LLCs Vs. S-CorpsJeff Cornwall: [LLCs] offer no real tax advantage for most entrepreneurs, and since they tend to be more expensive, one might wonder why. But, key in on two words from the last two sentences, attorney and expensive, and you get a clue as to one possible reason. Lawyers make more money from pushing LLCs. There are [...]
Some Lessons from the Big GuysSteve Strauss in USA Today: Here then are my top 5 big business lessons for small business: There’s Power in Numbers: The fatal flaw for many a small business is that they too often work in a vacuum. Be Thorough: Large corporations, for the most part, make decisions fairly slowly, and even then, only after fully analyzing [...]
Who Says You Have to Take Risks?Gladys Edmunds: Recently while being interviewed for a small business journal, the interviewer asked if I thought anyone could own and operate a business. I told him I believe anyone who has the desire to own a business owes it to themselves to give it a go. Before I could continue, the interviewer interrupted and said, “But [...]
Baskets Make Great Father's Day Gifts This coming Sunday is Father's Day, leaving less than a week to find an appropriate gift. If your Father is like mine, he's probably already received enough ties and cologne...
Entrepreneurs Make Poor PatronsTim O’Leary: I am an unabashed entrepreneur. Since graduating from college - I have never worked for anyone else for any significant amount of time. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake, as I suspect the right mentor could have smoothed the road for me a bit, but it all turned out, and I [...]
Join the Conversation in the ForumIn the Small Business Canada Forum, small business people are talking about: What should I do about this unpaid invoice? What are your top three business books? As a freelancer am I a...
24 Dinners at a TimeSpringwise: Last year, we wrote about three fix-and-freeze companies that allow customers to assemble prepped food into healthy dinners. The concept has exploded in the past year. Entrepreneurs across the US have started their own dinner assembly stores, and the field’s leader, Dream Dinners, has expanded from 49 locations in April 2005 to 163 today, thanks [...]
How to Start a One-Ingredient RestaurantMSNBC: These days, the name of the game in the restaurant industry is differentiation. If you specialize in one product and you know your stuff, hungry customers will flock to you for a taste. “There are currently about 1 million restaurants in the U.S., representing about $430 billion a year in sales, with [about] $1.3 billion per [...]
Evidence that Selling on eBay is EasyMention eBay in a room full of people and pretty well everyone there will have bought or sold something on eBay at one point. But what if you've never sold...
The Where Did You Get the Idea PollHave you already voted? If so, here are the results of the poll that asks, "Where did you get the idea for starting your business? If you haven't, vote in the...
SEO is Key to High Search Engine RankingsDavid asks, "how can I organize my Web site so that when someone searches Google, my company's name comes up first?" Getting a number 1 page ranking isn’t a matter of...
Entrepreneurship Is in the BloodEntrepreneurs’ Viewpoint Blog: Yesterday on the BBC news website there was an article about a UK-US study that has found our genes “are crucial in determining whether we are entrepreneurial and likely to become self-employed.” When looking at sets of identical and fraternal twins the study found that the siblings in the identical sets were more [...]
A Home Office Built for TwoStartup Journal: For many parents, the whole notion of creating a home office centers on walling yourself off from family life, creating a space — whether an entire room or just a desk tucked into the kitchen or den — where your world is private and removed from all the commotion and demands of spouse and [...]
Founders: Don?t Underpay YourselfAdventures in Capitalism: I always advise company founders not to underpay themselves. Underpaying yourself isn’t a noble sacrifice, it’s a distortion. If your business can’t turn a profit paying market salaries, maybe it’s not such a good business. Of course, it’s hard to draw this line sometimes, especially when you’re a first-time founder. When I started my [...]
The Where Did You Get the Idea PollHave you already voted? If so, here are the results of the poll that asks, "Where did you get the idea for starting your business? If you haven't, vote in the...
The #1 Way to Differentiate Your BusinessIs still customer service. It's still far and away the easiest, most cost effective way to attract new customers and/or clients and retain the ones you already have - which...
How to Shoot a Bullet Through Your StartupDavid Heinemeier: Are you thinking about starting a company in the web space? Step one, don’t listen to Business 2.0 and their How to build a Bulletproof Startup nonsense! They’ll tell you that you need to burn between $1.6 and $4.5 million to get to launch. They’re wrong. They’ll tell you that working on a prototype is [...]
Spying on MomForbes Small Business: Worried about an elderly relative who lives alone? Upset that you can’t keep your unblinking eye on her 24 hours a day to ensure she’s safe and healthy? Living Independently Group, a three-year-old New York City company, is offering what it bills as the next best thing: sensors throughout her home to keep [...]
Baskets Make Great Father's Day Gifts This coming Sunday is Father's Day, leaving less than a week to find an appropriate gift. If your Father is like mine, he's probably already received enough ties and cologne...
Phony Invoices and Other ScamsReading that charges have been laid in a telemarketing scam (CTV.ca) gladdens my heart. Five people and three companies in Ontario and Quebec allegedly "duped tens of thousands of businesses...
The Forgotten Exit StrategyAlmost any “how to start a business” book will give advice on developing an exit strategy when building a business. This allows you to recover from a failed business as easily as possible. For instance… a place to sell off left over inventory, leaving enough in your savings to get you through a few months [...]
Join the Conversation in the ForumIn the Small Business Canada Forum, small business people are talking about: What should I do about this unpaid invoice? What are your top three business books? As a freelancer am I a...
Jump ?N Play GymTracey Howard owner of Jump ‘n Play wrote: I own and operate Jump ‘n Play Gym, which is a parent-child learning program based in play and music. It’s all about families and children and I really believe it’s best of the best in design and structure. I started the company in 2003, when I’d had [...]
Why a New Idea Isn?t the Key to EntrepreneurshipBusiness Pundit: I used to think the key to entrepreneurship was a novel idea. Isn’t that what most of us believe? I wanted to invite a new high tech widget or offer a cool new service that no one else had thought of. That was the way I would make my millions. The first blow came when [...]
Join the Conversation in the ForumIn the Small Business Canada Forum, small business people are talking about: Should I buy a new car for my business? Are these legitimate business expenses? How do you form an association of...
Road WageBusiness Journal: In a market overrun by taxis and limos, Seth Riney’s livery business is taking the road less traveled. As gas prices continue to soar, Riney’s 3-year-old enterprise, PlanetTran LLC, is carving out a niche for itself in the public ground transportation market by offering the nation’s first car service using an all-hybrid fleet of vehicles. Hybrids [...]
Dealing With FailureYoung Entrepreneur: Most entrepreneurs fail at least once, if not many times. The characteristic that defines a successful entrepreneur is how failure is handled. I am a believer in the fact that failure is the best teacher, if you deal with it correctly. As someone who has been through a failed business, here are my tips [...]
SEO is Key to High Search Engine RankingsDavid asks, "how can I organize my Web site so that when someone searches Google, my company's name comes up first?" Getting a number 1 page ranking isn’t a matter of...
Evidence that Selling on eBay is EasyMention eBay in a room full of people and pretty well everyone there will have bought or sold something on eBay at one point. But what if you've never sold...
Phony Invoices and Other ScamsReading that charges have been laid in a telemarketing scam (CTV.ca) gladdens my heart. Five people and three companies in Ontario and Quebec allegedly "duped tens of thousands of businesses...
Yahoo is the new Google. Google is the new Yahoo.What does it all mean? Up is down, and black is white. This spring has been very strange. Google, it seems, has jumped the shark. It has been overtaken, left standing, and not by some new startup of ultra smart MIT alumni or by the gazillions in the Microsoft development budget, but by the deeply unhip and previously discounted Yahoo.
