Startup
5 Tips for Working with Lenders
Obtaining a loan is a challenge that many entrepreneurs face during the first years of running their business. Whether you need money to fund a new project or to expand on an existing one, here are 5 tips for working with lenders that can help you seal the deal on that loan to put your…
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What Business Records Should You Keep?
Knowing what business records to keep is critically important to a small business entrepreneur. These records serve many functions. They help you quantify and monitor the progress of your business, and make decisions accordingly. They give you the information you need to prepare a financial statement. They allow you to identify your various receipts and…
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Getting Free Local Publicity for Your Business
Once you’ve developed a great product or service, you need to find a way to communicate about that product to the public. Without public awareness of what you can provide, how will anyone know it even exists? You need to get your name out there, and make sure that people know who you are and…
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The Right Way to Go into Business with a Partner
Starting a business up with a partner is a great idea—not only does a business partner effectively halve the staggering amount of work that comes with forming a new company, but having a partner also means having someone to talk to and bounce ideas off of. For many sole-proprietorships, the only employee on the payroll…
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Why Entrepreneurs Are Natural Bootstrappers
When you’re an entrepreneur, your ultimate goal, the thing that everything else builds on, is to create value for others by solving problems. To do that, you have to look at the resources you have available to you, and figure out ways you can use them. That DIY approach makes entrepreneurs natural bootstrappers, and not…
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From Sole Proprietor to LLC: Here’s How to Make the Transition
One aspect of entrepreneurship that is not often discussed is that the legal entity formed for a business at its offset does not need to be its formation forever. Entrepreneurs have the option to change structures that best fit their needs, and many begin as sole proprietors. For those that are ready to make the…
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Protecting Your Intellectual Property
Whenever you start a business, it needs to have something about it that is special, some unique quality. Sometimes, that quality is just bringing an existing product or service into a new market. But other times, the unique quality of your business is a new product or service that you’ve invented. When you’ve taken the…
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Starting Your Entrepreneurial Journey? Follow This Checklist
Do you plan to start a small business in the new year? If so, congratulations—and welcome to the world of entrepreneurship! Launching a startup means checking off a variety of boxes that determine if you’re ready to go into business. From making sure your idea is viable for a startup to incorporating as a business…
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How Long Does It Take to File for a DBA?
That old cliché about time being money has a magical way of creeping into so many of these types of posts, doesn’t it? Even if you don’t judge every minute of your life by the amount of money you could be making, you still probably want to know how long it will take to file…
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5 Partner-Specific Areas to Cover in a Written Partnership Agreement
When you first get your startup off the ground with a partner, it’s easy to feel like you’ll be in it together for the long run. But what happens when the dynamic begins to shift? One person may gradually devote less time and energy to the company, and the other may plan on taking it…
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