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Two Sides of Risk in Current Economic Conditions

by Jeff Cornwall on 08/31/2008 08:57   0 comments ,5 views

My column in today's Tennessean examines risk in these difficult economic times:

Risk. It seems to be at the heart of entrepreneurship. Whenever I ask a group to describe entrepreneurship, the word risk is always one of the first things people mention.

Most often people associate risk with failure. This is commonly called "sinking-the-boat risk." It is the risk of putting your money, your time and your reputation into a new business only to ...

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Professor Misses the Point

by Jeff Cornwall on 08/14/2008 08:58   0 comments ,17 views
Tags: myventurepad, entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurship programs+economic growth

Bruce Schierstedt called my attention to a post at Small Business Trends written by Scott Shane.  Scott, who is a professor of entrepreneurship at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, suggests that support for entrepreneurship education is being made for the wrong reasons:

To me, the right reason to support entrepreneurship programs at universities is because educating students about this topic is valuable to them in the sam...

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Watch Your Language: Legal Terminology for Business Entities

by Nina Kaufman on 08/07/2008 21:42   0 comments ,24 views
Tags: myventurepad, limited liability partnerships, limited liability companies, llp+personal risk

Workshak's post on limited liability partnerships (which pulls from Taxgirl's post on ProBlogger) is right about one thing:  that limited liability partnerships (LLPs) are pass-through entities. 

What the post doesn't address is that the LLP statutes in many states make the form less-than-ideal for many multiple-owner businesses.  For example, in some states, LLPs can be used only for businesses whose principals are licensed pro...

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Will the looming recession bloom? Buck up

by Charlie Hoult on 08/04/2008 03:43   0 comments ,33 views
Tags: positive thinking, recession, thecustomercollective, overcoming objections, overcoming adversity
How many times have you asked, or been asked: ‘How is this recession affecting you?’ or ‘Have you noticed the slowdown yet?’

This seems to be the most looming of recessions - rather like the Year 2000 Bug. I’ve commented before that, despite the media panic, I am just hoping that Recession 2008/9/10 just isn’t going to bite like the media want it to… 

‘No, I’m not seeing much pressure on our sales - but I hear this new recession is going...

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What If Your Business Was Outlawed? Meet Glunz Beer

by Barry Moltz on 08/01/2008 10:53   0 comments ,34 views
My guest on the radio show today was Jennifer Glunz Faulk, part of the fourth generation running 120 year old family business Glunz Beers.  Listen to her stories about how they had to sell all their liquor in one day after Prohibition went into effect and where they hid their supply! You think you have problems during [...]
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Howdy, Partner!

by Nina Kaufman on 07/31/2008 11:54   0 comments ,34 views
Tags: myventurepad, partnerships+best practices

From Down Under, a piece from the Manly Daily (a reference to the location of the publication, not its masculinity) on business partnerships.  Even across the globe, the same basic principles -- and secrets to success apply:

  • You won't always agree.  Where you can't work it out, rely on trusted advisers like accountants or attorneys as sounding board and mediators

  • Know your partner before agreeing to go into business togeth...

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Should I Pay My Lawyer A Success Fee For Venture Capital Intros?

by Brad Feld on 07/24/2008 17:57   0 comments ,38 views
Tags: referral fees, success fee, venture capital referrals, lawyer fees, venture capital+fees

Q: My lawyer is asking for a "success fee" for a referral to a potential investor in my business. Since he'll be doing the legal work, he's offered to charge only 3% on the amount funded (solely from this one contact) as opposed to a 5% that a typical investment banker would charge (even though he's not an investment banker himself).

As this is the first venture I'm actually raising capital for, I am simply unfamiliar with this practice in the ...

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Helping Students with Tax Problem Solving Processes: The Spurned Checklist

by James Maule on 07/21/2008 08:55   0 comments ,35 views
Tags: taxation+problem solving, teaching+partnership taxation
Though I usually expect students to learn tax problem processes by following how a problem is solved in class, noting the sequence of the analysis and identifying the relevant and necessary information, there are some instances in which I provide the process to the students in the form of a checklist, or what could better be called a step-by-step process list. In the basic tax course, for example, I do this with the overall process of computing ...
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Is eBank the future of banking?

by James Taylor on 07/16/2008 17:25   0 comments ,50 views
Tags: mobile banking, online banking, ebanking
Thanks to my friends at Bankwatch I heard today about eBank in Japan. The bank is described in this nice article on swiftcommunity.net. What struck me about this was the focus on complete automation of decision making - not just the processes and information colleciton, but the decision making itself. Is this the person they claim to be? Should we allow ...
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Do you get accounting?

by Becky McCray on 07/14/2008 06:59   0 comments ,35 views
Tags: small business+accounting
You know more accounting than you think you do. So for this episode of the Small Biz 100, we're going to build on what you already know, to get you through the accounting basics.

When I taught computer accounting classes to small business owners, this was always the first thing we went over together. So let's start with the part you deal with every day: income and expenses.

Income and Expenses
Your income comes from sales, commissi...
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