Archives: January 2010

Friday Links: Ethical Internet Marketing

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 29

Copyblogger's Sonia Simone writes about scorpions and frogs and the case for ethical Internet marketing (not an oxymoron). Pamela Slim advocates testing often, failing fast. What keeps you from doing...

Jobs Credit Talk May Delay Hiring

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 29

If the government plans to give a tax credit for new hires to small businesses, as President Obama indicated Wednesday in his State of the Union address, Congress and the...

About that $30 Billion...

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 28

One more note on Obama's plan to direct $30 billion in funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to community banks for small business lending. Making such a program work...

What Obama Said About Small Business

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 28

A short but prominent section of President Obama's State of the Union focused on helping small businesses to create jobs. Here's a look at what he said and what it...

Wednesday Links: Jobs Tax Credit; iPad for Business

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 27

Expect a jobs tax credit in the State of the Union tonight -- but structuring it properly may be tricky, Catherine Rampell reports at the NY Times. Business owner and...

A Lost Generation of Entrepreneurs?

Posted by: Nick Leiber on January 27

This is a post by guest blogger Jeff Bussgang. I've been worrying lately that we are suffering from a lost generation of entrepreneurs. That was my first reaction when I...

Tuesday Links: How to Be Ubiquitous

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 26

Seth Godin bypasses mainstream media to promote book by being on every blog everywhere. To pay for rising health costs, business owners have only three levers they can pull, a...

What Local Stock Exchanges Might Look Like

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 26

Last month I mentioned that one big idea I expect to see take shape in 2010 is local investing: a way for ordinary investors to direct part of their savings...

Monday Links: Business Casual

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 25

Guidelines for dress codes, from Business.gov. Despite the troubles plaguing the ARC loan program, they work for business owners who get them. Catherine Clifford of CNNMoney talks to one entrepreneur...

Home-Based Businesses Increasing

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 25

More people are working from home, and more of them are working for themselves, according to Census data released today. The chart below compares the growth in the number of...

Friday Links: Venture's Bad Year

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 22

First round venture investments for startups in 2009 dropped to the lowest level since the industry started tracking them in 1995, Claire Cain Miller reports in the NY Times. One...

Thursday Links: When To Cut Prices

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 21

Lower prices during a recovery, not a recession, Susan L. Reid writes at Small Business Trends. Caron Beesley explains tax changes that affect small business at Business.gov. Health care reform...

Lower Home, Stock Values Hamper Small Business Credit

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 21

One reason small business lending is down is that many loans are secured by personal assets that have lost value. A recent article in the San Francisco Fed's Community Investments...

Comparing Small Business Credit Cards

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 21

I spent a good deal of time last year writing about credit card reform -- and how Congress left small business cards out of the new consumer protection laws. At...

Wednesday Links: What Comic Sans Says About You

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 20

Seth Godin on the importance of typefaces. (Please read, comic sans users.) Planning helps reduce the stress of running a business, Colleen Debaise writes at the WSJ. The number of...

Carl Schramm's State of Entrepreneurship Address

Posted by: Nick Leiber on January 19

For many entrepreneurs, 2009 was another year of slumping sales and frustratingly tight credit. Their expectations for this year aren't shaping up to be much better. One big reason for...

Fight Escalates Between Super 8 Franchise Owners and Their Franchisor

Posted by: Nick Leiber on January 19

This is a post by guest blogger Don Sniegowski, the founding editor of the daily franchise news site BlueMauMau. It is cross-posted on Blue MauMau. There’s a war stirring among...

Friday Links: Risking Retirement Money

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 15

Entrepreneurs need to weigh the risks carefully before using retirement savings to fund a business, Eilene Zimmerman reports at CNNMoney. Health reform could give people who only keep corporate jobs...

Franchisees Sue KFC to Keep National Marketing Control

Posted by: Nick Leiber on January 15

This is a post by guest blogger Janet Sparks. It is cross-posted on Blue MauMau. The KFC National Council and Advertising Cooperative, Inc. (NCAC) filed a lawsuit last week against...

Buy-Local Campaigns Deliver Above-Average Holiday Sales

Posted by: Nick Leiber on January 14

Supporters of buy-local campaigns say shopping at independent retailers benefits the community more than shopping at national chains or big-boxes. They argue locally owned businesses spend more money in their...

Thursday Links: Your Banker Reads Your Tweets

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 14

Your status updates and other activity on social networks can affect your credit, Erica Sandberg reports at SFGate's City Brights blog. Fewer entrepreneurs are starting new businesses in wealthy countries,...

Why Invest in Oneforty and the Real-Time Web?

Posted by: Nick Leiber on January 14

This is a post by guest blogger Jeff Bussgang. Today's announcement of our investment in oneforty is a useful prompt to talk about why I'm a big believer (and now...

Wednesday Links: Counting Entrepreneurs

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 13

Planet Money explains how the self-employed are counted in unemployment statistics. Lisa Barone at Small Business Trends highlights two big problems with Google's local business listings -- including how competitors...

More on Gladwell and Risk

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 13

For example, consider a person who bootstraps a small part-time venture on an unproven idea while keeping his day job. Low financial risk, but potential social risk, because they're trying...

Malcolm Gladwell Punctures the Risk-Taker Myth

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 13

Malcolm Gladwell's piece in this week's New Yorker (subscription required) deflates the conception of entrepreneurs as risk-takers. The entrepreneurs who succeed, he says, get ulcers worrying about potential losses and...

Recessions Don't Spark More Startups

Posted by: Nick Leiber on January 13

Do bad economic times mean a surge of new businesses? Not at all, according to a study by Dane Stangler and Paul Kedrosky released today by the Kauffman Foundation. Exploring...

Supporting Diaspora Entrepreneurs

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 12

Solar powered ovens could help prevent deforestation in countries like Uganda, where people in poor villages cut down trees for cooking fuel. Manufacturing them in Uganda could create jobs and...

Tuesday Links: Global Edition

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 12

In Europe, where small businesses employ more of the labor force and depend more on banks for financing, difficult credit conditions are hampering recovery, the WSJ's Alessandra Galloni and Sebastian...

Monday Links: Turning Lights on in Detroit

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 11

Entrepreneurs are trying to revive parts of Detroit, including a small theater that got the city to turn the lights back on on an abandoned street, Susan Saulny reports in...

Friday Links: Office Babies; a Google Tax

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 08

USA Today Columnist Rhonda Abrams tries letting employees bring babies to the office. Ten trends for rural small businesses in the year ahead, by Becky McCray at Small Business Trends....

We're All Business Owners Now

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 08

Don't miss this week's magazine cover story: The Disposable Worker. It documents companies' shift from relying on full-time employees to a contingent workforce of temps, freelancers, contractors, and part-timers. Not...

Thursday Links: A User-Friendly IRS?

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 07

A "streetwise MBA" program in Boston teaches small business owners fundamentals, Katie Zezima reports in the NY Times. Small businesses cut 25,000 jobs in December, according to ADP, but small...

Wednesday Links: A Look at 2010

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 06

Steve King spotlights 10 small business trends for the year ahead. Among them: The shift to contingent workforces, the rise of personal businesses, and the new local movement. Getting financing...

More Older Americans Chose Entrepreneurship

Posted by: Nick Leiber on January 06

The age distribution of American entrepreneurs shifted significantly from 2007 to 2008, according to the latest U.S. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report. From the executive summary: For the total entrepreneurship and...

Why Do VCs Blog (and Tweet)?

Posted by: Nick Leiber on January 06

This is a post by guest blogger Jeff Bussgang. For decades, the venture capital industry was like a Yale Secret Society--very clubby, discrete, and opaque. VCs had all the power...

Big Customers Can Be Riskier Than Small Ones

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 05

Think big, established companies make less risky clients than small businesses? Not when it comes to getting paid on time, according to recent data from credit bureau Experian. Companies with...

Monday Links: Bringing Home the Bacon

Posted by: John Tozzi on January 04

Entrepreneur Steve Blank parses the decision process between starting a scalable startup and a small business. (H/t VC Dispatch) Local businesses should pay attention Foursquare's marketing potential, John Jantsch writes...