There are three main sources to obtain funding when starting a new business. If you don’t quality for a bank loan, the two other most popular ways to obtain capital, i.e., funds, are through Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists (VCs). These two funding options are similar yet different. An entrepreneur who appreciates these differences will [...]

There are many businesses out there that need start-up funds for their new business. Often times, the business may be too young or may not qualify for loans from a financial institution and therefore need to seek capital elsewhere. This is what an Angel Investor does. An Angel Investor is an individual that provides any [...]

Year end planning is not complete without a budget. Creating a budget can be intimidating to many business owners, but it does not need to be. Simple, yet effective, budgets can be developed using MS Excel. One of the main reasons business owners procrastinate budgeting is because they do not know where to start. The [...]

The beauty of entrepreneurship is that it is available to anyone. Many new business owners start their business without any legal entity structure, such as a Limited Liability Company, S-Corporation or Corporation. While an entity structure is not necessary to operate your business, it does protect you and your family. Some of the benefits of [...]

The entity structure known as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) offers a lot of flexibility for small businesses. There are four options for an LLC, 1) to be treated as a partnership, 2) as an S-Corporation, 3) as a Corporation or 4) as a single member LLC. While all offer limited liability protection for the [...]

A networking group that I belong to decided to use a series of books as business building tools. One of the books they chose was The Answer by John Assaraf and Murray Smith. Overall I thought the book was helpful, but found it a little cumbersome at times when they went into detail about how [...]

I know this seems like a silly question, as most businesses from coffee shops to hospitals are using social media these days. But not all industries have caught onto the benefits of these tools. My husband and I have had conversations about whether or not Accounting Firms would benefit from social media tools. He thinks [...]

Do you want to start a new business? Ever thought of writing a business plan? Think you can just start your new venture without one? You can, but how will you know what you need to do next? The main reason people write a plan is to obtain funding from a bank or investor. But [...]

Two different cases of mixing friends/family have come up in conversation the past two weeks so I decided it was time to address this issue via a blog post. Contrary to what you may believe, business and friends/family do not mix well. When you start discussing the idea with friends/family they might get just as [...]

A friend of mine recently asked me, “When your business partner is your spouse, what steps should you take to keep the business and personal relationships separate?” This is a very tough question. Many new businesses are started by couples, which can cause conflicts within the marriage. From my own personal experience, I know that [...]