Startup Blog
Four Mid-Year Checkpoints for Small Business Owners
We’re halfway through the year and now is an important time for business owners to reflect and set a course for the remainder of 2023. It’s easy to get bogged down worrying about the challenges facing the economy, but as with all turbulence, a little empathy and...
Private Small-Business Grants for Women
I usually quote George Carlin, but here’s a recent banger from Harvard’s Kennedy School: Although nearly 40% of all privately held firms in the United States are founded by women, only 2% of U.S. venture capital financing is allocated to female-founded firms. Read...
Exit Strategy: Selling to Employees
If your business is locally loved and has a lot of community goodwill, an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) can be an excellent exit strategy as you plan for retirement. Your employees helped you build your business and will serve as trusted custodians of it going...
AI Reveals the Most Human Parts of Creativity
Not only technical masters of their craft, writers—great writers—have a deeply intimate relationship with words. When I read Hemingway, I damn well know I’m reading Hemingway. Dickens, Plath, King, Wilde, Tartt, these utterly distinct and nuanced writers are wholly...
Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em
A common perception is most entrepreneurs are gamblers by nature. While I think this is true, there’s more nuance to it. Most successful entrepreneurs aren’t betting on a game of pure blind luck like roulette. You’ll find them perhaps at the Blackjack table, a game...
Handing over the keys before retirement
You’ve spent a lifetime building your business. Years of sacrifice, toil, sweat and tears. Eventually, every business owner faces a point in time when they must consider an exit strategy. With proper planning, there’s every reason to think that it will end up in good...
The 5 People Any Entrepreneur Needs to Start a Business
We’re entrepreneurs. We like to be the only cooks in our kitchen. We single-handedly plan the menu, prep, cook, serve, host and clean up. That’s fine for a dinner party here and there, but utter idiocy for sustaining a profitable restaurant. One of the top reasons new...
Starting up a business in recessionary times
I’m not much of an alarmist but those of us with a pulse can agree that the recession signals are flashing yellow right now. Staggering inflation, stock market losses, geopolitical strife and big tech layoffs suggest we may be approaching a period of recession, even...
Small Businesses Offering Larger Incentives
Almost two-thirds of small businesses were hiring or trying to hire in September, according to a report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), but 46% reported they couldn't fill those job openings, well above the 48-year historical average of...