New York SBDC Research Network

(This is useful to think about what NOT to do in business ...) After going through all of your nominations, [the Consumerist is]... proud to present the first round match-ups for this year’s Worst Company in America tournament ! As you’ll see from the image below, there are several returning competitors, including previous champs EA and Comcast, three-time runner-up (and sort of winner from when it acquired Countrywide) Bank of America, the perennially hated Ticketmaster and PayPal (with their respective corporate counterparts LiveNation and eBay). There are also some new names on the list, like Koch Industries and lawsuit-happy seed company Monsanto. There’s also SeaWorld making a splash on WCIA 2014, presumably because people have been watching that Blackfish documentary. Voting will begin tomorrow, March 19. In the early rounds, each match will be open for votes for only a few hours. While they are open, polls will be placed at the top of the Consumerist homepage and in a s

From Open Forum : Over 500,000 businesses get started in the U.S. every year, and unfortunately not everyone is a success. (Many of them are bad ideas, and poorly executed.) If you’re thinking of starting up a business in 2013, heed our warning and watch out for these 13 bad business ideas. While you’re at it, check out the best business ideas that we think are winners for the coming year.