FreshBooks surpassed 100,000 “happy” business users since its initial release in 2004. FreshBooks is a painless online invoicing and time tracking service designed for small businesses and independent professionals that makes them look “Fortune 500” professional. Packages range from free to $39 per month.
FreshBooks changes the way small businesses manage their books, saving them time, […]

Ok, you have 90 seconds to pitch an investor, what do you do?
This is a good article with some real world, practical advice.
Excerpt: You have 90 seconds to explain, starting now.That’s the premise of the Elevator Pitch Olympics, a yearly event at the Wisconsin Early-Stage Symposium. This year, a panel of eight investors dished out […]

How do you launch a successful high-tech business? If you ask the typical MBA, they’ll give the same answer. Write a comprehensive in-depth business plan, take it to investors to secure a healthy initial round of funding, recruit the heaviest heavyweights you can, and start the PR machine cranking.
But, of course, they’d be completely wrong.
If […]

“Among the most frequently asked questions I get from start-up companies is: How much should I pay for licensing in a technology?…While most companies seem to use a valuation method I like to call “pulling a number out of the air,” there are three primary methods used by licensing professionals to assess the value of […]

Check out this new site where you can find the links to turn your entrepreneurial dreams into reality. Created by the U.S. Small Business Administration and Junior Achievement, this site walks you through five easy steps of business ownership - whether you’ve just had a brainstorm for your first business venture or you’ve been at […]

Over Half Do Not Have Accounting Software
More than half of U.S. small businesses do not use accounting software.
AMI Partners, Inc., a research firm that specializes in global small business market research, notes this in a recently-published study, entitled “Small Business Accounting is Big…and Getting Bigger“:
“U.S. small businesses (SBs; companies with 1 to 99 employees) spent […]

The costs of covering your business and yourself from a potential lawsuit are high. After a decade of intense competition among insurers and low premiums, the fallout from the Sept 11 terrorist attacks and the stock market have increased insurance costs while providing less coverage. Every business owner renewing an existing policy or starting a […]

The Milken Institute recently released the latest version of its annual ranking of how states perform in terms of the cost of doing business. The list, which measures wage costs, taxes, electricity and real estate costs, doesn’t include any big surprises. In fact, 2005’s rankings look a lot like those from 2004. Hawaii continues to […]

This week’s 10th annual VentureNet conference featured the usual format for this type of confab - entrepreneurs presenting their business concepts to venture capilists in a panel session. The companies presenting were local to southern California and the VCs came from the area and Silicon Valley. Ten founders were selected from among hundreds of applicants […]

A bank will scrutinize your past business performance. Are you prepared to answer the tough questions when your banker asks them?
Loan officers tend to focus on historical finances, as I noted in my last column, and for good reason: They provide a track record of your business’s performance and offer lenders a glimpse as to […]