Small Business - Although VC money is not a fit in all cases, the lessons from VCs and the entrepreneurs they work with are useful in a broad range of businesses
This is a post by guest blogger Jeff Bussgang.
"I've decided to write a book," I told my wife over a year ago.
She gave me that what-the-bleep-are-you-talking-about look. You may be familiar with it with your spouse.
"You've what?"
"I've decided to write a book," I repeated, slightly less confidently.
"On what?"
"Venture capital and entrepreneurship."
"Why?"
"Well, when I was an entrepreneur, I couldn't find any good books on how this mysterious capital-raising process worked and how to harness the resources and knowledge of the VC industry to help build my start-up. Now that I've seen it from the other side, I want to explain to entrepreneurs how it all works to help them be successful. There are good blogs out there, but no good books that pull it all together."
"When are you going to find the time to write a book?" she challenged.
I didn't have a very good answer for that one.
But somehow I've figured it out over the last year plus and am pleased to report that my book, called Mastering the VC Game, will be coming out this spring from Penguin's business imprint, Portfolio.
I've gotten wonderful
Small Business - NPR's April Dembrosky examines efforts to create laws that protect social ventures from having to sell out values for shareholders' benefit.
FDIC Chief Sheila Bair says banks that aren't lending to consumers and business owners need to explain why, McClatchy's Kevin G. Hall reports.
Steve King ofsmall businessLabs on how the film industry and others are following the barbell pattern: a handful of big companies, lots of tiny ones, very few in the middle.
Kauffman's Dane Stangler dives deep into the patterns of how growth firms create jobs.
The WSJ and Dow Jones VentureSource rank 50 top VC-based companies.
Scott Shane, writing in Small Business Trends, explains what we can and can't learn from optimism surveys like the NFIB's.
Small Business - If you haven't seen it, I suggest you watch "The Caine Mutiny." Basically, one guy takes apart the ship. He was unhappy.
Small Business - JPMorgan Chase has been trumpeting increases in lending to small businesses in full-page print ads. One running today in The New York Times describes the bank's new policy to give a "second look" to rejected business loan applicants who request another review:
This means our credit team gives a second look—and makes every reasonable effort—to approve those businesses that are only experiencing short-term stress due to the unprecedented economic downturn.
This extra step has already provided an additional $50 million in credit to 200small businessapplicants who had been previously declined.
How many loan applicants requested a second-look? I asked Chase spokesman Tom Kelly this morning, but he told me the bank isn't sharing that information. So it's hard to evaluate how significant those 200 second-look approvals are.
Kelly did offer this much: Chase's business banking segment originated $700 million in new small business lending in the fourth quarter of 2009. (That does not include credit card lending, Kelly says.) The second-look policy, which began in mid-November, resulted in $50 million in originations since then (a period slightly longer than a quarter). So it's not a negligible amount.
But more transparency would help here. The bank has said
Small Business - When we exceed the market, our people earn more than their peers in the industry.
Small Business - The Boston Globe's Scott Kirsner explains why startups should have someone answering the phones and greeting visitors who walk in the door. (H/t VC Dispatch)
Businesses continue to use microfinance loans when they're locked out of bank financing, Ylan Q. Mui reports in the Washington Post.
TALF, the Fed program to unfreeze the secondary market forsmall businessloans, is expiring, writes the WSJ's Emily Maltby.
Tax policy expert and former BW writer Howard Gleckman, writing in the ChristianscienceMonitor, argues that small businesses will benefit from health care reform that addresses the insurance market disadvantages they face.
Reuters' Felix Salmon argues that small business lending is among the most efficient ways to create jobs.
Small Business - Lawyers who are experienced with assisting buyers and sellers of businesses will have developed checklists and contracts to cover the issues common to these transactions.
Small Business - From themobileWorld Congress come tips, lessons, and strategies for even the smallest of small businesses.
Small Business - I look forward to landing a chef who can prepare a delicious halibut with Myrrhis odorata on a bed of Streptopus amplexifolius.
Small Business - Our philosophy has been that if you are trying to get your employees to think like owners, you should make it fun and make sure there's something in it for them.
Small Business - The agency has found 83 industries where women-owned small businesses are "under-represented or substantially under-represented."
