Web service review: Clarity.fm

I’d like to share a cool web service I’ve been using – it’s call Clarity. 

As entrepreneurs we often encounter challenges when creating and building our businesses. Paramount to overcoming these challenges is the ability to ask mentors and industry experts questions. Sometimes experts lie within our networks, but often they don’t. And sometimes even if they do we value a 2nd or 3rd opinion. Clarity solves this problem by providing a marketplace for business advice. 

Search the site for keywords related to your question and you’ll find a list of experts available to provide business advice over the phone. Experts highlight their areas of experience and state their hourly rate. On average experts charge around $100/hour (generally calls don’t take longer than 10 minutes) and many choose to donate their proceeds to charity. Clarity takes a 15% commission - 5% to cover transaction fees and infrastructure costs and 10% to grow their business. 

Clarity works as a marketplace by providing value to both the experts (they get paid and receive the satisfaction of helping others) and to those in need of advice (they get their questions answered in an efficient manner by an expert). I’m especially impressed by Clairty’s ability to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem faced by all marketplace startups – their list of experts is 9000 strong, including many high profile names from multiple industries. 

I’ve used the service both as an expert and as someone seeking advice, and have had an equally good experience both times.

Next time you need business advice give Clarity a try.

Keeping foreign entrepreneurs in Sweden

Michael and I were featured today in an Entreprenor Magazine article about keeping foreign entrepreneurs in Sweden. 

A little background …. 

We came to Sweden in 2009 to do a Masters in Entrepreneurship at Lund University. Like all the other non-European students we came in on a student visa. Unfortunately, the student visa expires a month after graduation, not leaving much time to find a job (and thus a visa sponsor). 

We worked to find a way around this by starting our own company. Due to the nature of our business (research commercialization) and our success in a national business plan competition we received a lot of support from various government organizations in making the company establishment and visa sponsorship an easy process. 

Most foreign entrepreneurs, unfortunately, can not expect the same level of support. From our graduating class, Michael and I were the only non-Europeans able to stay and start a business, despite the desire of many to do so.

Clearly the government should be taking steps to empower foreign entrepreneurs, especially those who graduated in Sweden, to stay and launch companies.

Startup Visa =  new ventures, job creation, stimulated economy, innovation, more taxes. Win-win.

Sweden should look to contries like Chile, Signapore, and Britain who already have interesting Startup Visa programs in play.