Entrepreneurial

Global brand strategist Jonathan Salem Baskin can’t help but scratch his head over the rationale behind the controversial social media dispatch from GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons. The flamboyant CEO sparked a backlash recently when he posted a video link to his elephant shoot in Kenya Zimbabwe.

Baskin offers the following advice on how small businesses can prevent or manage social media blunders.

Q: Are social media posts pertaining to a business owner’s non-business doings relevant to consumers?

A: It is a sideshow. Just because there’s (social) media that helps blur those things doesn’t mean you have to fall for it. YouTube doesn’t care if your employees humiliate themselves. The stupider you are, the happier these platforms are because it creates buzz and traffic. You don’t make any money from that.

Q: What about the old argument that no press is bad press?

A: That’s a cliché quote from 50 years ago. If anything, it’s either at best neutral and at worst it turns people off. Aren’t half the people in America women? The last time I checked — so he’s already writing off half of America with his (prior) stupid shenanigans. Now he wants to write off anybody who loves animals. What is the attention good for?

– Neil Patel is a serial entrepreneur who blogs about business at Quick Sprout and is the co-founder of KISSmetrics. This article originally appeared here. The views expressed are his own. –

Being an entrepreneur obviously isn’t easy, which is why most people shy away from trying to be one. Before you throw out the idea of becoming an entrepreneur, make sure you check out the following free services and programs:

Microsoft Biz Spark

Whether you love or hate Microsoft, as an entrepreneur, you’ll need their software. For example, I always find myself using Excel, Word and PowerPoint. There really isn’t a day that goes by in which I’m not using one of those applications.

– Stephanie Rabiner is a contributor to FindLaw’s Free Enterprise blog. FindLaw is a Thomson Reuters publication. This article originally appeared here. –

The number of startups has been steadily increasing, with 2010 boasting a 15-year high with 565,000 new startups each month.

Experts pin the growth on unemployment and dissatisfaction, but, according to CNN Money, experts also caution that starting a business out of desperation is not the right path to startup success.

– Connie Loizos is a contributor to PE Hub, a Thomson Reuters publication. This article originally appeared here. The views expressed are her own. –

As a little boy, Philip Kaplan, the serial entrepreneur long known as Pud, was “force fed” Ritalin. Kaplan says this with a laugh, but even today, the 35-year-old admits to having trouble focusing for too long on any one thing. “My wife says I’m like a kitten with a ball of yarn,” he shrugs.

Kaplan’s attraction to the next shiny new thing has led him to start dozens of companies in his lifetime, including F*ckedCompany, which famously chronicled dot.com busts and saw 5 million monthly unique visitors at its peak a decade ago; AdBrite, the advertising sales and services network; and Blippy, a controversial social network that asks users to share their credit card and online purchases.

– This is a Venture Capital Journal article that  appeared on PE Hub – both are Thomson Reuters publications. –

There’s no denying that an incubator rebirth is taking place, thanks in large measure to Y Combinator.

Y Combinator clones are everywhere. Several dozen of them already exist and insiders expect more than 100 such incubators will be operating nationwide before long. And they’re busy churning out plenty of startups. This past week, AngelPad held a demo day for its startups to pitch VCs, its second demo day in less than six months.

– Mark Boslet is a contributor to PE Hub, a Thomson Reuters publication. This article originally appeared here. –

Any list of the 100 most influential venture capitalists and angels should include the likes of John Doerr, Ron Conway and Michael Moritz, right?

Not necessarily. And not if the list you’re referring to is the “100 Most Influential VCs, Angels and Investors” compiled by Lucy Marcus, the Huffington Post columnist and the non-executive board chair of the Mobius Life Science Fund.

– Stephanie Rabiner is a contributor to FindLaw’s Free Enterprise blog. FindLaw is a Thomson Reuters publication. This article originally appeared here. –

Some people believe that home office deductions are akin to begging the IRS to audit your taxes. While this can be true in some situations, home office tax deductions, if done properly, are completely legal and can provide a big payoff.

So if you work from home, consider the following tips. Home office tax deduction rules are a bit tricky, but with a little forethought and attention to detail, you should be just fine.

– Mark Boslet is a contributor to PE Hub, a Thomson Reuters publication. This article originally appeared here. –

Deal terms and valuations shifted in favor of entrepreneurs last year as onerous term sheets became less common and money flowed more freely.

These were the findings of a study by the law firm Cooley released this week. (The data comes from transactions in which Cooley served as counsel).

– Chris Lynch is vice president of economic development at the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. The views expressed are his own. –

With recent reports the economy is becoming stable and showing signs of upward growth, the question is what are entrepreneurs going to do about it?

The answer is simple, they can take advantage of the upbeat perception that the economy is in recovery and benefit from the opportunities they didn’t have before. The following are some tips on how entrepreneurs can take advantage of the recovery, based on years of experience coaching successful startups.

Ann Miura-Ko is known for using the term “ninja assassin” in describing the kinds of technology entrepreneurs she likes to invest in as a venture capitalist and co-founder of Silicon Valley’s Floodgate Fund. Reuters recently caught up with one of the country’s up-and-coming VCs, after Miura-Ko attended at a Washington, D.C. conference addressing financing options for small companies.

Q: You’ve said you are concerned about impending regulatory restrictions on small investment firms as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act takes effect. Why?

A: This comes out of the result of some bad behavior on the part of investors. But what they’re (government is) trying to do is mitigate risk for the whole economy by having smaller investment firms also register with the SEC. As a small fund myself, that doesn’t have a lot of overhead, we don’t have a lot of back-office people working for us. The amount of reporting that is required relative to the amount of risk it de-risks for the entire economy, I think that the cost benefit doesn’t really make sense to me. We as a really small fund would have to start registering with the SEC pretty soon, and the amount of back-office work that would be required is kind of ridiculous.