Small Biz Scene
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Unions' House Victory May Be Fleeting
Continue reading… 0 CommentsLoud banging by business groups wasn't enough to stall a measure that makes it easier for workers to unionize. The Employee Free Choice Act won approval by the Democratic-controlled House on Thursday. While the prospect of their workers unionizing seems to be far from the mind of most small-business owners, opponents of the bill often trotted out the little guy to help justify their position.
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Looking to India for New Ventures
Continue reading… 0 CommentsThis week's jolt on global stock exchanges is a reminder of how events on the other side of the world can affect U.S. investors. Americans have looked abroad in recent years for new places to put their money. Not just day traders or mutual fund managers have bet on foreign markets. Venture capitalists also have gone abroad, and little foreign start-ups have gotten their share of the wealth, says Terri Forman of the Silicon Valley law firm Cooley Godward Kronish. Until 2000, venture capital generally looked only at domestic companies, she says. Then, as U.S. tech stocks tanked, they began to turn elsewhere, including India.
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Entrepreneurs Gain a Foothold Abroad
Continue reading… 0 CommentsWith movies like Letters from Iwo Jima and Pan's Labyrinth popping up at this weekend's Oscars, it's clear that English-speaking actors no longer have a monopoly on award-winning films. That's also holding true for start-ups. Around the world, more people are starting businesses, with middle-income countries leading the way, according to the recently released 2006 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor done by the London School of Business and Babson College in Massachusetts. The study, begun in 1999, now looks at entrepreneurship in 42 countries and talks to about 160,000 small-business owners.
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Where Shopping for a Power Company Is Easiest
Continue reading… 0 CommentsNew York State may be blanketed with snow this week, but at least small businesses won't have to worry much about heating bills. The state got a top rating in a comparison of states with the best energy climate for small businesses. Texas came in second, while Montana and Nevada were left out in the cold. Monday's study, done by independent utility Liberty Power, looked at how much choice small businesses in 20 states and the District of Columbia had when shopping for electric companies.
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In Starting Out, Know What You Don't Know
Continue reading… 0 CommentsMany entrepreneurs start out getting tripped up by lack of planning. But for those who have done the research, pulled together the PowerPoint, and created an ironclad business plan, there's another trap lurking–"expert mind." That's the term consultant Pamela Slim coined for small-business owners who start out with the attitude that they know everything.
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Salary Isn't Everything, Employees Say
Continue reading… 0 CommentsAsk people who work for a small business, and they'll often tell you that money isn't everything. Small-business employees are willing to accept pared-down paychecks to give up the grind of working in a cubicle farm, according to a Salary.com survey. About 62 percent of small-business employees think pay is better at larger companies (and 72 percent think benefits are better), but they stay at their jobs anyway, according to the survey of 474 employees at both large and small firms.
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Owners Wary of Healthcare Changes
Continue reading… 0 CommentsIt's déjà vu time, with the healthcare debate waking up after hibernating for years. This time around, it's not alive just in Washington, D.C., but Sacramento and Boston are getting into the game by trying to create state measures that address how to provide insurance for their citizens.
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Lobbyists Like Bush's Healthcare Approach
Continue reading… 0 CommentsPresident Bush's State of the Union address tackled everything from the war in Iraq to education at home. But small-business groups weren't paying attention to his shout-out to Dikembe Mutombo. Instead, they were closely watching how he weighed in on the ongoing debate about how to lower healthcare costs.
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Spurring Diversity Among Franchisees
Continue reading… 0 CommentsFranchises can be a great idea for budding entrepreneurs who want to break free from corporate chains but don't want the risk of a start-up. That's the message that Miriam Brewer of the International Franchise Association wants to send women and minorities. As the new head of the group's diversity initiative, she's in charge of spreading the gospel of franchising and figuring out ways to make owning a franchise possible for a wide range of people.
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The Minimum Wage Faces Maximum Flak
Continue reading… 0 CommentsThe No. 1 rule in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is "Don't Panic." That's the message small business might want to take to heart now as the House of Representatives embarks on passing promised legislation during its first 100 hours. Yesterday the House kept one of its pledges by approving a bill that would increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 from $5.15 over two years, the first such increase in almost a decade.
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Correction
Continue reading… 0 CommentsAn earlier post, Tech Solutions for Small Firms, incorrectly identified StoreVault's parent company. StoreVault's parent company is Network Appliance.
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Schwarzenegger Health Plan Raises Doubts
Continue reading… 0 CommentsHealthcare routinely ranks No. 1 in polls that gauge the concerns of small-business owners. But there has been some head-scratching this week after California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled his plan to ensure that everyone in the state has health insurance. The impact on small business is far from clear, and the fallout will depend largely on a company's makeup.
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Who Says the French Don't Work Hard?
Continue reading… 0 CommentsAmericans may have the reputation of working through lunch and being chained to their BlackBerrys. But it turns out that small-business owners in the United States actually work fewer hours than their global counterparts. U.S. owners of companies with under 100 employees worked 52 hours a week on average. Business owners in the United Kingdom, Mexico, France, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, and Australia averaged 54 hours a week, according to a MasterCard survey of 4,000 small businesses around the world.
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Finding the Keys to Being an Entrepreneur
Continue reading… 0 CommentsI recently talked with Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation, about his new book, The Entrepreneurial Imperative. Here are excerpts of our conversation.
Who are entrepreneurs?
That goes to the question of are they born or made? It's very hard from a personality perspective to identify them. You can't tell from shaking hands with someone whether [he or she is] an entrepreneur. They believe they can tell who's the entrepreneur in the room. They think they have certain special traits such as being gregarious, or they radiate risk-taking readiness. It's a nice thing to want to believe.
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Firms Plan to Hire and Invest in Tech
Continue reading… 0 CommentsWhile cutting back tops the list of many New Year's resolutions, many small businesses plan to beef up a bit in 2007. Overall, companies don't expect spending that's off the charts, but they say they will staff up, add space, buy equipment, and invest in technology, according to several recent small-business surveys.
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The Psychological Test Behind the Salad Bar
Continue reading… 0 CommentsHiring and keeping new workers may be on many small companies' 2007 to-do list, but they may find that it's easier said than done. About 8 in 10 business owners said they couldn't even find qualified applicants to fill open jobs, according to a December survey by the National Federation of Independent Business.
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Tech Solutions for Small Firms
Continue reading… 0 CommentsCorrected on 1/11/07: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified StoreVault's parent company.
When it comes to technology, start-ups have little wiggle room in their budgets for costly business services normally geared toward much larger players. But next year these often ignored small fry will get some attention. More companies, themselves tiny start-ups, are figuring out that while small businesses may not spend much per firm, there's a lot of them, and that can add up to big sales.
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Firms Need a Gift-Giving Strategy
Continue reading… 0 CommentsIt's that time of year when calendars, cards, and candy fill up workplaces. That's why small-business owners need to be a bit more creative with their holiday gift giving to stand out among the crowd, says Alice Bredin, a small-business adviser at American Express. She says that despite being all too common, gifts are an important marketing move. Smaller companies have gotten the message, making room in their tight budgets for holiday presents. This year, such firms plan to spend an average of $1,065 on gifts for clients and customers–about the same as last year and up from $923 two years ago, according to an American Express survey. Top gifts included fun items such as restaurant and retail gift certificates and donations to charities on clients' behalf.
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Small Business Cheers Changes at Export-Import Bank
Continue reading… 0 CommentsThe Senate brought some holiday cheer this week to little residents of Whoville, passing new rules that force the Export-Import Bank to loosen its purse strings when it comes to small companies. If President Bush signs the bill reauthorizing the bank's charter, as expected, sledding through the export loan process will be a lot less bumpy for companies with fewer than 500 employees.
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Energy Saving Tips From a Pro
Continue reading… 0 CommentsWhile many big companies are tapping into the small-business market, sometimes it makes more sense for the underdogs to stick together. That's the idea behind five-year-old Liberty Power, cofounded by David Hernandez after he left Enron in the wake of its collapse. At the energy giant, Hernandez got a front-row seat to see how large companies ignore little ones. Problems like lost invoices and bad customer service abounded, he says, as Enron paid more attention to large clients.
Renuka Rayasam covers small business, biotechnology, and other business news for U.S. News. Her stories have included a piece on the latest trends in corporate dining, as well as regular small-business profiles. She has written for the Austin-American Statesman, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bloomberg News, and tech magazine Ziff Davis Smart Business. She has a bachelor of arts in political economy and German from the University of California – Berkeley and a master of international affairs from Columbia University.