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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

Making your professional business logo doesn’t have to be costly. Did you know that Google, Coca-Cola, and the Microsoft logo redesign in 2012 all cost $0? Twitter and Nike both spent under $40 for their iconic images. As a small business owner, you probably don’t have an inflated marketing budget to hire a fancy design [...]  View More

As a small business owner you will need to determine whether to hire full time employees or use independent contractors. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they are basically the same thing. They aren’t.  View More

Companies that have women in decision-making positions and on their boards have been shown to have better financial performance, according to Christine Lagarde, the first female chief of the International Monetary Fund. In an interview with NPR's Renee Montagne this morning Lagarde, who is known to have said that the financial downturn might have turned [...]  View More

It’s mid January, which means by now you’ve already read dozens of articles about why New Year’s resolutions work and/or don’t work at all. In reality, both arguments are true. According to business strategist Barbara Findlay Schenck, it’s not about making a resolution, it’s about knowing where you want to go and what’s preventing you from [...]  View More

When a small business can’t get a loan from a bank, they’ve increasingly been turning to alternative lenders. These lenders — OnDeck, CAN Capital, DLJ Financial, and many others — are willing to take on more risk, provide capital faster, and require less documentation than the big banks. But why exactly has alternative lending exploded so much in [...]  View More

Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels, discusses leadership, his bad first job, and the best business book he's ever read. Chip Conley (MBA '84) is the founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels, California's largest boutique hotel collection, which includes more than 30 properties. Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the parent company of Joie de [...]  View More

So you've been through a few job interviews and now you're down to brass tacks -- you're negotiating the offer. This can be complex, tricky business, and costly, too, if you don't do it well. But complexity also creates opportunities, at least for people who have done some homework. Deepak Malhotra is a professor at [...]  View More

Opening Day at Fenway Park is still more than a week away, but two teams had big wins there on Thursday. The Boston-based product launch and e-commerce site for makers, The Grommet, known for bringing brands including GoldieBlox, SodaStream, FitBit, and Bananagrams to market, held its Second Annual Product Pitch and Game Day at the [...]  View More