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This is the seventh part of our Smart and Simple Guide to starting a business. We've already covered ideas, business concept, funding, family, naming, branding and competitive research. And now we come to a topic that is at least as important as all of those and one that can prevent you from making critical mistakes that will doom your business. Market Research. View more »

Being named Ohio’s “entrepreneur of the year” in April was enough to confirm for Zach Green that quitting his job as an Eli Lilly brand manager to start his own business was the right move. But seeing the announcement of his award in the paper alongside the news that his former employer would lay off 30 percent of its sales force “was the ultimate validation,” he says. View more »

How to set respectful professional boundaries to avoid burnout. In a rebounding economy, where many professionals and business owners are still trying to find their footing, it may be tempting to simply be grateful for opportunities and refrain from doing anything that might make you look like anything less than a team player. However, if.... View more »

Bob Moog, MBA '84, is CEO of University Games. The San Francisco company employs 70 people and sells 300 products, including 60 board games and other kid-friendly hits such as Colorforms and Glow-in-the-Dark Stars. In 10 words or fewer, what is the big idea behind your business? An entertainment company focused on learning and fun.... View more »

If they had asked you, you could have told them so, but a new study from Manta and Dell confirms that money is not what motivates most small business owners. “Personal achievement” or “fulfilling a lifelong dream” easily outranks “financial stability” as the driver of business owners’ success, a joint survey revealed. In connection with.... View more »

Ranan Lachman says his million-dollar business idea came to him in “one of those moments you realize you’re doing something wrong as a parent.” His mistake? Spending more than $5,000 on Lego toys over the years. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy seeing his son build Super Star Destroyers. “I’m proud of him,” Lachman says..... View more »

Meet the TEAM: A Visionary, Minority-Owned, Athlete-Staffed Company That Provided World-Class Security Services at the NBA All-Star Game In Spite of Being Only One Month Old View more »

About two-thirds of nearly 1,000 business owners surveyed recently by Pepperdine University’s Private Capital Markets Project expect to transfer their ownership in the next 10 years. But will those owners be able to sell the fruits of their years of labor for an acceptable amount? Maybe, maybe not. The large majority of companies in the.... View more »

The future for the majority of our electronic communication and transactions is increasingly mobile. Phone and tablet sales have been eclipsing desktop and even notebook computer sales for several years. And that trend is even stronger outside the US. In some of the world’s most emerging markets in Africa and Asia, the average consumer and.... View more »

Want to know how to optimize your new CRM setup? Start by finding a stellar CRM administrator on your team. Nearly 60% of Salesforce implementations are unsuccessful, always due in some part to an adoption problem. Rolling out a heavy new piece of software involves changing your employees’ processes, behavior and expectations. Having an internal.... View more »

With dozens of emails hitting your inbox at 9am, how do you pick which ones to open? A more important question is how your clients and customers — the people whose attention will make or break your business — choose which emails to open. If you want to increase your open rates and deepen your.... View more »

Popular expressions, proverbs or sayings said in Spanish are known as dichos. A popular dicho is “guardar el drama para su mama”. Translated that means “save the drama for your mama.” For personal brands, that drama can be a reputation breaker – so save it for something or somewhere you’re not involved with coworkers, employers.... View more »

The man who brought Perrier to America on how to keep the fizz in your business. Bruce Nevins is a serial entrepreneur across multiple industries, including beverages, lighting, and athletic apparel. A graduate of West Point and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, he launched Perrier in North America in the 1970s and expanded into.... View more »

There’s no turning back. We live in a digital world and for better or worse, businesses are married to the triumphs and pitfalls awarded by technology and the cybersphere. Unfortunately, those pitfalls are getting deeper and more dangerous as data hackers sharpen their skills and prey on small businesses. While big-box retailers are taking the.... View more »

Join us next week, on Thursday, April 24th at Noon PST/3PM EST for a LIVE Twitter chat with Tamara Monosoff, best-selling author of Your Million Dollar Dream, The One Page Business Plan, Secrets of Millionaire Moms and more. We'll be taking questions live about the new edition of her best-seller, The Mom Inventor's Handbook and.... View more »

And I thought the three full days I spent preparing my self-employed tax return last week was painful. Turns out most Yahoo! Small Business readers probably have it even worse. A survey released today by the National Small Business Association indicates that a majority (60 percent) of small businesses spend more than 40 hours per.... View more »

Influenced by the spectacular success of companies like Facebook, there has been a recent trend to imply that youth is the secret to success for startups, especially in the tech sector. View more »

Wondering how to spot a future entrepreneur? Look for the smart teenager who keeps getting into trouble with the law. A new study of successful self-employed people finds that “a mixture of learning aptitude and ‘break-the-rules’ behavior is tightly linked with entrepreneurship.” View more »

The founder of Stella & Dot discusses leadership, emotional intelligence, and an "angel in a cowboy hat." Jessica Herrin is the founder and chief executive of Stella & Dot, a jewelry maker that sells its wares online and through over 10,000 independent, in-home sales reps dubbed "stylists." Herrin founded the company in 2003, offering both.... View more »

Everyone has distractions: Projects need to be completed Emails need to be answered Phone calls need to be returned When you allow distractions to take over your day it’s kind of obvious that your productivity drops. The challenge is to manage the distractions that come at you from every direction. The points mentioned above are.... View more »