Month: October 2014
The State of Small Business and Eric Schurenberg Interview
Eric Schurenberg, President and Editor-in-Chief of Inc Magazine talks about essential leadership skills and the state of small business in America. The State of Small Biz in 2014? The Sky’s the Limit As usual, our Inc. 5000 folks are upbeat. But only, they say, if Washington cleans up its circus act. In the face of squabbling lawmakers, a government that seems to close for business every month or so, and an on-edge economy, two guysRead More
Young entrepreneur ‘gloves’ his way to $8 million mark—and beyond
Brian Lim isn’t your typical “glover.” What is “gloving,” exactly? Young Entrepreneur Lim didn’t know either, until his then girlfriend and now fiancee got him into the trend in 2010. Gloving is a form of dancing typically showcased at raves or large parties or festivals, and electronic dance music events. Dancers face off wearing gloves that have lights on the gloves’ fingertips. Lim, now 27, has the glove dance moves down, plus a multimillion-dollar business,Read More
How workplace technology can transform the small business
After eight failed startups, 27-year-old Nic Blair turned things around with two successful small businesses with using modern technology — Search Factory and Brus Media. Search Factory started out from his parents’ house, and, in just three years, the company has grown to 27 full-time staff members who operate from two offices in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, with an annual turnover of more than AU$2 million. Two years ago, Blair took the learnings from Search Factory andRead More
Yahoo Small Biz Exec on Going Digital
With nearly 80 percent of Americans using the Internet, the days of small businesses being able to survive without an online presence are over. No one knows this better than Yahoo! Small Business General Manager Thomas Byun, who has spent the last decade consulting small businesses and has seen the shift in consumers’ methods of finding the businesses they want to patronize. While they used to be much more loyal to local stores, Byun saysRead More
Interact with Investor Connect
Meet the Brightest Innovators The Cleantech Open is the world’s largest cleantech accelerator, and our Investor Connect is a ‘speed-dating’ event which connects investors with startups that have completed the Cleantech Open’s programs, grooming companies in software, materials, energy storage, smart grid, agriculture, water conservation and purification, clean chemistry, and a host of other products that also happen to be ‘clean.’ If you are an Angel, private VC, corporate VC, or potential strategic partner orRead More
Britain’s export credit agency targets small business as banks retreat
As more British companies begin to look overseas to tap new markets, the pressure is on George Osborne, the Chancellor, who has set a target to double the value of exports to £1 trillion by 2020, to provide greater financial support to businesses selling abroad. Traditionally, British companies were able to draw upon the financial clout of the City and the nation’s banks to help underwrite overseas projects and exports with letters of credit. But sinceRead More
Exclusive: Bye-bye Facebook, the future of social media for small businesses
It’s 3am in 2016. Bleary-eyed, you stumble away from your desk, switch off the desk light and pick up your phone to set an alarm for the morning. You decide to log on to your social media site to see if you have any messages. But the background isn’t blue, it’s yellow. Welcome to next-gen social media. Social media entrepreneurs are coming up with ingenious ways to stay connected, and the common denominator of newRead More
What is ERP? Does It Have a Place In Small Business?
The internet has really opened up things for small businesses all across the globe. Because of the proliferation of the cloud, smaller enterprises can compete with the bigwigs and tap into markets that only were previously available to larger companies with more locations. This new era of competition has made running a small business increasingly difficult, and many of them have outgrown QuickBooks and other simple accounting software. A new wave of online commerce isRead More
How To Use A Customer Database to Grow Your Business
Ramon Ray, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com recently sat down with Ashley Meyers of the Wells Fargo Business Insight series to discuss the importance of using a customer database to grow your business. During this live audio interview, Ramon discusses four ways every small business can use a customer database to grow their business, along with tips on what types of information you should be collecting and strategic ways to use that information to convert one time customersRead More
What Small Businesses Get Wrong About Maternity Leave
where female workers aren’t guaranteed at least some time off to care for newborn children, while only 5 percent of U.S. companies offer fully paid maternity leave. Women employed by small businesses in the U.S. have it even worse. The Family Medical Leave Act provides workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave but exempts companies with fewer than 50 workers from complying. That means tens of millions of workers aren’t guaranteed time off after the birthRead More