Business Owner’s Blog

Rob asks,
I have a first child on the way. I need to buy an SUV, but I put all my money back into my business. Is there a way to use my business to write off the SUV?
[You can ask your question here]
I answer:
Since I’m not an accountant or a lawyer and more […]

The sign of a growing business is no cash. That’s also the sign of a dying business. Here’s how to make sure you have the first, not the second.
I hesitate to say that money is what’s most important in your business, but it’s what’s most critical. Financial repercussions connect everything that happens in your business […]

Sorry for the delay in posting - I’ve been at what I heard was the largest venture fair east of the Mississippi. It was my first time at something like this. Very enlightening.
Over 100 companies asking for money. 25 in “late state” meaning they had revenue of over $1million and the rest “early state.” The […]

DON’T
Says Seth Godin. I think he gives a pretty good alternative.
Takeaways:

Not all VC funding is bad for every company.
Thinking that funding is always the solution is bad for every company.

In case you missed it: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Payback
Payback is the third reason for a company to spend money after COGS and Operations. I don’t mean payback as in sending some goon out to break a bunch of kneecaps. Payback is what I’m calling the money […]

What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual. What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Tri-lingual. What do you call a person who speaks only one language? An American. - Old Joke
Numbers are the language of business, yet many business owners don’t really know that language. They survive, but […]

In case you missed it: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Operations
The second reason to spend money is on operations. These are called fixed costs by accountants and they are the costs that stay the same from month to month just to keep the lights on and the doors […]

This is a longer article, so I’ll post it in sections. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
It’s conventional wisdom that companies die because they run out of money. One reason they do is that if you’ve never learned to look at why you spend money, you make […]

The irony is that people and institutions that have money to invest are spending time and energy just LOOKING for places to put that money to use while at the same time, tens of thousands of businesses die every year because they don’t have enough funding. These two groups are passing each other like email […]

In The World’s Greatest Banker Fred Gratzon tells the story of how his company outrgrew both his cash supply and his systems to track the growth. His banker finally justified an increase in credit by asking Fred “Do you feel like you’re making money?” When it happened again, the banker encouraged Fred to kite checks. […]