Happy with my Small Business Threat Index Result

Earlier this morning, I came across Just How Financially Healthy is Your Small Business, Anyway? and I was a bit surprised with this really cool finance health check tool.

The Small Business Threat Index is a self-quiz that you take online. Using it you can assess the financial vulnerability of your small business, through using financial ratios.

Professor Jeff Cornwall, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University, and Dr. George Solomon of George Washington University, have created this useful online tool.

Below’s a screenshot of the Finance Health Check tool:

I took the quiz and I got the result below:

My Small Business Threat Index Result

I was honestly happy with my result. It’s really a cool tool and will even help us motivate more. Bear in mind, Cash is King! I think that’s why bootstrapping made it to be a winner. See my results? You wanted to check yours too? Just visit the link I referenced above!

Bootstrapping For The Better

Small businesses receive financing through various sources. Some are started by outside investors through limited offerings. Some take out and rely upon loans from banks and other creditors.  Some receive venture capital or assets from an angel investor.

And then there are bootstrappers.  Bootstrapping is starting and running your business as a lean, efficient and self-sufficient machine.  You’re not thinking of a large posh office; maybe a home business or shared office will do.  You don’t look for the most expensive top of the line equipment for that restaurant, instead you browse the for sale section of Craigslist because you know during bad times, deals may be had.

So now, have you thought about it?

Bootstrapping: Always A Life Saver for Business

The most effective means you have to minimize the amount of cash you will need to put into a business is to find ways to bootstrap or shave dollars off your startup costs.

Bootstrapping can help reduce the time it takes to reach break-even in the business by reducing the overhead expenses you have to pay every month. That is why so many entrepreneurs start their businesses out of their kitchens, their garages or their basements.

Bootstrapping can also reduce operating costs, giving the owners more profit from each dollar of sales. The sooner you reach break-even and cover your basic expenses, the sooner you will have enough cash flow to pay yourself a salary and stop putting more of your own money into the business.

The above are the great tips from Jeff Cornwall. Bootstrapping has not only prove to keep the cash flowing but he pointed out in his article that bootstrapping is the safest way to profitability. So why wait? Bootstrap Now!

ENTREPRENEURS – NOW Is the time! Bootstrapping a business TODAY.

I’m a little late on posting about this but I promise to keep myself updated to this event. Check it below.

ENTREPRENEURS – NOW Is the time! Bootstrapping a business TODAY.

On April 2nd, prepare to have all your business questions answered. If you feel knowledge is holding you back in your business, keeping you from driving more sales, lowering your costs, creating new products, or marketing your current ones, this is the premier event for you. We’ve brought together 5 experts in 5 industries: marketing, accounting, law, management, and entrepreneurship, for a no-holds barred, gloves off, let’s get right to the bottom of the barrel, Q and A session. Parking will be extremely limited, so please park across the street at the WCC main campus. All are welcome!

Cost: Free Food: Provided Host: Student Entrepreneurs Zone Club When: Thursday April 2nd, 4 – 6 PM (6 – 8 open networking) Where: WCC Health & Fitness Center: Both Conference Rooms

Panel of Professionals:
Entrepreneurship/Management: Diane Durance
Entrepreneurship/Technology: Carrie Hensel
Business Marketing: Gerald Schorin
Business Accounting: Jeff Doloway
Business Law: Paul Callam

Please RSVP by sending an email to: sezclubrsvp@gmail.com, subject: “April 2nd Event,” and don’t forget to include your first and last name in the email. Thank you!

You can check out the details above.

Learning does not always have to be expensive.

Learning does not always have to be expensive. Operations and any aspects in running a business is always a learning experience. So, if you’re young and above all you’re an entrepreneur then like me, you can save my joining this network of young entrepreneurs and learn at no cost of money but just time and some dedication.

I’m a Young Entrepreneur! Are You?

Are you young like me? Are you young at heart? And are you an entrepreneur? Then, we belong in this inspiring young entrepreneur’s educational blog.

Well, Grace  I  think I also belong!

Building a Start Up from Scratch

Well, bootstrappers are really familiar with these terms — Start ups and scratch.  Those who are not bootstrappers will really wonder how start up is related to scratch. Well, you must check out this7 Steps To Build A Startup From Scratch With No Money. from the Young Entrepreneur Blog.

Here are the steps that I took. This process helped me build my business with $0 in startup capital. Hopefully you can learn from my experience and make it even better.

Step 1: Moonlight Until You Find Something That Works

Step 2:  Tweak, Tweak, Tweak

Step 3: Go Full Time

Step 4: Get Free Help

Step 5: Hire Part Time Help

Step 6: Hire Full Time Help

Step 7: Figure Out Your Job Description

List of Apps for your Small Business

Thanks to Web Worker Daily for a comprehensive list of apps that we could consider using it for our business.  Well, Aliza Sherman — the author of the post, said it isn’t comprehensive but Aliza just wanted you to know it is and is very helpful! Below, I’ll gave you a taste of what apps you might need which Aliza posted about.

1. Invoice management

I can’t run my business without my Freshbooks, but there are many options out there for freelancers to manage invoices and track income and expenses. Some other options we’ve reviewed include:

• Freshbooks, Zoho, Blinksale, Cashboard
• Bootstrap

2. Time tracking

While Freshbooks does have time tracking, I must confess I’m remiss with tracking my time with a tracker (and yes, even with my cute Freshbooks time tracking widget for Mac OSX). I’ve been a little better lately at guesstimating my time and logging it into my project management system (see No. 7 below), but need to get better at it to understand the profitability of my work projects. Some time tracking solutions we’ve blogged about in the past include:

• 88Miles, MyHours, Sidejobtrack, MeeTimer (roundup)

Well, guys above is just a small fraction of the 10 application categories needed for our small business operations. I didn’t know if it’s free or not but definitely not that expensive but very helpful. Check out the complete list in her post — Web Work 101: 10 Apps You Can’t Do Without!

Bootstrapping expertise is what we need for now!

Ivan Widjaya is the man behind Noobpreneur.Com. What’s worth noting him is this excellent post he has written — How to bootstrap your way past recession?

There are a lot of exemplary tips to which we, as a reader, can really learn a lot. To give you an idea what’s in stored for us in his post is quoted below.

Bootsrapping tips

I learn from my fellow entrepreneurs on how to bootstrap your way to thrive in today’s recession – From what I learn, there are several similarities in bootstrapping methods among them; To name a few:

• They purchase everything on business credit cards – this way, they reap point rewards that can be redeemed with various rewards, such as traveling the world – this is effective as long as they pay their bills on due date to avoid late fees or other fees incurred.
• They do balance transfer – they ‘reshuffle’ their business credit cards, and transfer the balance – or aggregate some, to the most attractive credit card issuers offers possible.
• They always think, “Substitute, substitute, substitute” – i.e. if printing their own business card is cheaper, they’ll do it for sure.

The above is just a fraction of those plenty of tips you can get from Ivan’s article.  It’s one click away from us guys! Check the entire article here.

85 Absolutely Free Online Business Classes

I am honor and grateful to spread the good news. I found from Amanda’s post in SMBCEO.Com a very helpful list which was orginally created by Matt of  SmallBizBee.

Bootstrappers and all tight budget entrepreneurs? This is for you –Free Small Business Education Courses Online.  This extensive list by Matt is very helpful because it offers small business courses online and free. Learning different aspects in business is just fingertips away from us — just a few mouse clicks and keyboard strokes and we’re good to go.

Here get yourself ready with these 85 Absolutely Free Online Business Classes.

Recession Can Also Be Good…

Reading the title alone would really raise eyebrows of a lot of people.

What? Recession can also be good? Are you insane?

Those are just some of the over acting responses I get when I asked a few friends during dinner.  As you can see — “Recession Can Also Be Good…” — the triple dots there indicates there’s a supporting statement to that but my friends reacted outright the moment I uttered those 5 magic words.

Well guys, recession can also be good to us if we see things in a positive perspective. Here are four reasons why:

1. Expenses Fall
2. Angel funds haven’t shut down
3. Tough times weed out weak competition
4. Certain markets can be recession proof

Still not convinced? Why not read the detailed explanation of these 4  good things written by Mark Miller. Check it here.