internet entrepreneurs

The importance of small business as an integral part of the American economy is often overlooked. Did you know that small businesses create 75% of new jobs? Did you also know that over 90% of employers are small businesses?

Entrepreneurship is widely regarded as a core component in American business culture. It's a driving force for job creation and economic growth. Even in the face of high failure rates we are opening businesses at an unprecedented rate. Approximately 1 in 12 people in the U.S. start their own business each year.

Six key factors were identified by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) study that increase chances for entrepreneurship: level of perceived entrepreneurial opportunity; individual motivation or skills necessary to take advantage of the opportunity; the availability of financing, facilities, employees, suppliers, tax concessions, etc; demographic make-up of the population; the acceptance of differences in the level of income among individuals; respect for start-ups

While opening restaurants, starting manufacturing firms, and going into professional private practice still contribute greatly to economic growth, internet entrepreneurs have become one of the most dynamic forces in the economy. Low start-up costs and easy access to large markets make the internet as alluring to risk-takers as the gold rush days of a hundred years ago.

But don't let the ease of creating a presence on the internet lull you into thinking that's all it takes to be successful. It takes just as much hard work, long hours, and commitment to succeed on the internet as it does to open a corner store. Having a basic business plan, marketing plan, and budget in place increase your chances of success. Remember, the internet isn't the wild west.

a little encouragement

The other day I was engaged in a conversation with someone who wanted to start their own business, but was afraid they didn't have what it took to succeed in a highly competitive world. While we discussed all the nuts and bolts of business plans, taxes, marketing, and more I couldn't help hearing Eric Bibb's song "The Cape" playing softly in the recesses of my mind...

Life's a leap of faith
Spread your arms
Hold your breath
and always trust your cape

open source

I'm a big fan of open source software. The idea of collaboration and access appeals to me. It's a building block of the work I do with my clients. It's my "style" so, naturally it's an integral part of the way I want to see the world.

For small businesses and the newbie entrepreneur I often share open source as an alternative to high-priced, proprietary software such as Norton Antivirus, Microsoft Office, and QuickBooks Accounting. While these are good products, they're expensive and likely to suck the user into an annual cycle of buying new versions at increasingly higher costs.

And those costs increase not only in terms of product purchase price, but in system conflicts, system bloat, learning curves due to functionality changes, sometimes even in forcing the user to buy new equipment altogether just to "keep up."

The #1 question I'm asked is, "What else can I do?". Sometimes the answer is easy. For a single user working from home I recommend AVG Free Edition Antivirus instead of Mcafee or Norton. I recommend OpenOffice as a dependable and full-featured alternative to Microsoft Office.

When it comes to accounting software I recommend any business owner speak with their accountant before using any of the applications available. There are a number of things that should be considered as you evaluate various accounting packages.

Some of the considerations are, how big is the business, what type of business is it, are you, but business owner, doing the bookkeeping or is there a bookkeeper, what software does your accountant support (might make your life easier when it comes to taxes or audits). For a complete discussion about this go to GReat Kreations.

Having said all of that, here are three of the best and most popular open source accounting packages available:

OSAS Open Source Accounting Suite - OSAS is award-winning accounting software for Windows, Linux, UNIX and Mac users. OSAS can be used by churches, charities, and small corporations. The main features of this product include separation of duties, General Ledger Accounting, Cost Center Accounting, Budgeting, Donation Accounting and Reporting.

GnuCash Financial Accounting Software - GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.

Grisbi Personal Accounting - Grisbi is a personal accounting application running under GNU/Linux and Windows, released under the GPL licence. Grisbi can manage multiple accounts, currencies and users. It manages third party, expenditure and receipt categories, as well as budgetary lines, financial years, and other informations that makes it quite adapted for associations (except those that require double entry accounting).