Balancing Startup Marketing &Sales: Why it\u27s a Tough Management Call

All startups have to pass critical milestones to stay on the path to success. Some are obvious: attracting investors...beginning operations...becoming profitable. However, there\u27s one milestone that doesn\u27t command the management attention it needs. I\u27m talking about balancing marketing and sales, with an emphasis on the word balancing

The CREF stock fund is earning 50: how well has the first equity variable served investors?

The College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF) will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2002. It was the first variable annuity to focus its investments on common stock equalities, designed to help investors overcome problems of inflation. A study of it history show: When used in combination with a traditional annuity, such as TIAA, CREF has been an effective vehible for developing additional retirement dollars at a reasonable risk level. Being evenly invested in TIAA and CREF over a 25 to 35 year working lifetime, one can expect the CREF account to have 10% to 30% more assets at the data of retirement. Those intending to have a long career of 36 year or more and having higher risk tolerances should consider contributing all of their retirement to CREF. The CREF fund has served its participants well, based on the long history analyzed in this study. If one believes that financially history, long term, can repeat itself in the coming century, use of this fund to overcome