Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
TIMESTAMPS
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20110923185122/http://www.businessweek.com:80/smallbiz/running_small_business/
Acceptance to startup accelerators such as TechStars or Y Combinator is something like getting into the Ivy League of entrepreneurship: They're highly selective places where startup founders can work intensely and network with leading tech entrepreneurs and investors. Now, the acceptance letters come with scholarships too.
TechStars (disclosure: Bloomberg TV produces a reality show about a group of its startups in New York) today announced that it raised $24 million from venture capitalists and angels to offer every new company it accepts $100,000 in financing as a convertible note. That's an optional offer on top of the $18,000 investment for 6 percent equity that TechStars makes in every company it accepts. (Convertible notes are loans that convert to equity when the startup raises its next funding round or gets acquired.)
The announcement mirrors the offer by investor Yuri Milner and the SV Angel fund to give every company accepted into Y Combinator a $150,000 convertible loan. The difference is that TechStars itself is making the offer, rather than an outside investor.
TechStars, which operates startup bootcamps in Boulder, Boston, New York, and Seattle, funds about 60 companies a year. David Cohen, TechStars' founder and CEO, says that the new money coming into TechStars reflects investors' catching on to participants' success. "VCs nationally looked at TechStars and looked at what was coming out of it and decided it was a good investment," he says.
He expects most startups that take the offer will use it for expenses during the three-month TechStars program and in the months immediately after, before they've closed deals for further investment. "A lot of them were going out and finding $100,000 with early investors," he says. "It's fairly easy for most of them to find that kind of money, but it's always work."
Cohen also says the offer may make TechStars more attractive to people who have families, full-time jobs, or higher living expenses than young, single founders. People already earning higher salaries may look at the risk of leaving their jobs and say "it's not enough for me to make the jump," Cohen says.
The investors putting up the $24 million include Foundry Group, IA Ventures, Avalon Ventures, DFJ Mercury, SoftBank Capital, SVB Financial Group, RRE Ventures, Right Side Capital Management, as well as TechStars alums and other angels.
This is a guest post by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Victoria Stilwell.
The number of so-called contingent workers hasn't been measured since 2005, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics last calculated the population. And now that the bureau has requested funding to resume the headcount, the Freelancers Union advocacy group is calling for changes in the way these workers are labeled and how their contribution to the U.S. economy is measured.
In a new policy paper, Freelancers Union argues that the government is "ignoring a crucial, and growing, segment of the economy that is transforming the U.S. workforce."
The BLS's contingent work supplement was discontinued six years ago due to lack of funding. That year, contingent workers, which the BLS defines as laborers who consider their jobs temporary, made up about 4 percent of total employment.
But Sara Horowitz, founder of the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Freelancers Union, says the BLS figures don't accurately represent the many types of workers outside of permanent, full-time employees. She says the survey should be reinstated with a broader definition of what a contingent worker is, what the Freelancers Union calls an "independent worker." By this definition, independent workers constitute at least 30 percent of the workforce, based on a 2006 report from the Government Accountability Office. The GAO included the following categories of workers:
self-employed workers
temps
contract workers
day laborers
on-call workers
part-time workers
"What I find so profoundly unsettling is that the number one issue that human beings are having in America right now is the lack of work," says Horowitz, whose union boasts almost 160,000 members. "And to not have a clue about how people are really working, and that this isn't a huge focus -- why isn't the Department of Labor making this front and center?"
The debate hinges on the lack of legal protection afforded to contingent workers, such as unemployment insurance, minimum wage and overtime protections, and anti-discrimination laws, according to the GAO report. Furthermore, these workers are less likely to have access to the health insurance or pension benefits that traditional full-time workers have.
Tom Nardone, assistant commissioner for current employment analysis at the BLS, says the bureau funded the supplement for each odd numbered year beginning in 1995 until money ran out in 2005. He says there have been other proposals to have the supplement re-funded, but Congress didn't pass them. The BLS has requested to reinstate the supplement in President Barack Obama's 2012 budget submitted in February, though Congress has yet to act on it.
Nardone says BLS data has been interpreted in different ways to get the higher numbers that the GAO and the Freelancers Union report. He says that while the bureau doesn't have a monopoly on the definition of contingent, some of the categories that other groups like the union are adding don't "square" with the concept of contingency. For example, the broader measure counts all part-time workers alongside full-time business owners who work for themselves.
"Someone could have a restaurant and be self-employed," Nardone said. "Do you want to count that person as a contingent employee because they don't have an employer? It's not for us to say that's incorrect, but the onus is on them to make sure they're being transparent in terms of what they're doing."
Horowitz argues that the term "contingent" is outdated and should no longer be used to describe workers. If the supplement is reinstated, she says people should be categorized as independent based on their work, not whether they think of themselves as business owners.
"It shouldn't matter what your mental state is," Horowitz said. "It should matter what your action is. You should be asking questions that are: What are you doing now? How are you filing your taxes? How many hours do you want to be working, and how many hours are you working?"
Unsure how to spend this summer weekend? Brainstorm startup ideas to remedy dysfunction in Naples, Italy, the famous port city known for its vibrancy, history, and cuisine--as well as its lawlessness and litter.
A London nonprofit called Euclid Network is seeking individuals from around the globe to solve societal problems in Naples. The group wants entrepreneurs to move to the city this fall and create business ventures that will improve locals' lives.
To find the best ideas for the six challenges it has already identified, Euclid is holding Naples 2.0, a competition soliciting proposals in English through this Monday, Aug. 15. The challenges range from converting a villa confiscated from the mafia into a business to improving operations at a textile recycling cooperative.
On Sept. 23, a jury that includes the U.S. consul general in Naples and a vice-president of the European Parliament will award six winners €10,000 each to get their ventures off the ground with local partners. By Jan., Euclid, which is funded in part by the European Commission, will assess participants' progress to determine whether to continue supporting them. Wanda Halbert, a Euclid coordinator, says the group is still determining how to help with foreign participants' costs related to visas, travel expenses, and lodging.
Euclid chose Naples because it wanted to put social innovators to work in a place where public institutions have proven "ineffective," the group's executive director, Filippo Addarii, explains in a video. "We want to do it not in a fancy, cool, hyper-tech, wealthy environment, but it in a place which is the symbol of state and market failures," says Addarii. "I think that is the right place for social innovators, to show that they can provide solutions where the traditional remedies failed."
Catch his complete explanation in the short video below.
This is a guest post by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Victoria Stilwell.
States in the Northeast and West Coast are most favorable for startups, according to the latest State Entrepreneurship Index published by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln last week.
The annual index ranks states using the number of businesses that open and close, the average earnings of its entrepreneurs, the number of patents per capita, and other data, says Eric Thompson, an economics professor and director of the university's Bureau of Business Research.
New York, Washington state, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Oregon topped the list. South Carolina came in with the lowest ranking, while Nevada plummeted 40 spots to 47 for the biggest change on the index. Alabama, Mississippi, and Arizona were also in the bottom five.
Thompson says states in the South and Southwest had a higher number of business closures compared to the rest of the country, which contributed to their poor index performance. He suggests attitudes toward entrepreneurship and economic development affected states' rankings.
"The states where the traditional model of economic development has been starting companies -- such as in the Northeast, such as California and other states in the Northwest -- that tends to continue because they've got the investors, they've got a concentration of experienced entrepreneurs that allow them to create high-income entrepreneurship even in the difficult economic conditions," he says. That's not the case for other regions that have focused economic development more on attracting new branches of existing companies, he says.
Thompson says states should focus on creating an attractive environment for entrepreneurs through increased education at the high school and college levels, more affordable individual health care policies, and lighter tax rates and regulation.
Having existing networks of suppliers and customers for new companies is also important, Thompson says. "One thing that really helps a state like New York is having a business service community that's very attuned to the needs of entrepreneurs," he says. "That can be hard to recreate in a lot of states."
This is a guest post by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Victoria Stilwell.
Small business owners are suffering from an economy hurt by reduced consumer
spending and stagnant growth, according to a new survey by the National Small
Business Association, a Washington, D.C., trade group.
The NSBA's Mid-Year Economic Report, which surveyed 400 of the group's members online between June 24 and July 11, offered little to be optimistic about:
More than one-third say they aren't confident about the future of their business from a financial perspective
Eighty-eight percent anticipate a recession or flat economy in the next year, an increase from 78 percent six months ago
Forty-five percent expect no growth opportunities in the coming year, up from 40 percent in December.
"Given the ongoing economic difficulties the U.S. has faced the past three years, small business owners overwhelmingly cited economic uncertainty as the most significant challenge to the future growth and survival of their business," the report says.
Nearly one in three business owners cited the U.S. national debt as the most significant challenge to survival and growth, listing it as the top issue for Capitol Hill to address, followed by reducing the tax burden and mitigating the costs of health care reform. On Aug. 2, President Barack Obama signed a debt-limit compromise that prevented a U.S. default. The deal threatens automatic spending cuts to enforce $2.4 trillion in spending reductions over the next 10 years.
The NSBA survey did indicate owners are having an easier time getting financed. The number that reported access to capital as their most significant challenge fell to 22 percent from 29 percent a year ago. Furthermore, the number of owners who reported being able to obtain adequate financing is up to 64 percent from 59 percent in July 2010, the lowest figure since NSBA began asking the question in 1993.
"The prospect of getting financed for a small business--even in a growing economy--is very difficult simply due to the fact that many small businesses lack the assets necessary for a traditional bank loan, making them a riskier lending option for banks," the report says.
More owners indicated they planned to increase jobs than cut them: 29 percent of business owners expected to hire in the next year, up from 25 percent in December. Sixty percent said employment wouldn't change, and 12 percent of owners said they would actually decrease the number of employees. About 43 percent of owners also reported increasing employee compensation, while 17 percent reported decreasing it.
Small businesses added 58,000 jobs in July, according to the latest ADP Small Business Report, which measure nonfarm private employment from payroll data.
Want a look behind behind the curtain at how startups are built at one of the most selective tech accelerators? Our colleagues at Bloomberg TV follow the teams at TechStars...
This is a guest post by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Victoria Stilwell. The National Science Foundation wants to take researchers' big ideas from the laboratory to marketplace through a new program...
This is a guest post by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Victoria Stilwell. More than 160 African high school students are getting lessons in entrepreneurship this week during Babson College's first...
This is a guest post by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Victoria Stilwell. Google is offering a select number of smaller advertisers a new way to pay for online search ads: a...
Businessweek.com readers voted a San Francisco print shop that hires recovering addicts and ex-offenders their top choice for America's most promising social enterprise. The company, Social Imprints, garnered 15.7...
Our Time, a new nonprofit group trying to expand the reach of Americans under 30 in Washington, is launching a campaign July 13 to encourage people to spend money at...
What's it like to run your own company today? Entrepreneurs face multiple hurdles new and old, from raising capital and managing employees to keeping up with technology and competing in a global marketplace. In this blog, the Small Business channel's John Tozzi and Nick Leiber discuss the news, trends, and ideas that matter to small business owners. Follow them on Twitter @newentrepreneur.
