What do many hair salons leave out of their business plans? The Products. According to Sabrina Parsons, the CEO of Palo Alto Software, many hair salons don’t consider the revenue stream that can be generated from having products like styling gels and shampoo for sale. Sales from such products can account for as much as…
Should You Use a Home Equity Loan or Line of Credit to Finance Your Business?
Around 25% of small business owners have used a home equity loan (HEL) or home equity line of credit (HELOC) to finance their startup or business, according to Barlow Research. HELOCs can be an inexpensive way to fund a business and are much easier to get than tradition business loans or SBA loans for startups. This…
Business Plan Writing Services: Who’s The Best?
A business plan writing service is a team of business experts that take your ideas & numbers, combine it with some of their own research and produce a professional, well-formatted business plan. We looked at the 3 top business plan writing services and compared their features and pricing. See our recommendation below along with a…
Best Small Business Books – 25 Recommendations From The Pros
Do you have a book that’s helped you build your business? If not, and you’re looking to expand your library, we’ve created a list of great books about business for you. Find inspiration and get an actionable path to create a business and life you’ll love. A big thank you to all the contributors who’ve…
What Can Go Wrong When You Incorporate? An Interview with Deborah Sweeney
Deborah Sweeney is the CEO and owner of MyCorporation, which helps companies file the legal documents for incorporating. In 2009, Intuit was divesting itself of its smaller divisions in order to focus its attention on its core assets, such as TurboTax and Quickbooks. Deborah Sweeney made an offer to buy the MyCorporation division and took…
Who Will Lend to You to Start or Buy a Franchise? An Interview with BoeFly CEO Michael Rozman
BoeFly is an online platform for finding banks and financial institutions to lend money to businesses. While the platform can be used to find many types of financing, it has developed a reputation for being a great place to get a loan to start, buy or grow a franchise. I had a chance to interview…
LinkedIn For Entrepreneurs: An Interview with Founder Dating’s Jessica Alter
Jessica Alter describes Founder Dating as Linkedin for entrepreneurs. The site is a place for finding co-founders, advisers, networking with other entrepreneurs and engaging in discussions about building a company. The following discussion is based on my notes from our interview and don’t represent Jessica’s exact words. What is the biggest benefit of having a…
Who is the CEO of LivePlan and Bplans?
If you guessed Tim Berry, you would be wrong! Tim Berry is the founder of Palo Alto Software, the company behind the very popular LivePlan business plan service and Bplans website. However, Tim installed Sabrina Parsons, his daughter, as the CEO of Palo Alto Software in 2007. When he installed a new CEO, he gave…
Business Plan Scholarship Winners & Essays
The Winning Essay: Spring 2016 This article was submitted by Tina Nguyen, winner of the Spring 2016 Business Plan Scholarship. You can read more about her below the essay. I started a FIRST Robotics team at my high school during my junior year. With the majority of teams using at least $15,000 per year…
The Top 5 Startup Costs You Should Include In Your Budget
You are a visionary. You like to start things. You live and breathe potential and opportunity. But you still need a budget. No small business owner jumps out of bed in the morning excited to pour over spreadsheets and budgets, but if you want to continue jumping out of bed on your own schedule —…
Best Productivity Apps – 29 Experts Give Their Top Pick
We polled 29 top small business experts and asked them for the best productivity apps recommendations. Below is what they told us. We also include our recommendation for best productivity app at the bottom of the list. Spoiler Alert! It’s Insightly 🙂 Let’s get to the list! 1) Abigail Mason, Hey Abigail One of my favorite productivity…
The 10 Largest Business Plan Competitons
Top Five in Total Cash Prize Money (2014) 1) Would you go to Buffalo, New York to get a million dollars for your business? 43North – Total Cash Prize Pool: $5,000,000, Grand Prize $1,000,000 Winners must start the business in, or relocate their business to Buffalo, New York within 3 months of the business plan…
