. WSJ Small Business
Category: Small Business
From the Wall Street Journal newspaper comes this excellent web resource for small businesses. This site tackles the many developments in both the economy and the various global markets that affect small business owners. You can find both news and how-to articles.
11. Seth Godin’s Blog
Category: Marketing, Small Business
Seth Godin is probably one of the most famous marketing authors on the planet, and on top of that he’s had experience with many varieties of small business. On his blog he writes about both marketing and business, with almost all of his posts containing short and very potent ideas.
12. Inc. Magazine
Category: Entrepreneurship, Small Business
From the creators of Inc. Magazine, the Inc.com website provides an online portal into an enormous amount of entrepreneurial information. These articles cover tech, startups, finding capital, management, and many other topics important to entrepreneurs.
13. OnStartups
Category: Startups, Entrepreneurship
OnStartups is a blog about, well, startups. Most of their articles are about entrepreneurs and startup companies (especially online companies), but they also frequently address the larger economic or market factors that influence us all.
14. ZDNet
Category: Technology
What does a technology site have to do with business? In the case of ZDNet, a lot. Though their content is primarily tech related, it is frequently laced with business information and thoughts about the decision-making process of larger tech companies. This is a great resource to get a feel for the overall tech industry.
15. Open Forum
Category: Small Business, General business
Open Forum is a free collection of information and resources provided for small business owners by American Express (yes, the credit card company). Despite the threat of being spammy, these articles are very informative and extremely useful, especially their interviews with famous business owners and entrepreneurs.
Well, that’s it for our list of business resources — do you have any to add? Leave us your favorite websites in the comments.
About the author: Mason Hipp is an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and writer. He blogs about life and business at FreelanceFolder.com and is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer. Follow him on twitter @MasonHipp
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39 Comments
Shevonne
February 10th, 2009 at 5:41 pmGreat list, thanks! I actually subscribe to the majority of these. =D
simon
February 10th, 2009 at 6:51 pmyes actually http://www.venturelevel.com is a good one
Cam
February 10th, 2009 at 6:54 pmGood stuff! Seth Godin is a must read on all things marketing.
Matthew Heidenreich
February 10th, 2009 at 8:05 pmnice list… thanks for the share +digg
Sarah
February 11th, 2009 at 12:08 amExcellent blog list. I personally like TechCrunch but Inc is not bad too. Others, I will take some time to check out of course.
Emily
February 11th, 2009 at 12:52 amThanks for the great resources! By the way, the TechCrunch link isn’t working…I think there’s an extra “w” in http://www.:-)
Isabel Gil Pereira
February 11th, 2009 at 4:55 amThanks for the post! The bif part of them are new for me so I will take a look ;)
JohnONolan
February 11th, 2009 at 6:05 amAwsome list, going to be having a look at all of those in detail today :)
DJ Iron Chef
February 11th, 2009 at 9:10 amThis is an incredible compilation and daily must reads for any startup entrepreneur – I particularly like Guy Kawasaki’s “How to Change the World” blog. How did you rank these sites? Is there any particular order?
Patrick
February 11th, 2009 at 10:34 amGreat list. We have a lot of them in our aggregator at http://www.SmallBusinessTools.com/Aggregator Some other really good ones not on the list (other than us!) include: BizSugar — http://www.bizsugar.com/ (it’s like Digg, but for Business Articles), Small Business Trends — http://smallbiztrends.com/ (excellent site with a lot of great, topical, information), and Young Entrepreneur — http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog/ (great advice for people just starting out)
joyoge designers' bookmark
February 11th, 2009 at 10:54 amThanks for the great resources!
Dragon Blogger
February 11th, 2009 at 11:40 amGreat list of sites, I will be visiting most of them today. Thank you for sharing this article.
Alexander Kintis
February 11th, 2009 at 12:11 pmExcellent
IslandDesign
February 11th, 2009 at 2:47 pmThis is a great post! I have visited a few of these from time to time. Here are a couple to add to the list…
Visa Small Business is one of the sponsors of Entrepreneur.com – Lots of great resources here as well. http://usa.visa.com/business/
The Simple Dollar is filled with advice relating to everything financial for both your business and personal life – http://www.thesimpledollar.com/
All the best,
Karen
AJ Kumar
February 11th, 2009 at 3:31 pmGREAT LIST, I’ve actually reviewed all these blogs before, so we do think a like. I think you missed one….mine ;)
AJ Kumar
Leah Dossey
February 12th, 2009 at 12:34 amGreat list of resources – but you have forgotten the largest non-profit organization for women owned businesses – Count Me In. They have amazing resources and actually get involved with helping women secure funding, coaching, advice, community and more. Your list really isn’t complete with out them. Why do I care? Well, right after hurricane Ike in Texas this fall, I found out that through Count Me In I was selected by Sam’s Club as one of 25 women to get the Sam Walton Emerging Entreprenuer Award. Count Me In has changed my business life – as it has for every woman I know who is a part of the organization. Check out their website http://www.countmein.org You will be amazed!
Naldz Graphics
February 12th, 2009 at 1:45 amGreat list!!=)dugg:)
Kalpesh K
February 12th, 2009 at 9:16 amHow could you miss McKinsey Quarterly?
Clinton Boyda
February 13th, 2009 at 3:00 amYou definitely forgot the most important – a way to manage all this information!
http://www.4hourworkweek.com
A ton of great links but at the end we need some way to incorporate it into our lives…
justinrfrench
February 14th, 2009 at 8:11 pmi actually subscribe to 7 out of the 15 (and still i feel like i have information overload) or am i not using the right filters???
twitterholic justinrfrench
Andrew Collinson
February 14th, 2009 at 8:17 pmGreat list, reading Tribes by Seth Godin right now.
Simone Brummelhuis
February 17th, 2009 at 11:41 amWe challenge the existing news sites with our site http://www.thenextwomen.com: news on women leading, investing and founding companies, in the internet industry and beyond.
Roto
February 17th, 2009 at 7:48 pmI have been reading InformationWeek for 16 years and they recently started a Canadian version. Both are free and keep me current on technology and trends.
Amber Weinberg
February 21st, 2009 at 1:37 amGreat business sites and blogs. Will definitely be reading!
Pam Abbazia
March 4th, 2009 at 11:38 amGreat list of business resources. I already follow a few of them on Twitter. If you want to do the same, here’s the list:
http://twitter.com/bnet
http://twitter.com/harvardbiz
http://twitter.com/jdroth (Get Rich Slowly)
http://twitter.com/TechCrunch
http://twitter.com/venturebeat
http://twitter.com/knowledgwharton
http://twitter.com/EntMagazine
http://twitter.com/TheMotleyFool
http://twitter.com/guykawasaki (How to Change the World/Guy Kawasaki)
http://twitter.com/WSJ (main WSJ)
http://twitter.com/WSJSmallBiz (WSJ Small Biz)
http://twitter.com/IncMagazine
http://twitter.com/onstartups
http://twitter.com/ZDNet (ZDNet news)
http://twitter.com/ZDNetBlogs (ZDNet blogs)
http://twitter.com/openforumblog (Amex Open — not yet active)
Fergal, Business Advice Forum
July 13th, 2009 at 5:22 amGreat list, I’ve linked to this post from the Useful Business Resources thread on my forum.
vipin cheriyanveetil
September 15th, 2009 at 3:55 amHey it is a very useful and nice article. Keep the gud work going !!!
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