Business

Top Strategies for Excelling in an Online Class

woman sitting on brown wooden chair while using silver laptop computer in room

Online classes are becoming more common in universities and high schools. While the classes present opportunities for broader access, many students do not recognize the unique challenges of an online learning environment. Things like a digital office background can help with the outward appearance of professionalism, but how much does it really help with concentration and performance? If you are taking online classes or are the parent of an online student, take several steps to increase the opportunities for academic success.

Table of Contents

1. Printing Out the Syllabus

Every well-organized online and in-person class has a syllabus — a schedule of learning objectives and assignments throughout the program. While digital copies are likely easy to access, printing out a physical copy and keeping it near your workstation is best.

Highlight important dates and assignments, and transfer them into your calendar with reminders. Combining the physical syllabus and digital reminders helps students stay on top of their coursework.

2. Communicating With Instructors

Virtual classes use real instructors for a reason. They are there to answer students’ questions about the course material or assignments. More importantly, they are there to offer guidance and support.

Students shouldn’t be afraid to communicate with instructors. In fact, they should chat with instructors at least once weekly for clarification on studies and updates on performance. If communicating with an instructor via webcam, ensure virtual meeting branding & customization are appropriate.

3. Creating a Distraction-Free Study Space

Online classes permit students to participate from anywhere in the country or world. When choosing an environment to study in, students should ensure it is distraction-free. If working from a bedroom, close the door to prevent interruptions. Also, limit intrusive music and television. The best study space is a quiet, well-lit room.

If at all possible, students should set up a study space in an independent area. Maybe their house has an office or a basement. Find a place where they can be closed off from people and other distractions.

4. Ensuring Active Participation

Becoming a fly on the wall in a virtual classroom is too easy. Many schools and instructors have minimum participation requirements, but if a student wants to get the most out of the course, they should try and engage as often as possible. If a course allows for virtual team assignments, consider incorporating free Teams backgrounds so students can feel like a cohesive unit without worrying about revealing personal space.

5. Building a Routine

The most important thing when taking an online class is to build a routine. If a student has a preset calendar and schedule for when they take their course and perform schoolwork, it is easier to stay focused during those set hours. Also, students must prioritize their coursework and schedule, the same as they would with in-person classes.

Virtual and in-person classes are similar in many ways, but they are also vastly different. If you or a child is taking an online class, consider talking to the institution to create the best opportunity for success.

Intellectual Insider

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Business

The One Reason Most Small Businesses Fail. And No, It Isn’t Money

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

We’ve all heard the U.S. Bureau of Labor stats: 20% of small businesses fail in the first twelve months, and 50% in the first five years. They’re real numbers, but the commonly cited reasons are not why businesses actually fail.

The SBA’s SCORE program claims the number one reason is cash flow; 82% can’t pay this month’s bills and just turn in the keys. Other researchers, including the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) repeat this claim and then add management issues and ineffective planning as the second and third reasons business owners punch out. We’ve all heard a dozen more.

Table of Contents

Why do businesses fail?

I founded and built 13 businesses in 10 industries and professions on four continents and have advised hundreds of business owners personally. I can tell you that a business will very rarely fail because of any of the above. It just looks that way on the surface. They actually fail because the business owner is tired, and then everything else starts to fall apart around them. Those symptoms of fatigue get mistaken for the cause of failure.

If finances, management, planning or other business elements were fine at one point but are now daunting roadblocks, these almost always point to fatigue on the part of the owner or leaders, who have just lost enough of their energy to begin to let things slowly decay.

I’ve been there multiple times. When a business is that far in the tank, recovery is not easy, but it has always been possible as long as I was honest with myself and did the work to get my energy back. One of the best self-awareness questions I’ve learned to ask myself over the years has helped me identify early-stage fatigue, “What am I pretending not to know?” Feel free to steal it, and then be brave and ask a friend to answer it for you.

Waiting until these classic symptoms of fatigue show up is not the best time to find out you’re in trouble. It’s a long road back from a lack of money, people mad at your leadership neglect or wandering without a clear vision and a plan. The good news is that there are solid early indicators of fatigue that show up long before any of these, and if you catch yourself early, getting back on track from these early indicators is more of a tweak than a turnaround.

Are you reacting to the world around you?

From my own experience and the experience of hundreds of others I’ve worked with, if we’re focused on any of the following reactionary attributes, it’s a counter-logical (but very intuitive) early indicator that you’re already experiencing creeping fatigue:

Toughness – The ability to endure difficult conditions without breaking.

Tenacity – The quality of being determined or persistent, especially in the face of adversity.

Stamina – The capacity to endure prolonged stress or exertion.

Endurance – The ability to withstand difficult conditions over time.

Perseverance – Steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.

Grit – Courage and resolve in facing hardships.

Make no mistake, these are all great attributes, and I want every one of them. But for the most part, they are largely reactive or even defensive. If you need to put your finger in a dike, these attributes are your best friends. But if you’re regularly working from the mindset of any of the above and are being told by others how proud they are that you are withstanding all the storms, droughts and hardships coming at you, from my experience, you’re in the early stages of burnout.

Be proactive – Make your own business rules

What can we do? We need to adopt the mindset of a stream. A stream has all of the above attributes but only as a foundation for the most important indicator of success:

Relentlessness – showing or promising no abatement of severity, intensity, strength or pace: unrelenting

It might take you a minute to see this word differently because we’ve been taught that it is usually connected with something negative – “That salesperson is relentless,” “Our money problems are just relentless.” But if we see our lives and our business as a stream, you might join me in seeing that relentlessness is the defining hallmark of success and fulfillment, both as a business owner and as a human being.

Be the stream

A stream running downhill is relentless above everything else. Sure, it has grit, tenacity and all the other reactive attributes, and those defensive muscles provide a great foundation. But nobody ever won anything by just playing defense. Relentlessness is constantly moving forward and playing offense. I’ve seen countless great businesses reactively bracing against the storms with good cash, good leadership and a great plan, and they all fade against the forward energy of business owners with less going for them, but who are more relentless.

Vision is critical. A stream knows where it’s going – it is relentless about achieving its one goal – to get to the ocean. And Utter Clarity about where it wants to end up is the driving force behind its relentlessness. Every stream on the side of the mountain starts with the ocean as its goal, and it will do everything it has to in order to get there. If it runs into a beaver dam, it doesn’t get emotional because it understands it’s actually causing its own trouble by relentlessly moving forward. It just figures out how to solve problems while on the way to the ocean. If it has to fill up a lake, so be it. And make no mistake, if a stream appears to be meandering in a meadow, it isn’t. It relentlessly takes the shortest path to the ocean, even if sometimes it has to circle back right where it came from first.

Relentlessly toward the goal

Are we relentlessly moving forward, making our own business rules and causing our own trouble, or are we beginning to play defense with largely reactive attributes like toughness, endurance and grit? Streams and effective business owners don’t pride themselves in how they react. That would wear any of us out eventually. Streams focus on relentlessly moving forward and causing their own trouble.

We need the mindset of a stream.

Are you tired, or maybe not yet feeling tired but focused on the reactive and defensive attributes above? First, re-attach your business and your life to the end goal of what it will do for you when the business “arrives.” Then, start moving relentlessly forward again. Go cause your own trouble, stay in trouble and know that the trouble you’re proactively causing will lead you to where you want to end up.

Be the stream. Keep going!

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Business

One $28, Under-Appreciated Microsoft App Could Save You Thousands of Dollars

Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

The average salary of a software developer is around $132,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means outsourcing your coding can cost a pretty penny, and it may be time to learn to do it on your own. When you’re ready to get started, Microsoft Visual Studio Pro is where you’ll want to work.

This app is ready to help you boost your productivity and write your own high-quality code, and a lifetime license is just $27.97 — $471 off the usual price — now through March 30 while supplies last.

Work smarter, not harder with this coding helper

Microsoft Visual Studio Pro is a software development tool that is ready to help you take your coding to the next level. You can use it to create apps, websites, or even software systems, ultimately saving you a fortune as it helps you tackle things yourself without hiring people.

Once you’ve learned to write and edit code, you can turn to Microsoft Visual Studio to help you write, edit, and debug on the same platform. It’s a 64-bit IDE (integrated development environment) that comes equipped with built-in integrations and helpful tools so you can tackle projects both large and small.

Microsoft Visual Studio helps you build across languages, allowing you to work with C++, C#, Python, JavaScript, and more. And Intellicode is there to help you type less and code more. It’s kind of like auto-complete for coding.

A debugger can identify and fix the errors in your code, which really helps those who are newer to coding by making troubleshooting easier. The app also includes CodeLens, which shows you recent changes, authors, tests, and commit history so you have a comprehensive overview of your codebase.

Take advantage of this limited-time sale on Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2022 for Windows, now just $27.97 (reg. $499).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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Business

These Are the 3 Hidden Forces That Shape Startup Success — and How to Embrace Them

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Building a startup isn’t about chasing certainty — it’s about learning to thrive in the unknown. Growth, risk and opportunity collide at every turn, creating a dynamic that’s as exhilarating as it is precarious. Fragility, momentum and reinvestment aren’t just forces at play; they’re defining elements of the entrepreneurial journey.

My experiences, from building an early services business to co-founding Density and now leading Bread, have taught me that success doesn’t come from avoiding these forces. It comes from understanding their interplay and navigating them with intention.

Table of Contents

The fragility paradox

Startups are fragile by design. Whether you’re building a product, managing cash flow or growing a team, every move feels like stacking bricks on an unsteady foundation. Even when things are going well, fragility is always lurking beneath the surface.

Our first business, a services company, grew quickly. Within a year, we hit over $1 million in revenue, and by all appearances, it seemed stable. But services businesses are deceptively fragile. Revenue is tied to a handful of clients, and losing just one can send everything into freefall.

That’s exactly what happened. A major client left, and suddenly, we couldn’t make payroll. My co-founders and I stopped paying ourselves, cut expenses and worked to rebuild. We got through it, but the experience left an indelible lesson: Just because things are good now doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way. Fragility demands vigilance.

This reality became even more apparent as we reinvested profits into new ideas. Every project we launched was fragile — many failed outright — but fragility wasn’t a reason to stop. It was a reminder to focus, prioritize and act decisively in the face of uncertainty.

Momentum myopia

Momentum can feel like the antidote to fragility. When a product launch gains traction or revenue starts climbing, it’s tempting to think you’re on an unstoppable path. But momentum, left unchecked, can create blind spots.

At Density, we launched our first hardware product — a break-beam sensor for tracking foot traffic — amid a wave of excitement. Demand was growing, and the pressure to move fast was immense. But the product wasn’t ready. Accuracy issues in real-world conditions became obvious after deployment, and the flaws forced us into a costly reset.

We had let momentum dictate our decisions, pushing forward without questioning whether the foundation was solid. It was a painful but necessary lesson: Momentum is only valuable when it’s paired with reflection. Pausing to evaluate doesn’t kill progress; it ensures that growth is sustainable.

The reinvestment imperative

If fragility demands focus and momentum requires discipline, reinvestment is the leap of faith that drives discovery. Every dollar we earned in the services business went back into the company, not just to sustain operations but to fund experiments.

Most of those experiments failed. We built products no one needed, sunk time into overly complex solutions and made costly missteps. But one of those ideas — Density — stood out. It was fragile, like all early projects, but it had potential.

Its potential led to our decision to shut down the services business and focus entirely on Density. It wasn’t easy. Investors made it clear: If we wanted their backing, we had to go all in. Letting go of a profitable business to bet on an unproven product felt like jumping off a cliff. But without reinvestment — without those years of experimentation funded by services profits — we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make that leap.

Bringing it together

These lessons didn’t end with Density. At Bread, they shape how we think about building resilient businesses. Fragility, momentum and reinvestment aren’t challenges to be eliminated — they’re dynamics to be navigated.

Fragility forces founders to confront hard truths and focus on what matters most. Momentum provides energy but must be managed with reflection. And reinvestment, though risky, creates the conditions for transformation.

The journey of entrepreneurship isn’t about avoiding failure — it’s about learning from it, adapting and taking intentional risks. At Bread, we approach each founder and portfolio company with this mindset, not to shield them from these forces but to help them navigate them successfully.

Fragility, momentum and reinvestment are constants. But when embraced, they’re not just forces to endure — they’re the foundation of what makes startups thrive.