• Rules from the BABY’s Book on Becoming a Billionaire
  
  

  • Rule #15: When a gift horse shows up, don’t look it in the mouth. Just get on it, and ride it to the bank.

  • Rule #16: When faced with a choice between unsure litigation (even litigation you might win) and certain profits, follow Woody Allen and take the money and run.

  • Rule #18: If you’re looking where everybody else is looking, you’re looking in the wrong spot.

• Wanting lots of something for nothing. Utube sues over the boost it’s received from YouTube and customers seek $114 million in free Starbucks.

• Outrage-Us. Despite his unruly behavior, billionaire basketball owner Mark Cuban’s stance that “If everyone else is doing it, then I don’t want to” should be a lesson to entrepreneurs.

• Through the looking glass: Dan Manheim describes how virtual offices make your small businesses look big.

• “A root canal would have been more pleasant.” Entrepreneur Ray McKewon, co-founder of Accredited Home Lenders, sums up his experience making over 100 presentations to venture capitalists before getting a “yes” to proceed in building the best performing IPO of 2003.

Ray McKewon, co-founder of Accredited Home Lenders, has been an officer in the U.S. Navy, a stock broker, a venture capitalist and an entrepreneur. In 1990, he and Jim Konrath pooled $30,000 to start Accredited Home Lenders to focus on “non-prime” lending—making mortgages to people who are turned down by most financial institutions. In 2003, the company went public and was the best performing initial public offering that year. Ray retired from the company in 2005 and is now a rock musician. His band, the Xceptions, plays for corporate, convention, private, charitable and civic events around the United States.

Randy Broberg, recently named one of the best transactional intellectual property attorneys by the San Diego Daily Transcript, is a partner at the law firm of Allen Matkins. His diverse clients have included representing General Atomics in a manufacturing agreement against a Korean company, representing tennis player Serena Williams to acquire the domain name, www.serenawilliams.com, and trademark representation of Directed Electronics which makes the Viper car alarms.

Dan Manheim is the president and CEO of Global Business Centers which offers virtual office services to small businesses.