When it comes to running a start up, leaders need to make sure that their key players are motivated. This has been seen with many companies. Back in the 1970's it was found with the inspiration and diligence of the late Daniel Nigro when he formed Kleer-Fax. More recently it was seen in David Khasidy, the founder and recently retired president of SunRay Power Management, the most dynamic green energy leader in the US today.

The question is, what is it that great leaders like David Khasidy and Daniel Nigro do that make the difference? How do the most vulnerable companies (start ups) break the mold and become a part of our everyday lives?

It starts with their mission and vision.

Create a Strong Mission and Vision

There are many reasons why start ups fail. For one, they usually lack the capital to last through the lean times. Secondly, they often don't have the tolerance for setbacks that occur. Lastly, they do not have a long-term plan, also called a mission.

When a business has a strong mission, the team knows it and their focus toward their work and service to others within and without the company reflects that. To complement that, the shorter term vision of the company needs to be present as well.

This can even be seen in sole proprietorships with no employees, such as when Brian Pascale started his law practice. His vision was to find justice for his clients while his mission was to build upon a career that had already set precedents in the area of tort law.

As his practice has grown, new staff members can sense the vision and mission he exudes.

Encourage Ownership of Projects and Processes

Start ups need to inspire and motivate their employees because they need to know that they are not only a part of something important, but that their contributions mean something.

What won't happen if they are not there? What contribution do they make, and what are the consequences of them not fulfilling their part of the work?

By encouraging ownership in projects, team members can find that the work they are doing is not only important for the organization, but that they are going to be a big part of what makes it happen. The alternative is that they feel replaceable.

Offer Incentives That Keep the Company Competitive

When team members embrace the mission and vision of the company, and then take ownership for the company's success, they are going to need to be justly rewarded.

This could include flexible schedules (for those who don't need a stringent one), use of an account at a nearby takeout place, or even the potential for ownership as a result of a vesting program.

The incentive everyone is looking for more immediately, though, is cash. When the company takes in more revenue as a result of the efforts of those on the team, rewarding them can go a long way not only in making them feel appreciated, but in encouraging them to bring in more business.

Members of a start up team are usually very talented, and commonly underpaid. However, if they believe they are going somewhere, it will make a big difference.

Related:

Good non-programmer jobs for people with software developer experience

Studying a functional programming language is a good way to discover new approaches to problems and different ways of thinking. Although functional programming has much in common with logic and imperative programming, it uses unique abstractions and a different toolset for solving problems. Likewise, many current mainstream languages are beginning to pick up and integrate various techniques and features from functional programming.

Many authorities feel that Haskell is a great introductory language for learning functional programming. However, there are various other possibilities, including Scheme, F#, Scala, Clojure, Erlang and others.

Haskell is widely recognized as a beautiful, concise and high-performing programming language. It is statically typed and supports various cool features that augment language expressivity, including currying and pattern matching. In addition to monads, the language support a type-class system based on methods; this enables higher encapsulation and abstraction. Advanced Haskell will require learning about combinators, lambda calculus and category theory. Haskell allows programmers to create extremely elegant solutions.

Scheme is another good learning language -- it has an extensive history in academia and a vast body of instructional documents. Based on the oldest functional language -- Lisp -- Scheme is actually very small and elegant. Studying Scheme will allow the programmer to master iteration and recursion, lambda functions and first-class functions, closures, and bottom-up design.

Supported by Microsoft and growing in popularity, F# is a multi-paradigm, functional-first programming language that derives from ML and incorporates features from numerous languages, including OCaml, Scala, Haskell and Erlang. F# is described as a functional language that also supports object-oriented and imperative techniques. It is a .NET family member. F# allows the programmer to create succinct, type-safe, expressive and efficient solutions. It excels at parallel I/O and parallel CPU programming, data-oriented programming, and algorithmic development.

Scala is a general-purpose programming and scripting language that is both functional and object-oriented. It has strong static types and supports numerous functional language techniques such as pattern matching, lazy evaluation, currying, algebraic types, immutability and tail recursion. Scala -- from "scalable language" -- enables coders to write extremely concise source code. The code is compiled into Java bytecode and executes on the ubiquitous JVM (Java virtual machine).

Like Scala, Clojure also runs on the Java virtual machine. Because it is based on Lisp, it treats code like data and supports macros. Clojure's immutability features and time-progression constructs enable the creation of robust multithreaded programs.

Erlang is a highly concurrent language and runtime. Initially created by Ericsson to enable real-time, fault-tolerant, distributed applications, Erlang code can be altered without halting the system. The language has a functional subset with single assignment, dynamic typing, and eager evaluation. Erlang has powerful explicit support for concurrent processes.

Computer Programming as a Career?

What little habits make you a better software engineer?

The field of information technology is in many ways perfectly suited for entrepreneurship. Many highly successful enterprises started with a lone IT professional venturing out on their own and starting up their own company. If you have computer science skills and want to explore alternative options outside the corporate arena you should seriously consider going into business for yourself. Businesses may be more willing to hire you as a contractor rather than as a full-time worker. There are certain IT jobs that are perfect for individuals who want to be self-employed, they include:

• Working as a Consultant
Large IT departments are not as necessary for corporations as they were at the start of the internet era; this is partly due to the trend towards cloud computing. Consultants are often brought in to handle the need for tech expertise when companies downsize or eliminate their IT departments. A consultant may work for several different clients at the same time, be on call for various disciplines or be commissioned for specific projects.

• Web Entrepreneurship
The ease of building a website and the fact that web hosting is relatively affordable means that it does not take a lot of know-how to start your own online empire. You can sell products or services, or start your own online community. Another option is to start selling goods via auction sites or on sites that sell advertising space. You will need an understanding of marketing and of search engine optimization so that you can draw visitors to your site.

• Programming Apps for Mobile Devices
The future of the Internet is in mobile devices. Statistics show that much of the world will be using mobile devices and smart phones to handle their surfing needs in the near future. If you have the skills to program the apps used on these devices, you could be among those riding the wave of this trend.

It is not impossible to start an Information Technology company with very little startup capital. Getting it off the ground in terms of online visibility will require focus to detail, knowing your target market, a consistent campaign to build a client list and a solid reputation.

Information Technology is one of the most dynamic industries with new technologies surfacing frequently. In such a scenario, it can get intimidating for information technology professionals at all levels to keep abreast of the latest technology innovations worth investing time and resources into.

It can therefore get daunting for entry and mid-level IT professionals to decide which technologies they should potentially be developing skills. However, the biggest challenge comes for senior information technology professionals responsible for driving the IT strategy in their organizations.

It is therefore important to keep abreast of the latest technology trends and get them from reputable sources. Here are some of the ways to keep on top of the latest trends in Information Technology.

·         Subscribe to leading Analyst Firms: If you work for a leading IT organization, chances are that you already have subscription to leading IT analyst firms notably Gartner and Forrester. These two firms are some of the most recognized analyst firms with extensive coverage on almost every enterprise technology including hardware and software. These Analyst firms frequently publish reports on global IT spending and trends that are based on primary research conducted on vendors and global CIOs & CTOs. However, subscription to these reports is very expensive and if you are a part of a small organization you may have issues securing access to these reports. One of the most important pieces of research published by these firms happens to be the Gartner Hype Cycle which plots leading technologies and their maturity curve.Even if you do not have access to Gartner research, you can hack your way by searching for “Gartner Hype Cycle” on Google Images and you will in most cases be able to see the plots similar to the one below