Today's Wall Street Journal includes an interview with the two lawyers who started California Pizza Kitchen (click here). The article contains the following advice for entrepreneurs:

Q. What's your best advice for other entrepreneurs?

Rosenfield: Be well-capitalized. So many concepts fail because the entrepreneurs misjudge how long it takes them to be successful.

Flax: Be optimistic. Bad times create openings of doors. A lot of people might think this is a terrible time, but it's not. There is a lot of money out there for good ideas. Real estate is cheaper, and there are more people looking for work. These are times when optimists can really take advantage. Now is the time to strike.

Tags: Entrepreneurs, Small Business

Today's Wall Street Journal includes a short but useful piece about three ways in which small business owners can build business credit (click here). "Small-business owners are in a Catch 22. Obtaining financing for their companies can be difficult without a strong business credit history. At the same time, banks and credit-card issuers have tightened standards and don't want to risk providing loans or lines of credit to small companies that don't have proven track records. . . . The solution, business-credit experts say, is for would-be borrowers to buckle down, keep airtight records and instill new credit-building practices. . . ."

Tags: Small Business

Today's Wall Street Journal includes an article about 15 business that have been identified as the "Top Small Workplaces" for 2009 (click here). "For the third year in a row, The Wall Street Journal teamed up with Winning Workplaces, an Evanston, Ill., nonprofit that helps small and midsize companies create better work environments, to identify 15 small employers who have built some of the most exemplary, innovative workplaces." Employee retention, having a team-based culture, and transparency are three themes that jumped out at me.

Tags: Small Business, Management

Today's Wall Street Journal contains a piece (click here) about how some small- and medium-sized businesses are hiring consultants as Chief Financial Officers, instead of hiring them as employees. "The payment structure varies. Some are on project-oriented deals, such as developing financial projections, assisting with raising capital or completing a business plan. Some are on-going in nature and can be based on an hourly or flat monthly fee."

Tags: Small Business

Today’s Wall Street Journal contains a good article about steps that a small company can take to prevent hackers from infecting the company’s website, which can lead to blacklisting by search engines. The comments to the article are worth reading, too.

Tags: Small Business, Internet

According to this useful article, “the IRS estimates that $68 billion of the annual $345 billion tax gap for 2001 (the spread between what the government should collect and what it actually collected) was due to sole proprietors. This group of taxpayers underreported their income by 57 percent. The other part of the tax gap from this group came from overstating deductions as well as some who did not file any returns.” The article states, “the IRS is focusing on sole proprietors to make sure that all income is being properly reported and that claimed deductions are within the limits allowed by law,” and sets forth a list of “some key audit issues” and suggestions as to “what can be done to avoid problems.”

Tags: Small Business, Taxation

This article in today’s New York Times contains some good intellectual property pointers for small businesses. Be sure to check out the “Quick Tips” and “Suggested Reading” links on the left-hand side of the page. These are all good things to consider.

Tags: Intellectual Property, Small Business