We recently started frequenting a local outpost of one of the fastest-growing franchises in the nation--Sport Clips. The concept alone has to make any entrepreneur green with envy (and probably green with cash if he happens to own one).

Sport Clips is a hair salon for men. Fine. Simple. Well done. Where Fantastic Sam's and Supercuts are unisex, Sport Clips offers a no-question, no-fuss, moderately priced place for manly men to get their manes trimmed. Guys who come here don't have to worry about catching a cloud of hairspray or inhaling the skunky vapors of a coloring job in progress. No--it's all clippers and buzzing sounds and Jim Rome on the tube here. read more...

Americans need stuff--we just need it. If you need proof, just look at the way we went out and spent last weekend despite months of apocalyptic news about the economy. But a recent story in Newsweek seems to suggest we're willing to look for new ways to get our stuff.

Last year, for the first time in almost 50 years, no new indoor malls were built in the U.S. Not one. But obviously it's not that we've stopped buying things. It's just that more and more people are becoming smart shoppers instead of free-spending consumers. read more...

This month ZepInvest rolls out a website intended to give average investors, entrepreneurs included, access to previously exclusive reports, newsletters and advisors.

The site gives members access to 82 such sources, including Bernie Schaeffer's Option Advisor, Walter Frank's The Money Letter, and Jim Lowell's Fidelity Sector Investor, for $800 a year. ZepInvest principals say that the cost of accessing all those sources individually could climb to $30,000. read more...

The little-known Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research today made official what's already well-known: The U.S. economy is officially in recession.

Recessions are usually defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, and the committee states that the nation's last wave of economic growth reached "a peak in December 2007 and has declined every month since then."

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About a month ago, I started a website (www.fakebookcovers.com) of fake book covers with fake excerpts. It's half-inane hobby and half-business project. I'm learning about online marketing strategies, how to drive traffic, how to make revenue from ads and overall, how to make it succeed. Plus, it's more fun than shooting womp rats in my T-16 back home. I first wrote about it here.

Anyway, my agent/guide, Kim Orr, recently told me that Twitter had replaced blogs. Or so Wired Magazine had told her.

So I looked into Twitter. read more...

For the most part, the wealthy enjoy a different lifestyle than the rest of us, but even they know to practice caution in the face of an economic downturn.

Take, for example, these thrifty tales from a Time Magazine story on "Recession and the Rich", written during the 1974-75 recession:

• A wealthy Boston matron gives up her weekly massages.
• A socially prominent Manhattan couple switches from vintage to non-vintage champagne.
• A Chicago industrialist trades in his Cadillac for a "relatively miserly" Mercedes with a diesel engine providing 32 mpg.
• A West Coast tycoon sells one of his yachts.
• A millionaire hostess in Los Angeles begins featuring chili at her dinner parties.

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Business owners continue to express deep reservations about the health of the American economy, according to Discover Small Business Watch's latest survey, which was released today.

"Small businesses are continuing to feel pressure in this weakening economy," said Discover small business card director Ryan Scully. "The number of owners having trouble paying their bills is the highest we've seen since April and more than half of owners are cutting back on their business development plans, which is an all-time high." read more...

After three days of intense networking, the Summit is drawing to an end. It has been an unforgettable ride and an amazing experience as an embedded writer. While every individual has a story to tell, what strikes me most is the lack of ego. Proving oneself goes out the window, replaced by a mutual understanding of the pains and accomplishments that binds these individuals together.Entrepreneurs are driven by their passion, they envision solutions when others can only identify problems, they are persistent and send out a hundred e-mails when necessary to prove that the cause they believe in is legit, and they bring to life what started off simply as an idea. And yet these individuals don't brag or boast but instead they talk, opening up the platform for meaningful conversation. read more...

There's nothing quite like an open bar of free-flowing booze to get people talking and a night of partying that, for some, only ended with the dawn of a new day, to bond a group of people.

On to the third day. Morning becomes afternoon and people are still recovering: ordering snacks by the pool and relaxing on the lounge chairs only steps from the beach. Attendees are hurting and a new schedule is implemented (hallelujah for the entrepreneurial spirit, which embraces and applies flexibility and adaptability). The presentation by Scott Harrison of Charity: Water is delayed by half an hour. read more...

As much as this four-day summit may seem like the ideal vacation and escape from the demands of the office, for an entrepreneur, the clock never stops ticking. Business must go on. So as we sit down to a breakfast of sweet papaya, French toast and yogurt, the BlackBerries are out in full force. We might be thousands of miles away from the office in L.A. or their employees in New York City, but they're somehow still connected, and consulting the BlackBerry is one habit hard to break away from.

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