An entrepreneur weathers economic storms, finds rainbow and the gold

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After leaving a job as a television news producer in 1990, Sheila D. Brooks started her own company producing news stories and documentaries. She converted a bedroom into an office at the house where she lived in New Carrollton, drummed up three small contracts, hired an assistant and persuaded a bank to give her a loan.

“I applied to four banks and three turned me down,” Brooks recalled. “The fourth bank wanted me to hand over everything except my firstborn child for collateral.” She agreed to the terms, took the five-year loan, and paid it off in two-and-a-half years.

“Eventually, I was able to get a line of credit,” she said.

Two years after starting the business, Brooks was doing well enough to lease office space on K Street in downtown DC, just a few blocks from the White House. Clients included utility companies, government

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A 26-year-old entrepreneur takes a fresh shot at selling news one story at a time

So here’s an idea: Instead of cruising the Internet and bumping into an assortment of annoying paywalls, how about buying a pass that will instantly open just those articles you want and enable a nourishing reading diet from a variety of sources?

Longtime media watchers like me might say that’s already been tried a bunch of times in the last two decades, and results have ranged from outright failure to very limited success.

That track record, however, leaves 26-year-old entrepreneur Yehong Zhu undeterred.

Her early stage startup, Zette, has both fresh features and a sense of what young adult consumers want, Zhu told me, and that should make Zette’s approach a winner.

The product is not yet to beta (coming this fall), let alone a full launch. It is just beginning to assemble a roster of participating publishers and potential customers. But I am always interested in new looks at

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Enterprise Development & Employment

Business DevelopmentBeginning a new business is way over merely hanging a sign out and ready for purchasers to pour by means of the door and I am sure anyone prepared to spend money on a new venture is properly aware of this fact. Mike never made it to his desk again. In January 2015, Dan Silber, an HSBC managing director, hosted a biweekly sales group conference call the place he notified everybody that the bank was being looked into” for potentially violating conflict of interest laws. The next day, a New York Post reporter contacted Silber concerning the call, and HSBC instantly suspected that Mike was the leaker. (He denies it.) In a subsequent inquiry, HSBC’s Financial Crime Investigations unit couldn’t establish any definitive evidence linking Picarella or another HSBC employee to leaked info,” however concluded it was extremely likely” that Mike’s lawyer or an affiliate had spoken with the paper. … Read more

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