Archive for December, 2009

21.12 2009

Equity or Debt Financing: How to Make the Right Financial Decision For Your Business

BusinessWeek Image: “Raising Capital: Equity vs. Debt ” (source below)

Successful businesses must have enough capital to weather economic downturns, but the sources of this capital differ between companies  and can determine how long an organization can survive in times of slow market activity. Some businesses have financed their business largely through the equity of their owners or investors, and other businesses are mostly financed by debt, or loans from lending institutions. Taking a look at the debt to equity ratio can give the owner insights into the financial standing of the business.

What is the debt/equity ratio?

It’s a measure of how much of a business’ assets are leveraged by debt (loans that the business will have to repay) compared to equity (capital that exists inside the business from owners or investors in the business). Math

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19.12 2009

What Scientists Really Think About Global Warming

The answers won’t entirely please either side.

These are hard times for climate scientists who want government action on global warming. Not only has the Copenhagen summit largely produced discord, but an embarrassing public release of private e-mails exposed attempts by a group of climate scientists to hide scientific evidence that didn’t conform to their beliefs or pronouncements.

As CBS News put it, the scandal, called “Climategate,” is “casting doubts on the very science on which this summit is based.” In a widely noted Washington Post column, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin argued, “the documents show that there was no real consensus” among climate scientists.

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19.12 2009

Love Is The Killer App – Or How to Get Ahead by Helping Others

The subtitle of the book, “Love is the Killer App” is: “How To Win Business And Influence Friends.” This gives the reader a clue that the author is knowledgeable about Dale Carnegie’s famous book.

In my favorite section of the book, you will learn to remember the ‘Big Thought’ about a book. Why?  The author explains:

“Maybe someone was worried about job turnover and volatility; if you’d known Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, you could have recommended it for advice on how to be likable even in trouble times.”

As a “cat person”, I love the author’s concept called “lovecat.” The first chapter is called The Lovecat Way and is a good instruction on how to come up with an excellent new idea and run with it. In the afterword, you learn abou

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19.12 2009

Online Payment Options

There are more online payment options than ever before and as an online entrepreneur, you want to offer as many as you can on your site.

A study by CyberSource Corp. found that websites providing four or more payment methods other than credit cards had a sales conversion rate 12 percent higher than those offering just one online payment option in addition to credit cards.

In other words, the more online payment options you offer, the more online payment processing you’ll do on your site and the more money you’ll make.

Here are the online payment options you could offer on your site:

1) Credit card processing

If you were only going to offer one online payment option to prospective buyers, (which I strongly discourage!) this would be the one to choose.

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19.12 2009

Not Another Budget Commission!

What could it possibly accomplish?

In a previous column I explained why I think another budget commission is unlikely to solve our deficit problem. Since both Congress and the Obama administration appear to have ignored my advice and are moving to establish one anyway, I want to look a little more deeply today at the problems it will be up against.

First, let’s take a look at a high-powered report on the federal debt just issued by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts on the problem of rising red ink. This bipartisan commission had a year to study the issue, substantial funds and able staff support from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

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19.12 2009

Obama announces global climate accord

The president said he met with leaders from India, China, Brazil and South Africa, and “that’s where we agreed … to set a mitigation target to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.”

It’s a non-binding goal, and the emissions targets “will not be by themselves sufficient to get to where we need to get by 2050,” Obama said. However, he added that it is a first step, and that for many countries “this is going to be the first time in which even voluntary they offered up mitigation targets.”

“I think that it was important to essentially get that shift in orientation moving,” Obama said.

The president said he believes it’s necessary that the countries get to a legally binding treaty, but said, “If we just waited for that, we would not make any progress.”

Global warming’s biggest jerks

Earlier, a senior Obama administration official said, “No country is entirely satisfied with each element but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress.

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18.12 2009

How and When to Protect Your Company With a Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA)

The importance of protecting company secrets cannot be gainsaid.  Many entrepreneurial projects are dependent upon the protection of trade secrets of proprietary technology.  Entrepreneurs seeking funding at early stages often find themselves at a cross roads between protecting this information, and revealing it to potential investors in the hopes of obtaining funding.

The Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)

The most common way to protect confidential information of this sort is to have any individual who you share this information with sign an NDA.  If company information is disclosed without the protection of this contract, the information obtained can be given to anyone outside of the company, including competitors without any legal recourse.  In addition, a public disclosure of secret/sensitive company information can prevent the filing of a patent application for that particular invention/discovery as well as claiming trade secret protection.  This can leave you without any rights to speak of. 

When to present an NDA

If you are an entrepreneur looking for funding, chances are you are over-protective of your trade secrets and intellectual property.  This is often at odds with early stage investors who can’t be bothered with signing legal documents presented by strangers. Often, a

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