New York SBDC Research Network

From Bplans : An early question among potential co-founders during discussions about commitment was always “have you raised money yet?” as if it’s a requirement of doing a tech startup. It seems like a common trend with first-time tech entrepreneurs—and even some more experienced entrepreneurs—to think of fundraising as a required step in the process of starting a technology company. They read articles on TechCrunch about how startups are raising huge, early rounds of funding from VCs, then begin putting together pitch decks and attempt to seek out funding for their own startup. However, if you look at the history of today’s biggest tech companies, nearly all of them started without raising outside funds. Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft all started in garages or dorms, and didn’t raise money until later on when they were ready to scale up operations. In fact, many companies are successful without ever raising outside money, including PlentyofFish, Balsamiq Mockups, and Shutterstoc...

One may be barred from working in a job that is related to a criminal conviction. Understanding which jobs you can and cannot be hired for has been difficult for employer and potential employee. As this article from Minnesota states: The American Bar Association created the Collateral Consequences website to show how different types of criminal convictions affect employment and other resources. The rules about barred occupations and work restrictions are complicated. The collateral consequences of a criminal conviction—legal sanctions and restrictions imposed upon people because of their criminal record—are hard to find and harder to understand. Now it will be easier to do both. Congress directed the National Institute of Justice to collect and study collateral consequences in all U.S. jurisdictions, and NIJ selected the ABA Criminal Justice Section to perform the necessary research and analysis. The results are now being made available through this interactive tool. It has...

From MarketProfs : Public relations is sometimes referred to as the "persuasion business," and that nickname says it all. PR campaigns are largely about convincing an audience that something (such as an event, a person, a company, or a transaction) is important and supporting that claim with clear reasons. However, it may be time for the PR industry to start campaigning on its own behalf. Global industry growth slowed to 5% in 2015 marking a significant downshift from its double-digit growth just two years prior. Meanwhile, spending on PR information and software is going up, reaching $2.9B in 2015—a 5.5% increase over 2014. The diverging dynamics show that in 2016 and beyond, PR needs to be a business of technologically powered proof—not just persuasion. For the PR industry to grow and thrive, it needs to prove its direct value in the most tangible ways possible. Amid the ever-evolving digital media landscape, the following best-practices will be integral to prov...

By  Carmel Martin  and  Angela Hanks   Apprenticeships, paid training programs that combine on-the-job training and classroom instruction, are an effective yet underused strategy for training workers for in-demand jobs. In 2014, in an effort to increase the use of apprenticeship as a pathway to middle-class employment, President Obama set a national goal to double the number of U.S. apprenticeships within five years. Since then, the Department of Labor has made unprecedented investments to support the development and expansion of new and existing apprenticeship programs, announcing or awarding $265 million in funding, thanks, in part, to a historic, bipartisan agreement made by Congress and based on the president’s 2016 budget. As part of that initiative, the Department of Labor is  awarding 14 contracts  to industry and workforce intermediaries to advance two major goals for expanding apprenticeship programs in the United States: *expanding a...

From the American Institute for Economic Research Politicians love to talk about small business, but often use the topic for a quick photo op and feel-good story about the economy. However, both major presidential candidates are proposing policies that are highly relevant to small business owners. Hillary Clinton focuses on “leveling the playing field” between small and large businesses, while Donald Trump advocates policies intended to help businesses regardless of size. A comparison of these proposals highlights an interesting question: How differently should the government treat small and large businesses? Clinton’s website has a page dedicated to small business, including those photo ops, but also a sizable list of policy proposals. Virtually all of the proposals focus on the premise that small businesses face greater or different challenges related to taxation, financing and regulation than their large counterparts. Perhaps the proposal of Clinton’s that could have the most ...

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Improving Small Business Cyber Security Act of 2016 this week, to help small businesses protect themselves from cyberattacks. A companion bill is still working its way through the Senate. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY), Chairman of the House Small Business Committee was approved by voice vote on a bipartisan basis. Here are the main nuggets from that press release : American small businesses are under cyberattack like never before. By one estimate, 71 percent of cyberattacks occurred in businesses with fewer than 100 employees. With America’s 28 million small businesses making up 54 percent of annual sales in the U.S., the frequency of such attacks and the high costs they create for small businesses could have ripple effects throughout our economy. Small businesses are often not prepared to prevent cyberattacks or easily recover from the damages of successful intrusions. A report by Internet security firm McAfe...

From Bplans Almost every business has some form of insurance to protect it from fires, lawsuits, and vandalism—things that are 100 percent not boring. In fact, the first business insurance policies came from Lloyd’s of London, which used to be a coffee shop where sailors and merchants gathered. It was a perfect storm: Lloyd’s picked up on how dangerous sailing was and that merchants wanted insurance in case their sailors were thrown overboard, goods were lost at seas, or pirates did pirate-y things. This little coffee shop starting selling marine insurance and soon enough, it became the nexus of the insurance world. Three hundred years later, it still is. If you’re a small-business owner, chances are you don’t need pirate insurance. If you do, heaven help you. For most business owners, there are four non-pirate kinds of insurance that cover most major exposures.