Top 20 Entrepreneurship and Small Business Experts
Ever wonder, "Who should I follow on Twitter to get inspiration on entrepreneurship and small business?" SMD has you covered. After hours of careful research and review, here are the best and brightest individuals we believe to be great influencers in terms of emerging small business. Take a look below.
Melinda F. Emerson @SmallBizLady
Forbes #1 Influential Woman for Entrepreneurs, Host #SmallBizChat, Author Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months. Expert: Start-up, Social Media & Reinventing a Biz
Philadelphia, PA · succeedasyourownboss.com
Melinda F. Emerson, or SmallBizLady, as she is most commonly known, was voted by Forbes as the #1 Influential Woman for Entrepreneurs. In addition to being America’s #1 small business expert, she is an author, speaker and small business coach whose areas of expertise include small business start-up, business development and social media marketing.
John Jantsch
Small business marketing consultant, speaker and author of Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine and The Commitment Engine.
Kansas City, MO · ducttapemarketing.com/blog
John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker and bestselling author of his books, Duct Tape Marketing, The Commitment Engine and The Referral Engine. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing System and the Duct Tape Marketing Consulting Network that trains and licenses small business marketing consultants around the world.
Alexandra Levit
Workplace author, speaker, columnist, and consultant. Helping people succeed in meaningful jobs and building relationships between organizations and top talent.
Chicago, IL · alexandralevit.com
Alexandra’s goal is to help people succeed in meaningful jobs and build relationships between organizations and top talent. She often tweets entertaining facts about the best cities to work in, ways to increase productivity in the workplace, as well as attends open forums in order to interact with followers.
Chris Brogan
Publisher, Owner Magazine (http://ownermag.com ) More? http://hbway.com/c . contact: http://chrisbrogan.com/contact
Boston, MA · chrisbrogan.com/new
Chris it the president of Human Business Works, a social media consultant, and professional speaker. He has a huge following on Twitter, 257, 584, to be exact, and is a sought-after keynote speaker who has addressed crowds of thousands. Chris has consulted with companies like Disney, Microsoft, Coke, Titleist, Pepsico, Google, Motorola, and many more.
Patrick Flynn
Lead by example. Be honest. Hold nothing back.
San Diego, California · SmartPassiveIncome.com
Pat runs the extremely popular Smart Passive Income blog, which is aimed at teaching people to use online tools to build an income. In his blog, Pat tries to be as transparent as possible with everything he does online. His businesses, his strategies and his income, are all out there for you to see and help you reach your success.
Sean Mccginnis
Founder ?@312digital | Digital Marketing Courses | SEO Consulting & Training | Digital Strategy Consultant | We build web sites that work | Very TALL
Chicago, IL ·http://312digital.com
Sean’s tweets focus on everything from social media to small business tips to tips for a meaningful marriage. He maintains a casual and humorous relationship with followers, retweeting and answering questions. He also frequently tweets about manners to improve SEO, increase reach, and maintain loyalty for small businesses.
Rand Fishkin
CEO + founder of SEOmoz. I tweet 50-75X/week primarily on inbound marketing,
SEO, startups & entrepreneurship.
Seattle, WA · moz.com
A must-follow for small businesses and startups interested in SEO, Rand constantly tweets about important news in the tech world as well as the business world in general. He co-authored the Art of SEO from O'Reilly Media, co-founded Inbound.org, and was named on PSBJ's 40 Under 40 List and BusinessWeek's 30 Best Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30.
Anita Campbell
Tweets from the Small Business Trends community and its CEO, Anita Campbell. Also, CEO of @BizSugar. A Forbes Top Influential Woman for Entrepreneurs.
Cleveland, Ohio · smallbiztrends.com
Founder of ?#BizBookAwards, host of #SmallBizChat, and author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months, Anita is the Small Biz Twitter Queen and a Forbes Top Influential Woman for Entrepreneurs. Constantly updating and tweeting about useful social media tools, she offers extremely useful and current information for growing in terms of social metrics as a business.
Denise O’Berry
Denise O’Berry is a small business consultant who focuses on helping small businesses put their ideas into action. She focuses on getting businesses to focus on cash flow, which she points out is one of the major sources of business failure. She’s the author of the book “Small Business Cash Flow: Strategies for Making Your Business a Financial Success”
Carrie Wilkerson
Speaker & Author of The Barefoot Executive: The Ultimate Guide for
Achieving Financial Freedom & Being Your Own Boss
Texas · CarrieWilkerson.com
Carrie is a consultant and strategist for self-employed professionals & small business owners.
You can learn a lot from her. She has over 100,000 followers, and currently is a mentor/coach/adviser to over 100,000 men and women as the Barefoot Executive. Not only a business expert, but an expert IN Business, Carrie’s work-at-home methods have inspired thousands and has earned many awards both online and offline.
Erica Douglass
Made first million at 26; serial entrepreneur. Now rockin' out as a startup CEO, speaker, & blogger. Follow me for business tips & money/investing advice!
Austin, TX · erica.biz
Erica is an entrepreneur and blogger who runs a popular blog, Erica.biz, which provides a variety of small business marketing advice aimed at online entrepreneurs. She established herself by building and selling a web hosting business for $1.1 million – all before the age of 26. Not too shabby. She’s currently building her next fortune with a SEO company she recently launched called Whoosh Traffic.
Darren Rowse
Founder of ?@ProBlogger & ?@DigitalPS. Author, speaker and eBook publisher.
Husband & Dad to 3 boys. Love Lattes & Leicas. Personal Tweets at ?@DarrenRowse.
Melbourne, Australia · http://www.problogger.net/about-darren/
Darren Rowse’s blog, Problogger, is one of the web’s highest trafficked blogs. Darren discovered blogging far earlier than most, and discovered he could make an income to replace his day job income long before thousands of other bloggers followed in his footsteps. After building a successful digital photography blog, he created Problogger to train others how to generate income from their blogs.
Guy Kawasaki
Advises Motorola. Author of APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur. Former chief evangelist of Apple. My tweets are repeated 4 times to reach all timezones.
Silicon Valley, California · apethebook.com
Guy Kawasaki is a special advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google. He is also the author of APE, What the Plus!, Enchantment, and nine other books. Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.
Rieva Lesonsky
CEO GrowBiz Media & SmallBizDaily.com. Small business advocate, journalist, best-selling author. Former editorial director of Entrepreneur magazine (20+ yrs).
Sunny SoCal, but travel lots · http://www.SmallBizDaily.com
She describes herself as a small business advocate, journalist and bestselling author.
Lesonsky has appeared on hundreds of radio shows and numerous local and national television programs, including the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, and Oprah. Lesonsky has written several books about small business and entrepreneurship, including the bestseller, Start Your Own Business. She is an editor-at-large at AllBusiness.com and contributes to The Huffington Post and numerous business Web sites.
Scott Straten
Author, Speaker and kind of a big deal on a fairly irrelevant soc media site
which inflates my self-importance.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada · UnMarketing.com
Scott is the President of Unmarketing, which is a “Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing” agency. He knows how to use Twitter and other social media tools, and uses his sarcastic and witty undertones to discuss social media news, keeping advice simple and to the point. His twitter is also a good place to inquire and discover conference sites as well as new marketing platforms.
Mark Suster
2x entrepreneur. Sold both companies (last to http://salesforce.com ). Turned VC looking to invest in passionate entrepreneurs
Los Angeles · bothsid.es
Mark Suster is a two-time entrepreneur who has become a venture capitalist. He focuses on early-stage technology companies and writes a widely read blog, Both Sides of the Table.
While not as interactive, he often tweets about relevant mistakes or decisions made by budding entrepreneurs and what it takes to succeed in the small business market. His twitter is a great tool for compiling information tweeted or posted by other relevant tweeps in the twittersphere.
Steve Blank
Customer Development & Secret History, Teaching at Stanford, Berkeley and Columbia
Silicon Valley · steveblank.com
Steve Blank is a professor of entrepreneurship at several universities and is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. His blog, Steve Blank, addresses subjects such as: Business plans and startup projects. The links to his blog direct you to well-written and easy-to-follow advice. He tweets about interesting talks, business schools, and career opportunities. He also constantly tweets hilarious GIFs and YouTube videos.
Fred Wilson
I am a VC
New York City · avc.com
Fred writes the widely-read blog A VC, and is a VC and Principal of Union Square Ventures. He was one of the leading investors in Twitter. He is humorous and often tweets funny and relatable videos, such as “The Veronica Mars Movie.” Yet also highly informative he constantly tweets about startup and motivational advice, as well as participates in hangouts and fireside chats.
Loic le Meur
LeWeb. Loves kitesurfing and running!
San Francisco · loiclemeur.com
Loïc Le Meur is a serial entrepreneur based in San Francisco. Loïc co-founded the #1 European tech event LeWeb. According to The Economist, "LeWeb is where revolutionaries gather to plot the future". He tweets frequently about his business experiences. His tweets are fun, and interesting, and he surprises you with valuable tips and cool business experiences.
Jason Fried
Founder of 37signals (you know us for Basecamp). Co-author of Getting Real, REWORK, and REMOTE.
Chicago, IL · 37signals.com
“Customers don’t just buy a product, they switch from something else. And customers don’t just leave a product, they switch to something else.” Jason Fried is co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Software for Small Businesses, and co-author of REWORK, a bestselling business book. Very laid back and down-to-earth, he constantly supports new startups and new small businesses, as well as supports his followers by promoting talent that may have been overlooked.