In a speech entitled “Your Business Is Dead and You Don’t Even Know It”, Justin Kitch, CEO of Homestead Technologies put it bluntly:
If you don’t have a website:
Of course, setting up a small business website is fairly simple and we advise anyone in business to do this important task ASAP.
I’ve written before about the myth of business failure rates. But this list of myths from Dumb Little Man is valuable as well:
(via BizOpportunities)
Sorry for the infrequent posting. We’ve had quite a busy beginning of 2007. Look for (at the minimum) weekly posts on the best small business news, tips and resources.
Have you always wanted to leave the world a better place than you found it by starting a nonprofit corporation?
Here’s a simple, straightforward guide on how to successfully establish a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
1. Understand what a nonprofit is: an organization whose primary objective is to support some issue or matter of private interest or public concern (such as the arts, charities, education, politics, religion, research, or some other endeavor) for non-commercial purposes.
2. Formulate a mission statement.
3. Form a Board of Directors.
4. File Articles of Incorporation.
5. Draft bylaws.
6. Develop a budget.
7. Develop a record-keeping system.
8. Develop an accounting system.
9. File for 501(c)(3) status.
10. Apply for a federal employer identification number.
11. File for state and local tax exemption.
12. Fulfill charitable solicitation law requirements.
13. Apply for a nonprofit mailing permit.
It is important to file your 1023 within 27 months of the date when your organization was established, or when your Articles of Incorporation were filed. Although the IRS may approve an additional extension under certain circumstances, missing the deadline may result in your charity or foundation not getting 501(c)(3) recognition retroactive to its incorporation date.
For more information on each step, go here.
(via Business Opportunities)
Though we do not file non-profits ourselves, we have created an informational page about non-profit corporations.
From BizzBangBuzz:
1. What’s your business idea?
2. How does your idea address a need?
3. What model suits you best?
4. What’s so different about what you offer?
5. How big is the market and how big will you grow?
6. What’s your role going to be?
7. Who’s on your team?
8. How will customers buy from you, and how much will they pay?
9. How much money do you need, and how much will you make?
10. Where’s the startup money coming from?
11. How will you measure success?
12. What are your key milestones?
Don’t forget to read our content on business plans.
Though often incorrectly attributed to Bill Gates, these “Rules of Life” are once again getting around the internet:
RULE 1: Life is not fair; get used to it.
RULE 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accompish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3; You will not make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
RULE 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
RULE 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it an opportunity.
RULE 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parent’s fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes. Learn from them.
RULE 7: Before you were born, your parents were not as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents’ generation, try “delousing” the closet in your own room.
RULE 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the answer right. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you “find yourself”. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and to to jobs.
RULE 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
From Brian Tracy:
The fifth way that you can become wealthy is you can start your own business and earn it all by yourself. Starting your own business has been and will always be the high road to becoming wealthy for most self-made millionaires. Entrepreneurship in America offers more opportunities and opens more doors than all other possibilities put together. This is why it has been said that if you have the ability to start your own business and you don’t do it, you are a fool. I’ll repeat that. If you have the ability to start your own business and you don’t do it, you’re a fool.
Bob Parsons, the founder of Inc. 500 winner GoDaddy.com offers his advice on which business idea you should pursue. Excerpts include:
Find something that you love to do. Ideally, whatever you choose to do, you should be doing it without regard for money. Trust me, if you dig in and do well, the money will come. However, if money is your primary motivation you have two strikes against you before you start: If money is the driver you will tend to make short-sighted decisions. People who work just for the money tend not to work as hard as those who love what they do.
Also:
I’ve heard people say that I love this idea, but this particular business is already crowded. In response to that I say there is always room in any industry or business for someone who truly makes a difference. And I can tell you that someone who loves what they are doing often makes a wonderful difference. People who make a difference tend to stand out from the crowd and they are the ones who survive shakeouts.
So there you have it, also make sure to read our section on the business idea for more great info on picking the right business idea.
Blogger Warren Meyer has written a great 3 part article on how he bought a small company, step-by-step. Very interesting read. He writes:
One fateful day, I decided that A) I hated working for other people and B) I had no groundbreaking entrepreneurial ideas of my own so that C) if I wanted to own a decent sized business, I would have to buy one.
Unfortunately, I had NO CLUE how to go find companies that were for sale and that I could afford. In fact, I was not sure at that point such opportunities even existed (again, when the rubber met the road, my Harvard MBA let me down). And, if the questions I get asked all the time are any indication, I was not the only one who didn’t know how any of this worked.
Also, don’t forget to read our content on buying a business or franchise.
(via Start-up Guide)
From WebProNews:
It’s hard to avoid certain mistakes, especially when you face a situation for the first time. In fact, many of the following mistakes are hard to avoid even if you’re an old hand.
1. Big Customer Syndrome. If more than 50 percent of your revenues come from any one customer you may be headed for a meltdown.
2. Creating products in a vacuum. You and your team have a great idea. A brilliant idea. You spend months, even years, implementing that idea. When you finally bring it to market, no one is interested.
3. Equal partnerships. Maybe you and a friend start the company together. In each case, you and your new partner split the company 50/50. That seems fine and fair right now, but as your personal and professional interests diverge, it is a sure recipe for disaster.
4. Low prices. Some entrepreneurs think they can be the low price player in their market and make huge profits on the volume.
5. Not enough capital. Check your business assumptions. The norm is optimistic sales projections, too-short product development timeframes, and unrealistically low expense forecasts.
6. Out of Focus. Many entrepreneurs - hungry for cash and thinking more is always better - feel the need to seize every piece of business dangled in front of them, instead of focusing on their core product, service, market, distribution channel.
7. First class and infrastructure crazy. Many a startup dies an untimely death from excessive overhead. Keep your digs humble and your furniture cheap.
8. Perfection-itis. This disease is often found in engineers who won’t release products until they are absolutely perfect.
9. No clear return on investment. Can you articulate the return which comes from purchasing your product or service?
10. Not admitting your mistakes. Of all the mistakes, this might be the biggest. At some point you realize the awful truth: you have made a mistake. Admit it quick. Redress the situation. If not, that mistake will get bigger, and bigger, and… Sometimes this is hard, but, believe me, bankruptcy is harder.
As we’ve said before, most startup failures and mistakes can be mitigated by proper planning and learning some basic small business management skils.
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