Rob Kelly, an internet entrepreneur and advisor to West Coast startups, has a lot of experience in entrepreneurship: he's started, sold, bought, and isn't embarrassed to say, even bankrupted a company.  Rob offers some important ideas around the subject of why some entrepreneurs fail -- and what can be done about it. Read the article here.

One of the entrepreneurs I coach had a revelation yesterday. She's a former professional golfer and now a wealth manager, based in southern California. She calculated that she spends 40 percent of her time outside the office prospecting new clients and potential centers of influence, and 60 percent in the office handling administrative tasks. While on the golf course earlier in the week, she was reviewing her notes from the four people she'd met that day, all of them either potential clients or influencers.

She briefed her office manager on her day and he told her, "You should be spending 80 percent of your time on the golf course instead of 40 percent." Indeed, the advisor said she felt truly comfortable getting to know people on the course -- much more comfortable than when she invites a prospect to her office. For her, the golf course is truly her turf, and the office is an artificial environment she doesn't feel in control of. We talked about what it would take to make her new 80/20 rule a reality:

• Time management: If she carries this out, it'll put a huge premium on the 20 percent of her time in the office. She'll have to get really disciplined about work she'll do, what she'll delegate, and what she'll eliminate or automate.
• Database management: Historically, she has done a less-than-perfect job of following up from the golf-course meetings. She'll have to become an artist at databasing every meeting and planning next steps precisely.
• An app for that: She's already started using remote trading tools on her smartphone. Other tools, like a dictation app, would come in handy. There may be other remote productivity apps she needs to look into (any suggestions?).

How are you spending your time? If you're a rainmaker for your enterprise, spending just 40 percent of your time talking to potential clients seems like it leaves money on the table. What do you think? Leave a comment.

I learned a new phrase today: "being acqhired."

The New York Times front page has a story about the latest entrepreneurial trend in Silicon Valley -- big tech companies buying out small ones to acquire their talent, then dumping the companies the founders created. Facebook's director of corporate development is quoted as saying that engineers are worth "half a million to one million" dollars. Aside from rueing the day I decided to major in English, I am wondering how entrepreneurs out there feel about this trend. One the one hand, from the point of view of the "acqhired," how fantastic to be rewarded early for innovation and brain power. On the other hand, it does feel a little bit like selling out. But who cares, this is the marketplace at work, right? On yet another hand, what about the "acqhirers" taking on creative geniuses who probably don't play all that well with others and putting them in a gigantic sandbox like Facebook. How long can that last? And does it even matter? Get one good idea out of a million-dollar engineer, and you might make a billion. What's your take?

I've been meaning to go to a meeting of  The New York Entrepreneurs Business Network (NYEBN) and finally did last week. NYEBN, founded in 2009 by Andrew Ran Wong,  has over 10,000 members and hosts frequent meetings that bring together New York City entrepreneurs, mostly from the tech sector, to listen to new ideas and mingle. I was impressed with the energy of the group -- about 50 people crowded into a conference room to hear a panel of journalists give advice on how to generate publicity for your startup company. The panel included John Biggs, from TechCrunch/TechGear,  Lori Hoberman, an attorney working with startups at Chadbourne & Parke LLP,  Ramon Nuez, who covers business and tech for the Huffington Post, and me.

A few important PR points emerged:

• Target carefully: Know the journalists you are approaching with your story, and let them know about other related articles you've read by them.
• Be persistent but not a stalker: Journalists can get hundreds of queries and story pitches a day. If you haven't heard back after two or three emails, don't take it personally but understand that your pitch isn't resonating.
• Realize that traditional media are not the only outlets for publicity:  Leverage your own relationships to get buzz about your startup. If you have contacts on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, getting them talking can be as beneficial as getting coverage through a journalist.
• Know the key influencers in your sector: A corollary to the point above -- if you target the people who are the super-connectors to others and get them to have a look at your product and they blog about it, you can spread the word faster.
• You may not need a PR firm: John noted that startups can get through to journalists without the use of a PR firm, and that may be the more judicious choice, especially early on when cash is especially tight.
• Learn about provisional patents: In the excitement of starting up, you may have something great and begin promoting it without any protection of your intellectual property. Lori recommended looking into filing a low-cost provisional patent as soon as practical.
• Be human: Ramon made a great point, which is to "say hello" when you're writing to a journalist. It's amazing how far a brief comment like, "How's your day going?" can prompt a more generous response from journalists, who, after all, are people, too (most of them).

Several of the attendees sent me follow-up emails about their entrepreneurial ventures, and the tone and content was significantly better than what I usually see in my inbox. These are folks who have been trained by Andrew Ran Wong and their fellow NYEBN members to be friendly, civil, and generous in their dealings with each other and with the media they seek to help tell their stories. If you're a New York City startup and you haven't yet gone to a NYEBN meeting, you owe it to yourself to check it out.