July 2026
Celebrating 250 years of America
To honor the semiquincentennial of our nation, this month’s issue of Smart Tips is about the American advantage with great reads about enterprise and business wisdom. We offer a backward glance at entrepreneurship in early America with rhetoric about how our Founding Fathers created the first business models, how their strategic thinking and wisdom provided an edge to American enterprise, how comeback from failure built stronger businesses, and how the next generation of entrepreneurs will use the timeless principles established from our beginnings to build the future. Enjoy this tribute to the history, endurance and success of America’s entrepreneurs and economy.
In This Issue:
- The original entrepreneurs
- The entrepreneurial edge
- Fail forward
- The next founders
The original entrepreneurs
When Americans think about the nation’s Founding Fathers, that many of these leaders were entrepreneurs is a defining characteristic often overlooked. Their endeavors contributed to the massive economic bet made on hopes and dreams for a successful future of enterprise.
The entrepreneurial edge
America’s economic story is often told through the rise of major industries and breakthrough innovations. But beneath those milestones is a more practical reality: from the beginning, the nation’s growth has been driven by entrepreneurs who approached problems differently and made better decisions because of it.
Fail forward
Failure is often viewed as something to avoid. In many environments, business setbacks carry lasting stigma, discouraging future risk-taking. Yet one of America’s enduring entrepreneurial advantages has been a different mindset: the ability to recover, learn, and come back stronger.
The next founders
Today’s founders are building in a fundamentally different environment than any generation before them. Artificial intelligence, global markets, venture capital ecosystems, and digital distribution have erased or greatly diminished traditional barriers to entry and raised expectations for speed and scale. They move quickly, but they build on principles that have defined successful enterprises for generations.
