New York SBDC Research Network

From bplans.com : Whether you’re a startup or an up-and-running business, you should know what your total potential market opportunity is for your products or services. Caroline Cummings has coached many companies over the years, as well as judged several business plan competitions, and she's always surprised by how most business owners can’t confidently tell you their total market potential. They tell her things like, “My market is everyone who eats dessert,” or, “Everyone in my community who drives a car,” or, “Anyone in the world who uses social networks.” You may think these are your markets, but you need to drill-down and get more realistic and specific about the true size of your market, or lenders and investors will question your credibility.

From the Wall Street Journal : By   ERIC R. DANTON ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic premieres ‘Mission Statement’ video on WSJ   Robert Trachtenberg “Weird Al” Yankovic  wraps up his eight-day string of video releases with  “Mission Statement,”  which premieres today on Speakeasy. The song, from Yankovic’s new album “ Mandatory Fun ,”  is in the style of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”  by  Crosby, Stills & Nash . The song features Yankovic harmonizing with himself on lyrics constructed of corporate jargon, like “operationalize our strategies” and “leverage our core competencies,” while the animated whiteboard video depicts a live-action hand that is drawing illustrations to go with the words.

Did you know that 95% of consumers live outside the United States? And a whopping two thirds of the world’s purchasing power is in foreign countries! Exporting can mean big things for your small business, and SBA is here with resources and information to help you succeed!

What nightspots trend on Twitter? Heineken helps young people find out. You’ll also learn what people really share on social networks, how to write like a spy, why word crimes are way worse than blurred lines, and why joining Instagram may be the smartest thing the TSA ever did. Skim for your share of state secrets. Weird Al - YES! Read more at MarketingProfs .

Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and others rave about Business Adventures, by the late John Brooks. It was written in 1971, and consists of 12 stories from The New Yorker. The print edition has been out of print for a while, but it is now available as an e-book. It sounds great! Details from BoingBoing .

From Vox.com : The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is probably the most widely used personality test in the world. An  estimated  2 million people   take it annually, at the bequest of corporate HR departments, colleges, and even government agencies.  The company  that makes and markets the test makes somewhere  around $20 million  each year. The only problem? The test is completely meaningless. "There's just no evidence behind it," says Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who's  written about the shortcomings of the Myers-Briggs  previously. " The characteristics measured by the test  have almost no predictive power  on how happy you'll be in a situation, how you'll perform at your job, or how happy you'll be in your marriage."

As the lean startup method quickly gains popularity among the high-tech startups of Silicon Valley, many entrepreneurs may question the necessity of a business plan. But statistics prove that businesses are overwhelmingly better off when they set goals and implement a plan for how to achieve those goals. The report, based on a survey of almost 400 small businesses conducted in January 2014 by Palo Alto Software, found that small business owners who regularly plan and track their business’s financial metrics expect more growth in 2014 than business that don’t plan. According to the survey, 79 percent of companies with a business plan say they are better off financially compared to a year ago, while only a third of small businesses without a business plan can say the same thing. Additionally, nearly 75 percent of established companies that have a business plan in place expect to grow more than 10 percent in 2014, compared to only 17 percent of companies that don’t have a business plan