In the end, startups are largely about building things and solving problems, but they're not necessarily better than large corporations.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Five Lessons About Joining A Startup From A Rookie - Forbes
Five Lessons About Joining A Startup From A Rookie Forbes
Elizabeth Warren's tax plan requires a big leap of faith from small business | TheHill - The Hill
Elizabeth Warren's tax plan requires a big leap of faith from small business | TheHill - The Hill |
- Elizabeth Warren's tax plan requires a big leap of faith from small business | TheHill - The Hill
- Cooling tech company heats up with NSF small-business award - Cornell Chronicle
- Guest opinion: Most Idaho small businesses lack disaster plan - Idaho Press-Tribune
- GoDaddy Launches New SEO and Email Marketing Tool for SMBs - PCMag.com
| Posted: 17 Sep 2019 02:00 PM PDT In the past few weeks, U.S. senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren The plan isn't complicated. If you've got more than $50 million in assets, you'll be levied a two percent annual tax. More than $1 billion? The tax goes up to three percent. The proceeds of the tax – about $2.75 trillion over a ten-year period, she estimates – will go towards funding student debt relief and tuition reimbursement, Medicare for all, payments on the Green New Deal and other programs. Not surprisingly, the plan – which would face long odds of becoming actual law should she be elected – is controversial. Her supporters are touting it as a way to redistribute wealth and give money back to the 99 percent. Her opponents call it an attack on capitalism and the end of America as we know it. ADVERTISEMENT Warren's plan should not be ignored. She is a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to become president and could very well be elected. So, putting aside the drama for a moment, how would her plan impact America's approximately 30 million small business owners? Would it hinder or help their business investing decisions? Their hiring? Their companies? Their livelihoods? The fact is that no one really knows the impact of such a major initiative. Since the time of the Gracchi, wealth re-distribution has been tried before in other countries with mixed results. Socialist societies have come and gone. Even our very best economists have a hard time predicting tomorrow's interest rates or whether or not we'll have a recession in a few months, let alone understanding the impact of a plan involving trillions of dollars that will play itself out over a decade. Just watch a few episodes of the "Big Bang Theory" and you'll quickly understand that there are limits to human intelligence, no matter how smart people say they are. For the small business owner, that's not very helpful. We're left having to decide for ourselves how a giant, big-government plan like Warren's is going to impact our long-term prospects. One thing is certain: it will. On the one hand, Warren's proposals could be a big benefit to some small business owners. The more the government pays for health care and sick time means the less they have to spend on these things and even helps to level the playing field with their big company competitors. If the government wants to forgive loans and help pay for college so small business owners are able to hire smarter and more skilled employees then who's going to complain about that? If going super-Green means a better, more energy efficient world (not to mention a boom in construction, engineering and related projects), I don't think a lot of small contractors and their community of customers and suppliers are going to have a problem. ADVERTISEMENT The fact is that few – if any – small business owners have more than $50 million, let alone $1 billion, in the bank. The average one – the merchant, mechanic, landscaper, restauranteur – makes about $70,000 a year. The better ones have socked away a few million bucks and merely hope to one day have some extra time to watch football and play with their grandkids. Warren's tax isn't going to reach so far down as to affect our tax bill and assets. So we're good, right? Well, not so fast. Most small businesses – about 70 percent according to one study – have debt in the form of working capital loans to buy inventory, credit card balances that fund travel or mortgages on our properties and equipment. Many others, particularly the hall of famers who emerge from the pack to become billion-dollar babies, rely on venture capital and Wall Street to fund their dreams. Those dreams, as we know, have changed the world by providing us with food items, health care products, technologies and entertainment that our ancestors of even recent generations could never imagine. Will Warren's tax plan cause the flight of this capital that's helped to fund these advancements? Will the wealthy move and invest elsewhere? Will it so diminish, as this Washington Post analysis points out, the wealth of the wealthy that markets will dive, asset values will sink, valuations will plummet and the availability of capital, be it debt or equity, becomes significantly more scarce so as to inhibit that entrepreneur's dream of changing the world? Or even a pizza shop owner's dream of fixing her oven? No one really knows this either. But it's very possible, even likely. I admire people who want to do bold things that could make the world a better place. I think Elizabeth Warren is one of those people. But supporting her plans would take a very big leap of faith. I know nothing in life is guaranteed. But as a small business owner, I'm averse to taking such chances without a better understanding of the potential return on investment. Gene Marks is founder of The Marks Group, a small-business consulting firm. He frequently appears on CNBC, Fox Business and MSNBC.  |
| Cooling tech company heats up with NSF small-business award - Cornell Chronicle Posted: 17 Sep 2019 10:24 AM PDT In the battle against climate change, tech startup Heat Inverse is aiming to revolutionize cooling technologies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than a gigaton. The company is led by CEO Romy Fain, Ph.D. '17, and thanks to a $225,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Heat Inverse is set to scale up and pilot its technology with customers. While a doctoral student in electrical engineering at Cornell, Fain developed a thin film that produces cooling temperatures without generating any waste heat. Realizing the technology would be a boon for the traditionally energy-intensive cooling and refrigerant industry, Fain started to work on commercializing her research. At Cornell, Fain was introduced to multiple entrepreneurship programs. She completed an NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) short course and learned how to conduct customer discovery – a method of interviewing potential customers to determine if a technology meets their needs. Upon graduation, she officially launched Heat Inverse and was accepted into the SBIR Phase 0 pilot program, which trains and supports early-stage startups as they apply for and secure funding. "The NSF I-Corps and SBIR Phase 0 programs not only gave us the opportunity to find customers, but more importantly, they taught us how to find customers," Fain said. "We are continuing to use the skills we learned in the program to dig deeper into our initial market, but also to investigate potential future follow-on markets." Heat Inverse's initial customer market is the refrigerated trucking industry. Conventional cooling technologies are big contributors to global warming; by applying Heat Inverse's films atop transport trailers, the company expects to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 20 million metric tons per year, and reduce fuel costs for trucking companies by 25%-80%.  The additional markets Fain has identified for her thin-film technology includes construction, consumer vehicles, battery storage and solar energy systems. Fain had planned to launch Heat Inverse in San Francisco, but while completing her doctorate, she was attracted to the Southern Tier's strong startup ecosystem. She recently pitched her business plan as a semifinalist in the 76West Clean Energy Competition. Winners in the competition, including the $1 million grand prize winner, will be announced in the fall. As a condition of the award, winning companies must either move to the Southern Tier or establish a direct connection with the Southern Tier, such as a supply chain or job development with Southern Tier companies. "I realized what a fantastic place this is to start a business" she said. "Loads of smart people, affordable real estate, Cornell resources close by, manufacturing in the region, lots of New York state money going into clean tech and economic development, and the quality of life just can't be beat. And Rev: Ithaca Startup Works is such a great location to work." Fain credits Rev, the city's startup incubator, with supplying the majority of the company's networking contacts. She said she appreciates the guidance of the incubator's entrepreneurs-in-residence. "They continue to give us excellent advice and warm introductions to all of their connections," she said, "keeping Heat Inverse accelerating in the right direction." Casey Verderosa is a writer for the Center for Regional Economic Advancement.  |
| Guest opinion: Most Idaho small businesses lack disaster plan - Idaho Press-Tribune Posted: 16 Sep 2019 11:15 PM PDT  The data is staggering: an estimated one in four businesses won't reopen after a major disaster. The economic impact is crippling: the loss in revenues, inventory, property, wages and even jobs has an incredible ripple effect on local economies and global supply chains. The human impact is devastating: the stress and loss that comes from a disaster can be overwhelming, to say the least. Yet, studies show an estimated two out of three small businesses – or in some studies as high as three out of four – don't have an emergency plan in place. As we've experienced firsthand in Idaho – from droughts in some parts of the state to severe flooding in other parts – it's not a matter of if a disaster will strike, it's a matter of when. Being prepared for any kind of emergency means a business will rebound sooner with less impact to its financial reserves. Since September is National Disaster Preparedness Month, there is no better time than now to take steps to prepare: n Review your hazard and flood coverage to ensure your policy is in effect before a disaster strikes. n Keep your insurance policy information, phone numbers for your insurance agent and the claims department handy. n Know who you can call to help you clean/rebuild your business and have a restoration plan in place so you can focus on the task of quickly reopening your business. n Keep an updated list of all your employees' contact numbers and email addresses to ensure safety, as well as keeping everyone in the loop about the recovery progress. n Obtain a line of credit or have enough cash to run your business for at least three months. n Move your important business records, personal memorabilia and anything that's irreplaceable to an offsite location. Save as much as you possibly can to the cloud. Preparedness cannot be stressed enough, but once disaster hits the SBA Office of Disaster Assistance has staff on the ground within days to coordinate federal, state and local recovery efforts. Many people I talk to are surprised to learn that in the wake of a declared disaster, the SBA assists in the rebuilding and economic recovery of a community by providing affordable, timely loans to businesses of all sizes, nonprofits, homeowners and renters to cover uninsured losses. For businesses of all sizes and private non-profit organizations, the SBA provides up to $2 million to repair or replace damaged real estate, leasehold improvements, furniture and fixtures, inventory, and machinery and equipment. Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) are also available to small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, and most private non-profit organizations that have suffered economic injury caused by a disaster. These loans provide working capital to a business or organization until normal operations can resume. While a key component to the SBA mission is to help small businesses recover following a disaster, we also want to mitigate that loss. I urge Idaho small businesses to not become a sobering statistic. Take the time this month to put an emergency plan in place using the many no-cost resources at your disposal. It's an investment of your time that will have exponential returns.  |
| GoDaddy Launches New SEO and Email Marketing Tool for SMBs - PCMag.com Posted: 17 Sep 2019 02:00 PM PDT  GoDaddy is known for its website hosting services but it wants to be more than that for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Today it introduced Websites + Marketing, a set of services the company says small businesses and entrepreneurs can use to increase their audiences. GoDaddy includes tools for website building, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and managing business profiles on platforms such as Instagram and Google My Business. The latter lets companies manage their presence in online searches. For GoDaddy, the goal in launching Websites + Marketing was to take customers beyond just website building and help them focus on interactive engagement. Interactive engagement includes the ability to sell products and manage your presence online according to Heidi Gibson, Senior Director of Product Management at GoDaddy "The big evolution for us is moving beyond website building," Gibson said. "It's a means to the end and just one part of the puzzle of succeeding online. To empower our customers, we need to help them manage their entire presence online...and to do that effectively, they have to be able to centralize the management of it." Gibson said customers need help knowing when to spend the time doing email marketing versus other tasks such as blogging. By focusing on other aspects of a marketing effort, including using social media, you can protect a company if its website breaks down, she said. She said this happens all too often. "Customers would build a website and then say their site is broken, [saying] no one comes to it," Gibson explained. "People need to find you by having this whole online presence that is reinforcing upon itself. Enabling that is the larger trend that this is a part of and that we're really striving to lead." We saw a demo of GoDaddy Website + Marketing and liked the deep selection of templates and stock images. You can pull images from Getty Images or from your Facebook account. The idea is that GoDaddy wants to make it easy to use these resources across your entire online presence, including email marketing and social media. GoDaddy is part of a recent trend in which companies want to offer a complete marketing experience in addition their core product. For example, Mailchimp recently expanded beyond just email marketing platform and into a full-service marketing platform. Mailchimp now offers website building, marketing automation, and customer relationship management (CRM).
The Insight tool in GoDaddy Websites + Marketing provides a score on how effective users are in managing their online presence.
|
| You are subscribed to email updates from "small business plan" - Google News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
How A Swedish Entrepreneur Plans To Help People Make Better Finance and Business decisions - Thrive Global
How A Swedish Entrepreneur Plans To Help People Make Better Finance and Business decisions - Thrive Global |
- How A Swedish Entrepreneur Plans To Help People Make Better Finance and Business decisions - Thrive Global
- Mayor appointed to USCM Small Business and Entrepreneurship Task Force - Hometownlife.com
- Learn How To Run With Your Business Idea At Smart Start Workshop Wednesday - 1380 KCIM
| Posted: 17 Sep 2019 09:11 AM PDT  My name is Fredrik and I am working digitally full-time for eight years and mainly developing financial websites. At this point, I dedicate most of my efforts toward building an excellent business financing service for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), startups and entrepreneurs operating in the Nordic area (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). The underlying reason for this project is the many obstacles SMSs have to face before getting funded. In reality, many promising companies fail not because they are pursuing the wrong business idea, but instead, they lack sufficient capital to establish themselves on the market. The primary purpose of my latest project Nordiska Firmalån (Firmalan.com) is to make business financing more accessible and make it easier for others to succeed in their business ventures. What are some common challenges companies face looking for financing? Truth is; sooner or later, most entrepreneurs end up in a situation where they need to bring in external investment capital or financing. As a small business, not only is it complicated to get an overview of available financial options, getting approved by a bank is often next to impossible. There are quite a few financial alternatives for small business if the bank is letting you down. However, the market has done quite a lousy job getting the message out. Another problem is the lack of honest review and comparison sites. Fredrik thinks his new website really could make corporate financing both more accessible and transparent. One of the main strengths of Nordiska Firmalån is that it covers many financial options whether it's corporate banking, EU funding programmes, business loans or crowdfunding. Who is the person behind these projects? My name is Fredrik and I am a Swedish entrepreneur, Overtime. The financial business has become my center of attention and since a couple of years back, I mainly work on creating user-friendly information-rich financial websites with honest comparison and reviews. The company Spexer AB developed one of the first multilingual Nordic loan comparison sites (Lanebank.com). Why do you do what you do? My journey as a small business owner, began just before I finished my university studies. By then, I had already built a couple of small websites and was making some "petty cash", but I was very far from being able to live off the income generated online. I finished my studies and became a teacher by degree, but my heart was never in teaching so I desperately looked elsewhere for some other job/ income opportunities. At the back on of my mind, a nagging feeling was growing, the idea of scaling up the business was haunting me and becoming increasingly attractive by the day. I decided to work some extra hours as a teacher and then devote the rest of the time to grow my small business. I won't lie, the first few years were a real struggle and I was about to give up more than once, but (luckily) kept on going. After lots of effort and some luck, I found myself in a position where I was fortunate enough to be able to work full time with my company. After about five years, my business was going well enough, with a steady income, I could enjoy some time off and do some travelling. With economic stability, my entrepreneurial business focus has shifted; nowadays, my main motivation is realizing small business ideas by turning abstract concepts into reality. In my experience, money alone is a very shallow driving force and you are much better served with a higher purpose in life.  |
| Mayor appointed to USCM Small Business and Entrepreneurship Task Force - Hometownlife.com Posted: 17 Sep 2019 12:33 PM PDT
CLOSE  Westland Mayor William R. Wild has been appointed to serve alongside Mayor Elizabeth B Kautz from Burnsville, Minnesota, as co-chairs to the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) Small Business and Entrepreneurship Task Force. Both mayors were selected by USCM President, Mayor Bryan K. Barnett of Rochester Hills. "Mayor Wild has long been a leader and a national voice on entrepreneurship and I was excited to appoint him to represent Westland on the national stage as we work on this important aspect of job creation and our economy," Barnett stated in a release. "Wild is in a unique position to lead, coming from a small business background, and I am confident that he will help the USCM develop a proactive, strategic agenda through this task force." The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Task Force is comprised of mayors from across the country who will share their experiences with how they've successfully grown and supported small businesses and how they foster entrepreneurship in their cities. They will also hear from representatives from small business nationwide, in order to incubate new ideas for small business growth. More: Westland middle school pilot program bans phones, backpacks More: Suicide prevention events in Livonia to encourage more talking, listening The United States Conference of Mayors is the official non-partisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are over 1,400 such cities in the country today. Wild has been actively engaged with the USCM since he became mayor in 2007. "It is an honor to be selected to co-chair this task force as we examine the crucial topics of business retention, growth and job creation," commented Mayor Wild. "I look forward to sharing best practices and ideas with the nation's mayors as we work to strengthen the United States economy one community at a time." Read or Share this story: https://www.hometownlife.com/story/news/local/westland/2019/09/17/mayor-wild-appointed-uscm-small-business-and-entrepreneurship-task-force/2340380001/  |
| Learn How To Run With Your Business Idea At Smart Start Workshop Wednesday - 1380 KCIM Posted: 17 Sep 2019 09:52 AM PDT  The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) of Iowa and Iowa Central Community College are partnering to help entrepreneurs learn how to launch their business ideas. Smart Start will be held from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18 at the Greene County Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Offices in Jefferson. The workshop will feature presentations from: Kimberly Tiefenthaler, the SBDC Regional Director; Leslie Lien, CPA; Marketing Specialist Darcy Swon; and insurance specialist, Bob Singer. In addition, materials will be provided for attendees to take home and include resource links, planning tools and much more. Cost to attend is $35 per person and can be done through the contact points included below. _____________________________________ Smart Start business startup workshop registration: Phone: 515-574-1293 Email: noncredit@iowacentral.edu  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from "small business ideas" - Google News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
Vancouver startup Trulioo raises $52M for identity verification tech - GeekWire
Vancouver startup Trulioo raises $52M for identity verification tech GeekWire
Vancouver, B.C.-based startup Trulioo has raised $52 million to fuel the growth of its identification technology *service*. The 8-year-old company helps banks, ...
Global Identity Verification Startup Trulioo Raises Series C - Crunchbase News
Global Identity Verification Startup Trulioo Raises Series C Crunchbase News
Vancouver-based online identity verification startup Trulioo raised $70 million CAD–just over $50 million USD–in a new round of funding. Subscribe to the ...
Startup Guide Johannesburg: why some entrepreneurs call this South African city ‘JoHustleBurg’ - YourStory
Startup Guide Johannesburg: why some entrepreneurs call this South African city ‘JoHustleBurg’ YourStory
Johannesburg is the Africa headquarters for many global businesses. A supportive ecosystem for entrepreneurs has also emerged in the cosmopolitan South ...
France's Macron bets on private-sector funding to fuel startup push - WTVB News
France's Macron bets on private-sector funding to fuel startup push WTVB News
By Mathieu Rosemain PARIS (Reuters) - France aims to raise 5 billion euros ($5.53 billion) in funds from private-sector investors to give French startup ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)