Can a startup apply for a small business loan? Are you sure? Usually when startup founders think about funding, we think about venture capital or accelerator programs. That’s because those funding sources offer potentially big payouts, oftentimes with no obligation to pay back the money if the startup fails.
But, there’s another source of funding that’s more traditional — and potentially riskier: the small business loan.
Small business loans are a more traditional way of getting financing, which means they may be easier for some startups to get than venture capital, which can be a long and arduous process.
They’re a great option for startups that already have some momentum and — even better — some income coming in. That’s because while ven...
Sallie Krawcheck is one of my favorite entrepreneurs I’ve met in 2017, after many years following her career as one of the most senior women on Wall Street. A 2002 Fortune Magazine cover put her face as the hope of trust on Wall Street with a headline: “The Last Honest Analyst.”
Indeed, she was fired in 2008 from Citi because she wanted to bank to reimburse clients for bad investments that were the bank’s fault. Or as she put it in an on stage interview in 2016, “I was fired for being a woman,” because women are more focused on relationships and long-term outcomes than men on Wall Street.
What do you do when you reach the pinnacle of your career– farther than almost any other woman in Wall Street has climbed– and then get fired for doing th...
For busy startup teams, the name of the game — today more than ever — is productivity.
FitStars CEO and co-founder Mike Maser sums it up perfectly: “When you’re building a vision, a team and a product all at once, time is your ultimate currency. Every day presents both the opportunity to break ground and the risk of losing ground. At the end of the day I’d trade anything for an extra hour to ensure we’ve taken a step forward.”
And when you’re a startup, working at the breakneck speed of startups, it’s only natural that things start falling through the cracks. Social media gets neglected, correspondence goes unresponded-to. Every startup has a laundry list of items they should be doing but aren’t — or things they are doing, but could be doi...
Many retailers are looking to establish an international e-commerce presence, whether sourcing goods from abroad or selling goods in a new country. Research from Pitney Bowes found that an impressive two-thirds of consumers have made an international purchase, and almost a third do so once a month or more. DHL has predicted a 25 percent increase in cross-border retail volumes between 2015 and 2020, amounting to a hefty $900 billion market.
It’s natural for retailers to try to cut out a piece of this pie, but my experience at eBay and Tophatter has taught me that it typically requires a substantial investment. Establishing cross-border trade takes trial and error — getting it right almost always requires making lots of mistakes along the way...
Some entrepreneurs sail blissfully into the sunset after their first big payday. Others — like us — can’t imagine anything more boring. Instead, we thrive on constantly risking it all to build something out of nothing. This condition of serial entrepreneurship is what I call “one-and-not-done” syndrome. We know it will be hard, if not seemingly impossible, and there will be times when we will be overwhelmed with frustration. In spite of that, we know the journey is worth it.
If you’re this special breed of entrepreneur, I feel both sorry and happy for you. More than anything, I welcome you to the club.
There is a magic to what we do as entrepreneurs. We can create a thriving business almost out of nothing. Is there anything more magical tha...
“Corp” stands for “corporation.” If you see it after the name of a company, it means that company is legally incorporated in at least one state. The founders have filled out all the paperwork, paid all the fees, and is viewed as a Corporation by the government and the IRS.
Corps and Incs. are virtually interchangeable when it comes to legal structure, compliance obligations, limited liability or tax structure. But that doesn’t mean you can use the terms interchangeably! Once you register as either a Corp or an Inc, you have to use the term you registered with on all of your legal paperwork.
[H3] Structure of a Corporation Let’s look a the structure of a Corporation. Cor...
The graveyard might be the last place on Earth you’d care to visit, but, if you don’t want your company to go under, it’s a good idea to pay attention to what killed other similar companies.
Grab your flashlight, Founders, and head to the Startup Graveyard. “This site is a resource for entrepreneurs to avoid making the same mistakes as failed startups. We hope that this project can help de-stigmatize failure, increase transparency, create a community and improve the information on the site.”
Of course projects have unhappy endings. Call them failures if you will. But if you believe in process, take the long view of life, and have the courage to look at startup corpses – then the stories of failures become instructional lessons more so than...
Look, we love blog posts as much as the next person. (Maybe even a little bit more.) There’s a lot of knowledge startup founders can find on the internet. But when it comes to real deep dives, you can’t beat a good startup book.
“Imagine your personal network was filled with titans of industry — from marketing mavens to business moguls,” Benjamin Evans, startup founder and lead designer on Airbnb’s Anti-Discrimination team tells Startups.com. “How much easier would it be to level up in business and life if you had the best insights available to you whenever you needed them? Well, I believe that’s the value of books. In my ideal world, I’d have a network filled with my role models — from Seth Godin through to Richard Branson — on hand to hel...
Jukedeck lets you create unique music for your online video.
I have watched more startup explainer videos in my life than anyone should ever be subjected to. I mean, it’s a hazard of the job, right? When you write about startups, you inevitably end up watching startup explainer videos. As a result, I’ve seen the full gamut — the good, the bad, the hilarious, and the trying really hard to be hilarious but totally failing. I’ve also seen so many trends come and go. And, of course, I’ve witnessed the ones that just won’t die.
One of those trends with nine lives is, unfortunately, what I call “tinkly” music. (I’m sure it has an official name, but this is my column so I’m allowed t...
Angel investors are typically high net worth individuals who invest very early into the formation of a new startup company, usually in exchange for convertible debt or equity. The role of angel investors serves as a critical bridge between the startup financing needs of a company and their larger capital needs later on.
In order to be an angel investor, a person does not have to be an accredited investor. However, a lot of angel investors are accredited investors.
In order to be an accredited investor, according to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), a person must: