• Rules from the BABY’s Book on Becoming a Billionaire
  
  

  • Rule #39: To quote Bob Dylan, "the times they are a changing.'"

  • Rule #107: You don’t have to be smart to be rich. The Entrenaut has a better chance at wealth than the brainiac.

• Do you want to be queen OR rich? Although the sector of women entrepreneurs is increasing rapidly, Myra Hart contends that women typically resist shared ownership, making it difficult to successfully raise outside capital to grow their businesses.

• My(personal)Space. According to co-creator Jason Feffer, two keys to MySpace’s success were allowing users to freely express themselves and maintaining control of their brand.

• Analysis paralysis. The entrepreneurial spirit will do more for your net worth than your IQ, according to Richistan, a new book by Robert Frank .

• Fall out of love and into wealth: Many technology entrepreneurs are too enamored with their ideas and neglect the needs of their potential customers, says market research expert Marshall Toplansky in our Ask the Expert segment.

• The sun shines in darkness. On this week’s "I wish I’d thought of that idea" idea, entrepreneur Mark Bent supplies a clean technology product and humanitarian service with solar powered flashlights.

Jason Feffer served as vice president of operations at MySpace.com which he helped to start. During his three years at MySpace, Feffer served on the executive committee and created the company’s operations department. As vice president of operations, half the employees (about 160 people) reported to him. Currently, he is the founder and CEO of Sodahead.com (link to www.sodahead.com), a new web site which allows users to create a poll and share it with others.

In 1999, Feffer joined Creative Planet where he led the technology efforts of two dozen web sites generating advertising revenue from a loyal readership of several hundred thousand film and television professionals. Prior to his Internet experiences, Feffer worked at Davidson & Associates (acquired by Vivendi Universal Games) and then Activision on entertainment and educational projects. Feffer holds a B.A. fine arts degree from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television.

Myra M. Hart is Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School where her research and teaching focuses on high potential entrepreneurship with an emphasis on the development of critical resources and relationships. She is a member of the Diana Group, a research team of five professors who collaborate in the investigation of the unique challenges and opportunities of female entrepreneurs. She and her colleagues have co-authored Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High Growth Businesses, Women Business Owners and Equity Capital: The Myths Dispelled, and Gatekeepers of Venture Growth: A Diana Project Report on the Role and Participation of Women in the Venture Capital Industry, as well as numerous journal articles, reports, and two edited books. She has developed more than 60 HBS cases and teaching notes.

Hart has taught The Entrepreneurial Manager, Starting New Ventures, Women Building Business, Building Business in the Context of a Life, Social Enterprise, and Foundations of Modern Capitalism. She has created two executive education courses The Entrepreneurs' Tool Kit and Women Leading Business: Innovation and Success and two alumni programs Charting Your Course and New Path, both of which address the changing career needs of professional women. Her administrative responsibilites have included co-chairing the entrepreneurship unit, leading major case writing initiatives, and co-chairing the HBS Models of Success program. She has also served on the Harvard University Task Force on Women Faculty, Advisory Council on Shareholder Responsibillity and the Children's Health Initiative and is currently an advisory board member of the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School.

Prior to joining the faculty of Harvard Business School, Hart worked in the retail industry. In 1985, she joined Tom Stemberg as one of the four founding officers of Staples, the Office Superstore. Prior to that she was Director of Marketing for Star Market, a division of Jewel Companies.

She is director of the Center for Women's Business Research, a trustee of Cornell University, a member of the President's Council of Cornell Women. She is a director of several public and private companies including Royal Ahold, eCornell, Office Depot, and Nina McLemore, Inc. Harvard Business School has recognized Professor Hart with the Apgar Award for innovation in teaching and the Greenhill Award for faculty leadership. She has been named to the Hall of Fame by Enterprising Women, CEO (Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization) and New England Business and Technology Association.

Marshall Toplansky is the Chairman and CEO of Core Strategies which he started in 1996, building on his accomplishments and leadership role as one of the most creative marketers in the information technology field. In his 30+ years of business experience, Toplansky has led organizations to finding new ways of thinking and operating that have resulted in unprecedented growth and success. His experiences include growing businesses in the personal computer, data communications devices, telecommunications services and software development areas. Toplansky comes out of the corporate world, but has founded his own businesses and worked in myriad entrepreneurial and mid-size corporate environments.

While building Core Strategies, Toplansky has directed a wide variety of successful consulting engagements for clients such as Cellular One, Gateway, Lenovo and Toshiba. As head of marketing at US Robotics, Marshall developed and delivered an influencer-centric marketing strategy that fueled its hyper-growth in the modem business through the mid-1990's. Working with software company Open Environment, Toplansky developed the sales and marketing strategy necessary for their successful IPO.

Toplansky is serving his second term as Managing Director of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association of Orange County. A past board member of the Computing Technologies Industry Association, Toplansky serves on the national advisory board of the Market Research Association of America, and is on the national steering committee of the political organization Small Business Majority. Toplansky is also a member of Tech Coast Angels, one of the country's largest and oldest angel investing organizations. Toplansky earned an MBA degree from the Harvard Business School and his B.A. degree in Political Science/Chinese from the State University of New York - Albany.