Blog Posts by Adrienne Burke

Loud Bicycle inventor Jonathan Lansey

Not to jinx him, but Jonathan Lansey seems to be on track to exceed the $43,000 goal of his first crowdfunding campaign. With 2 weeks to go in the 5-week Kickstarter initiative, he’s nearly 90 percent there, having raised an average total of $1,600 per day so far. More than 400 of Lansey's 441 backers pledged at least $79 in order to win the product he invented: a car horn for a bicycle.

As crowdfunding becomes an increasingly popular way for entrepreneurs and inventors to raise startup capital, Yahoo! Small Business Advisor asked Lansey about the strategies that he thinks helped him win $38,000 in pledges in less than a month.

Like many successful inventions, Lansey’s was borne of necessity. In good weather, the 27-year-old research engineer commutes by bicycle 17 miles roundtrip between his Boston home and his job in Woburn, Mass. When a run-in with a car sent a biking buddy to the hospital, Lansey began thinking about how to make city cycling safer. “I’m alert when I drive a car

There's just one more business day before the new year, but the Treasury Department and the IRS won’t issue a guidance for how employers should calculate 2013 income tax withholding until the fiscal cliff deadline of December 31 has passed. Official income tax withholding tables for 2012 apply only to wages paid through December 2012 and, barring a different solution from Congress and the President by Monday, income tax rates are scheduled to increase for nearly all taxpayers.

What are employers to do if they need to process their first payroll of 2013 before new income tax tables or any guidance is issued? According to the American Payroll Association, the “only workable option” is to “continue to use the 2012 withholding tables.”

But calculating withholding is not the only unresolved payroll issue, the APA warns. Here are other imminent rate increases and expired exclusions employers must consider:

• Supplemental wages and bonuses paid after December 31 will be subject to higher tax;

In the countdown to the nation’s fall over the edge of the fiscal cliff, small business advisors and advocates are imploring Congress and President Obama to come together.

While many small business owners remain paralyzed with uncertainty about 2013 budgeting, others are taking action. Based on the assumption that Congress will not reach an agreement in time to avoid the cliff, about half of business owners are making changes to prepare for higher tax rates next year, according to results of a survey conducted by financial information company, Sageworks.

The survey conducted between December 12-18 collected online responses from 164 Sageworks clients, who are accountants and business advisors to privately held businesses. The responses reflect what those professionals hear from those they advise:

• More than half of accountants surveyed said their business clients were making changes in their companies in response to fiscal cliff uncertainty.
• Almost 30 percent said their business clients

In online opinion pieces this week, two leading observers of small business economics criticized the Obama Administration and Congress.

American Small Business League President Lloyd Chapman released a statement and blogged on the Huffington Post his prediction that “the Obama administration will try to use the momentum from the fiscal cliff debate to justify plans to dismantle the Small Business Administration” by folding it into the Commerce Department. Chapman questions the Administration’s estimates that such a move would save $3 billion over 10 years. He calls the potential agency merger “just a scam to direct 100 percent of federal contract dollars to large corporations.”

Chapman argues that “eliminating federal programs for America’s chief job creators would be economic suicide” and suggests that instead, the President should “triple the SBA’s budget and supercharge every federal program for the nation’s 27 million small businesses.”

In a blog post titled The Decline of Small

chart: IEGC and Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business and Management

What’s a great way to accelerate sales and job growth for your company? A private equity investment or, even better, venture capital funding can translate to significant growth for small and medium-sized businesses, according to two finance professors who studied thousands of workplaces with 500 or fewer employees. The fact might seem like a no-brainer, but the data are dramatic.

One caveat: Securing that kind of financing can be especially challenging if you’re a minority, female, or foreign business owner, the study showed.

The publication, Did they build that? The role of private equity and venture capital in small and medium-sized businesses, released by the Institute for Exceptional Growth Companies and Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, documents Graziadio professors John Paglia and Augus Harjoto’s research into the performance of more than 8,000 workplaces that had received such financing between 1995 and 2009.

Their study showed that, versus

Mobile, the cloud, and systems integration are trends to watch in 2013

Which tech trends should small business owners check out to enhance their productivity in 2013? A cloud services provider, not surprisingly, puts the cloud near the top of its list of great tools for small business. But other technologies will drive efficiency too, predicts j2 Global. “Mobility, expansion of the cloud, and integration of business services are the three key trends that small and medium-sized businesses must be ready for in 2013,” the company offers. Here’s why:

1. Mobility: That the number of smart phones sold in 2011 exceeded the number of PCs sold suggests not just an increasingly mobile workforce, but that companies will learn to use mobile devices more effectively. “Smart phones and tablets will be leveraged more heavily as businesses move beyond using them just for simple communications,” j2 predicts. More sales teams will use mobile devices to input and access sales information on-the-go, and collaboration tools such as conference calling and web conferencing via

If you have a small business owner on your holiday shopping list, or you are one and you're looking to drop some hints, here are some ideas for giftable purchases that could make 2013 an easier, educational, and perhaps even more profitable year for your favorite entrepreneur.

1. Business Coaching Sessions: Give an entrepreneur a gift certificate for a massage or a day at the spa and it's likely to expire before they find time to use it. But a session or several with a business coach holds the promise of increased profits, new customers, or improved time management skills. Find coaches in your area at the online Worldwide Association of Business Coaches directory. With some coaching, maybe next year your entrepreneur will have time for that spa day.

2. Tickets to a Conference: There's nothing like getting away from the business and interacting with other innovators for inspiration. Help your entrepreneur start the year off with new energy or look forward to a refreshing midyear break

Coinciding with the rise in entrepreneurship and self-employment, this year saw the publication of many great books for the startup founder and small business owner. Just in time for holiday shopping, here's a list of 10 great books—most, but not all, published this year—for the entrepreneur on your gift list.

1. The recent re-release of a classic, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, originally published in 1937, shares now ancient wisdom about self-empowerment and might have been the original "power of positive thinking" tome for the business set.

2. Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup, seems to share the same passion that The 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferris has for freeing yourself from a boss in order to lead a life of international intrigue. But even if global airline travel and developing world adventures aren't what motivate you to be your own boss, Guillebeau's book shares some inspiring stories about how others started their own businesses on a shoestring.

3. The