New York SBDC Research Network

The '8 Great' Tips For Marketing In A Category That Hasn't Existed Before   OCT 5, 2016 @ 05:12 PM   Each of these companies have shared the same hurdle  —  how do you market a solution people don't know exists to a problem they don't yet realize they have? "Walleye Dawn" Photo courtesy of Steve Wall on Flickr:   https://flic.kr/p/6Vvgqw  Some rights reserved. Forbes' Cheryl Conner writes about a problem we see from time to time  — being a field that does not have a marketing rule book.   For most businesses buying an ad and waiting for customers to rush the door is not enough, especially so for those categories that require a little explanation. We can bandy "social media" around as being the tools to gain new customers but business owners need to be able to speak about the problems their product or service solves. The new avenues need content and the content is expertise and storytelling. Most of the methods described in

From Bplans : The transition from the corporate world to entrepreneurship is jarring for anyone who takes the leap. The work, structure, and indicators of success are different in many ways. Things you became adept at while working at a company—like keeping your boss happy and navigating office politics—lose their utility when you’re on your own. It was an exciting environment with a steep learning curve. However, having grown up in a family of small business owners, the pull of entrepreneurship strengthened as I grew older. After several years in the corporate world, I realized it was never going to get easier to make the switch. Leveraging our financial skill sets, my partner and I started a tech-enabled factoring company that helps innovative B2B businesses and startups fund their working capital. The transition from a white-shoe Wall Street firm to the near absolute freedom of entrepreneurship required enormous adjustments in all aspects of my life.

From ConsumerAffairs : Many people log in to multiple online accounts every day, including financial, email and social media accounts. Having strong passwords for each websites helps protect consumers from identity thieves. A strong password is complex, long and unique, and, therefore, can be hard to create and/or remember. Password managers generate and securely store passwords so that consumers don’t have to remember them, but different ones offer slightly different services and levels of protection. Consumers who understand these features can choose one to meet their security needs. Link goes to: Top 10 Best Rated Password Managers What features matter most? What are different types of password managers?

From the Business Journals : The Supreme Court of the United States begins its 2016 term Monday. Virtually by definition, cases that reach the land's highest court are historic in nature, but there are plenty of prominent and divisive cases to go around this term. The session will be further complicated by the court still being down a member after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. If the court splits 4-4 on a ruling, the lower court's ruling effectively stands. Here are some of the key business cases before the court this term — with what's in dispute and what's at stake. Samsung Electronics v. Apple Inc...

From Bplans : It seems you can’t talk about business anymore without talking about disruption. What everybody can agree on is that the rate of change seen throughout almost every industry, due to new technologies and advanced rates at which ideas spread, is steadily increasing, and shows no signs of slowing down. The good news for small businesses and startups is that they shouldn’t be worried. In fact, they should be excited! Being small enough, and in the case of startups, fresh enough to take innovative leaps and try out radical new methods and ideas is why these organizations are the ones that drive disruption. Enterprise level businesses and other large organizations are taking notes, trying to learn from small businesses how best not only to respond to disruption but to instigate it themselves. For small businesses, this is great. Even if they’re not the ones driving change, they’re small and agile enough to adapt to it. For aspiring startups, this is even better. Establi

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