The Curator: What Entrepreneurs Drink, School of Hard Knocks, Employee Lawsuits, Think Globally, Minimum Wage Hike, SEO Rules
0Here’s our weekly link roundup of small business buzz, musings and muchness. A curation of the best small business talk around the web.
What Entrepreneurs Drink
“You’re a startup entrepreneur. Every day you face a new schedule of challenges. Keeping your energy and creativity at an optimum level is key to meeting them head on. So what do you put in your body to keep your physical and mental cylinders firing ? What do you imbibe to de-stress and decompress after a long day of growing your business and fighting for your vision?
We asked several entrepreneurs what beverages they reach for when they need to energize or unwind. Here’s what they said:” (Forbes)
Education vs. Experience: Should Entrepreneurs Go to College?
“Business experts and entrepreneurs alike will argue that, “You should have started your business right after high school and learned through experience, making mistakes as you go. It doesn’t make sense to spend so much money on college when others have started successful businesses without it. The ‘School of Hard Knocks’ is all you really need.” While this may work for some people, the benefits of getting a college education shouldn’t be ignored. Why choose one over the other when you can have both education AND experience?” (BostInno)
Settling Is Not the Only Way to Resolve an Employee Lawsuit
“Many small-business owners respond to employee lawsuits with grudging acceptance that, regardless of whether the company broke any laws, the sooner it pays a plaintiff to go away, the better. As repugnant as this may sound, it is a cost of doing business. That, at least, is one approach. Jeffrey Herold, who owns West Coast Trends in Huntington Beach, Calif., does not subscribe to this belief. His company, which makes golf bags, luggage and related accessories, and averages $10 million to $15 million in annual sales, has faced three employee lawsuits alleging wrongful termination since Mr. Herold founded it in 1990.” (The New York Times)
Why U.S. Entrepreneurs Tend Not to Think Globally
Unlike small business owners in other parts of the world, U.S. entrepreneurs do not tend to think globally about potential markets for their businesses… While many U.S. entrepreneurs seem content to pursue business only within our borders, we cannot ignore that over 95 percent of the world population lives outside of our country. And small business owners who are part of the 95 percent of the world outside the U.S. are aggressively using the digital economy to help them expand their small businesses into the U.S. market.” (Christian Science Monitor)
A Hike in Minimum Wage Could Be a Huge Boon to Small Businesses
“During the State of the Union address President Barack Obama proposed raising the hourly minimum wage $1.75, from $7.25 to $9.00. This would be a significant move, and conveniently there’s an immense amount of research available pertaining to its effects. Studies found that an increase in the minimum wage didn’t generally lead to mass terminations of employees, but also may lead to a decrease in the number of teenagers in the workforce. We also know that a number of major companies rely on minimum wage employees.” (Business Insider)
SEO and Startups: 5 Rules to Apply Now
“If you have recently launched a new company, let me go ahead and introduce you to your new best friend … It’s SEO! The goal of search engine optimization is to get your website to appear in the search engine results listings whenever users enter certain phrases into their search boxes.For example, if you run a pet training tips website, you want your site to appear at the top of the results whenever a search user enters “pet training tips” into the search bar. Achieving these top rankings puts your site in front of as many eyeballs as possible, leading to an influx of new traffic—and potential new customers—to your website.” (Search Engine Journal)
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