Regardless of if you have a large company listed in the Forbes Platinum 400 or a seasonal ice cream truck business, you will need financing to survive and prosper.
Whether you borrow $1000 from your parents to buy production components as Dell Computer founder Michael Dell did, or you need $1 million from a bank to expand your manufacturing firm, sooner or later you need to ask somebody else to loan you money now so you can make larger gains in the future.
Accepting the need for financing as a reality of the entrepreneurial life is a key step to setting up [...]

If you haven’t decided what kind of small business you want to open, you may want to read this to get an idea of which industries have a limited, if any, future. The economy may be improving, but a recent report by IBISWorld shows that many industries continue to decline into oblivion. Considered to be dying, these industries have a declining life cycle, where revenues and the number of companies have been in decline for the past decade, and have a forecast of continued decline in the next five years. Whether it be due to outsourcing, offshoring, or being rendered [...]

Securing a reliable funding source for your business is easier if you can demonstrate that you have a realistic grasp of the costs of running your new business, plus a plausible plan for generating revenue.
The research involved in gathering data for your budget is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks of starting a business. It is also the most essential.
Before you do anything, resolve to save every single receipt and every single invoice involving your company. Even if your accounting system is just a shoebox to start with, take two of them, label one for receipts and one [...]

Did you know that the city where you open your business can have an impact on its success? Apparently, when it comes to business, all cities are not created equal. A recent report ranks which cities are the friendliest for small businesses by taking into account population, employment growth, and the concentration of businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Referring to this as a city’s “vitality score,” the report ranked the following metro areas in the top 10.
1. Austin, Texas
For the second year in a row, this Texas metro area has been ranked as the best place for small businesses. [...]

Starting your own small business can be an huge undertaking, both financially and time-wise. Most small business owners are experts in their field or industry but when it comes to the many details of actually starting their own business, they may be novices. Learning what permits, licenses, taxes and other necessary equipment or supplies are needed for their industry takes the majority of their time and resources. But once they wade through all those necessary tasks and finally open their doors, it is time to make sure they have customers, and that’s when the real challenge begins!
Marketing and advertising your [...]

Whatever your reason for starting a business is, an important early step is to figure out how much money is required to get it started.  Let’s take a look at how you can do so.
Categorize Your Expenses
Expenses can be categorized as follows:
Administrative costs – includes business insurance, office supplies, licenses, rent, parking, desks, chairs and related items:

• Cost of sales – includes product inventory, raw materials, shipping, warehousing and related items
• Professional fees – includes legal fees, copyrights, patents and related items
• Sales and marketing costs – includes advertising, trade association fees, travel fees and so on
• Technology costs – includes computer hardware and [...]

When new entrepreneurs ask experienced business consultants or other seasoned professionals about academic choices, one of their main questions is very often related to how an investment in further education will affect the bottom line of their existing business operations. Business leaders looking to go back to school have to weigh the pros and cons of any given program, where an MBA represents a training choice with a rather long time horizon – that’s time away from the business and money that can be spent toward assets, growth or expansion, or debt reduction. So it makes sense to ask: “will [...]

Sometimes the best (and most challenging) part of deciding to start your own business is deciding what type of business you want to have. Maybe it’s the little café you’ve always dreamed of having, maybe it’s an offshoot of what you used to do when you worked for somebody. Whatever you finally narrow it down to, for that moment the possibilities are endless and possibly overwhelming. If you think you might want to try and have something you can run from home, we have some home-based business ideas with the best growth potential courtesy of AllBusiness.com.
Personal Trainer
With the baby boomer [...]

Smart entrepreneurs ensure they acquire business insurance, certain protection in the event customers or partners take legal action against their companies. Insurance brokers and some savvy financial advisors can counsel entrepreneurs on how much insurance they should take out on their companies. However, even the brightest insurance brokers and financial advisors cannot predict the future, knowing when business interruptions, lawsuits and accidents will occur.
Common Types of Business Insurance to Cover Financial Losses
Insurance brokers and financial advisors also don’t know how much damage companies will incur during accidents, lawsuits and business interruptions like fires, floods and tornadoes. For example, a small [...]

Sure, some analysts say that the economy is rebounding, but are you feeling it?
Whether the economy is rebounding or not, the experiences of the past few years have taught many of us that times can get very hard here in the United States. With this in mind, you may wonder why or how anyone would start a business during tough economic times.
Naturally, starting a business in a down economy will be more difficult than when good times are rolling. However, if you are willing to put in the time and effort to do so, the rewards can be outstanding.
Let’s take [...]