Before you pursue a project that you believe is unique, entrepreneur Johnny Earle suggests writing down a list of 10 ways in which what you're doing is different from your competition.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk reminds us of Marvin from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. In addition to being a perpetually miserable robot from outer space (citation needed), he also has a brain the size of a planet. But how did he get so gosh-darned smart?

DNA and upbringing probably had a lot to do with it - but so did reading the right books at the right age. Here are five books that Musk reckons everybody should read; from weighty science-fiction to breezy business tomes. Best of all, they're all mentally accessible to the average person.

Have you got a great business idea, but are skint? Well, don’t worry. Not all businesses require a huge amount of money to get off the ground -- or even an office space. Here are eight tips that can help you turn your startup pipe dream into an affordable reality.

Some things in life -- such as fixing your own car or DIY home improvements -- might appear dangerous or risky, especially if you've never done them before or you tend to err on the side of caution. They also might be more doable than they look. Here are ten daunting things you probably likely can handle on your own.

What do you do when it’s a Monday morning and you feel more like a deflated balloon than a productive person? Hoping that Oprah will pop out from behind your couch and give you a pep talk on living your best life is, likely, futile. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: motivating yourself to kick butt isn’t as hard as you may think.

Every week it seems like there's a new piece of advice for would-be entrepreneurs from the ones who've already made their mark on the world. Tim Cook starts sending emails at 4:30 in the morning. Steve Jobs once ate nothing but carrots. Donald Trump supposedly sleeps only four hours a night. Most recently, serial odd-advice-giver Gary Vaynerchuck has told Business Insider that he doesn't eat in the daytime. But do you really need these weird habits to be an entrepreneur?

We are living at a time of unlimited potential. Never before have we experienced such a rapid growth in the number of young entrepreneurs who've begun working for themselves. From app developers, to freelance writers, business consultants, creative producers and startup founders, there's no shortage of people willing to take large calculated risks in the name of sculpting their own self-employed dream careers.

When figuring how much you should charge for your freelance services, you probably use practical strategies and tools to come up with a rate. Author and coach Mark McGuinness suggests linking your price to feelings.

If you're like me, then you've got so many ideas it can be hard to know where to start when it comes to even analysing them. And if you're like me, instead of properly analysing them, you've just started down multiple roads at once, going very slowly. If that sounds like you, marketing expert Alex Bashinsky over at VentureBeat has three steps you should follow.

We are seeing a growing trend of people starting their own business. Everywhere you look now, there are aspiring entrepreneurs sitting in cafes plugging away at their idea, a new Kickstarter campaign being launched or a new pop-up that aspires to become a thriving business. Is it just that these businesses are more visible or society has become more attuned to noticing entrepreneurs?

After having flown to New York for a publicity summit, I received the news that Hurricane Sandy was heading in our direction. With no way to leave New York and trapped in a city which was rapidly shutting down, I contacted my virtual assistant for help.

Side gigs (a.k.a. freelancing, moonlighting, side businesses, etc.) are all the rage these days. It seems that everyone writing about personal finance, career development, or just about anything else, is encouraging readers to start side gigs, particularly if those writers themselves have "made it big" with their online or offline business.

There's some good news for Australian entrepreneurs in Wayne Swan's 2013 Budget, with the Government revealing it will kick in $378 million to encourage innovation. But like other spending plans in the Budget, the bulk of the money won't be available for years to come.

Every day we see it. People seemingly coming from nowhere and finding their way onto your crowded radar; they're carving out a reputation for themselves as an expert or authority in a particular space and then over the journey you watch them get bigger and more influential as their star rises with each new blog or video post.

This quote about the relationship between work and luck comes from famous film producer Samuel Goldwyn. Often actors, entrepreneurs and other people long to get that one "lucky break," forgetting perhaps the combination of luck and hard work that most success takes.

Personal finance blogger Ramit Sethi guest-posts on the Get Rich Slowly site about his best advice for those looking to start a business, no matter the scale: Take a successful entrepreneur out to lunch. Sethi says successful types usually want to see others succeed on their advice, and in these tough economic times, a sandwich and chips can be a lot cheaper than a business consultant.