About The Purpose is Profit

Ed “Skip” McLaughlin Ed is the founder of four businesses and is currently running Blue Sunsets LLC, a real estate and angel investment firm. He bootstrapped his first business, United Systems Integrators (USI) Corporation, a corporate real estate outsourcing firm, and grew it into an Inc. 500 company. In 2001, Ed earned Entrepreneur of the Year honors from Ernst & Young. In 2005, he sold USI to Johnson Controls, a Fortune 100 company, and at that point, became CEO of JCI’s Global Workplace Business for the Americas. A member of the Board of Governors for Tufts Medical Center, Ed founded its David E. Wazer Breast Cancer Research Fund. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, where he is a member of the Board of Trustees. Active in philanthropy, Ed lives with his wife in Connecticut and has three adult children. Email: Ed@ThePurposeIsProfit.com LinkedIn: www.LinkedIn.com/in/EdSkipMcLaughlin Twitter: @purposeisprofit --- Wyn is the founder of Upstart Business Planning, where she works with entrepreneurs to develop plans that answer the questions investors ask most often. Previously, she was Managing Director of Business Plans International in New York and Co-Director of the Small Business Resource Center at Norwalk Community College. Wyn has an MBA in finance and marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She serves on the board of a local nonprofit she helped found, At Home In Darien. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and has two adult children. Email: Wyn@ThePurposeIsProfit.com LinkedIn: www.LinkedIn.com/in/WynLydecker

The Value of Incubators, Accelerators, and Coworking Spaces

by Omar Douglass Contributing Writer for The Purpose is Profit Blog As startup advisor and self-styled “Growth Hacker,” Paul O’Brien, wrote, “Entrepreneurs everywhere are trying to understand not just how to connect, network, and collaborate, but how to develop relationships with the right investors. Incubators, accelerators, and coworking spaces are the place to start.” These [...]

By | July 16th, 2014|

Plugging the Talent Drain

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker Have you been suffering from talent drain? Symptoms include brilliant employees leaving the company, a lack of new ideas, stagnation, and sometimes even eventual corporate death. How can you immunize your company against this dangerous syndrome and keep it healthy? The answer is to introduce a dose of intrapreneurship, [...]

By | July 11th, 2014|

What Makes an Entrepreneur? Attitude!

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker Are you hesitating to leap into entrepreneurship? Is it because you have the persistent feeling that you are "not the entrepreneurial type"? I've written previously about how entrepreneurship isn't for the elite and elect, but rather is accessible to everyone. Many people, even if they accept this idea intellectually, [...]

By | July 9th, 2014|

Why You’re Ready to Set Sail on Your Own Venture

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker Have you ever heard the expression, "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are for"? Conventional employment can appear to be safe, but charting your own course away from the company where you work can bring you purpose and joy far beyond that of [...]

By | July 7th, 2014|

3 Steps to Keep Criticism Constructive

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker In a high-pressure environment like a startup, emotions and tempers can run very high. With the best of intentions, someone is likely to engage in a behavior or course that isn't what you wanted for your company. The temptation may be to smack down the action down and the person - you [...]

By | July 3rd, 2014|

Do Well First, Then Do Good

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker You are in a dark cabin at night. You have a box of matches, a kerosene lantern, a candelabra, and a stove. Which do you light first? Many people when confronted with this question will debate the merits of the various options, and most will not come up with [...]

By | June 30th, 2014|

Unsung Heroes of Entrepreneurship

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker Cool new products get reviews, articles, advertisements, and talk show segments. The companies that make them get to look on like proud parents while their offspring skyrocket in the public eye. But what about unsexy products and services? Where are their limelights? Who sees the B2B that saves its clients [...]

By | June 28th, 2014|

Sales is a Contact Sport

By Ed McLaughlin This article originally appeared on LinkedIn Publisher Entrepreneurs are a brazen bunch. They feel so strongly about their business vision that they are willing to do almost anything to make it a reality. They accept the responsibility to produce a quality product that provides a superior value proposition. Like professional athletes, entrepreneurs love [...]

By | June 27th, 2014|

The Care and Feeding of Your Small Business

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker It's taken months - maybe years - to get to the point of launching your venture.  You hammered an idea into the shape of a business, found a way to fund it, acquired all the talent you needed to run it, found a location for your operations, and even [...]

By | June 26th, 2014|