Pending right now in Congress, as part of H.R. 1552, The Small Business Formation and Job Creation Act, is a proposal to increase the current tax deduction for new small businesses from $5,000 to $20,000. For more on this piece of legislation, click here, a link to the site of the National Federation of Independent Business. (more…)
By way of Twitter, I just came across this great little post about the perils of starting up a company with a friend. The sage advice in the article could be written for any company having more than one owner. As a former corporate law professor used to say, “Starting a business is like getting married: everybody only sees the roses.” Yes, a bit cynical, but often sadly true.
It sounds obvious, I admit. But it’s an important rule to remember. Trusting the other company comes from doing enough background research — you could call it “background due diligence,” I suppose. Back in law school, I remember this rule often being repeated by professors. These days it pops into my head more often, and it’s a rule that businesses must abide by. In more dire economic times (now), businesses need to be especially cautious and engage in more diligent background research, especially if conducting business with a company for the first time. (more…)
Until very recently, access to case law, legal forms, legal treatises, and other legal resources has, for the most part, been limited to those who are willing–and capable–of paying for subscriptions to private commercial databases like Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis. Things are changing. (more…)
Now that President Obama has officially signed the stimulus legislation, we’d all like to find out what specific benefits it will provide. In this post, I’ll focus on the benefits to small businesses. More courageous citizens have read through the entire legislation, and many have been talking here and there about the possible benefits. Here’s what we could determine so far. (more…)
It’s easy enough to start a company in Oregon or in any other state: you make a filing with the secretary of state’s office. But, what happens next? We often get this question from lots of local small startups that have a business idea, know the first step, but don’t know what to do next. So I put together this post as a basic “how-to start an LLC in Oregon.” (more…)
About a week or so ago, the NY Times’ Green Inc. blog posted this piece about the tax barriers to the growth of renewable energy companies. Many of the companies rely heavily on something called “tax equity” for their funding, but flaws in the tax equity system inhibit the companies’ growth. This could be a genuine concern for many Oregon businesses because of the vast amount of renewable energy companies in the state, many of which rely heavily upon the government. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal ran this story today about the boom in investment and sales growth in alternative energy (or “greentech”) companies. The story makes us think, of course, of Oregon, which is proving to be a cleantech hotbed. We’ve written about this in the past in our Renewable Business in Green Portland post and in our Starting a Green Business post. This latest WSJ article (more…)
Microsoft, through its new BizSpark program, appears to be inserting itself at the center of a global startup network for software developers, including here in Oregon. Last week we read about TiE’s announcement that it’s partnering with BizSpark. Today we read that OTBC has just become a BizSpark network partner. (more…)
Many entrepreneurs may already be aware of the wealth of startup resources in the Portland area. Others may still be learning the landscape. Whatever the case, it’s a good idea to step back once in a while and survey what’s out there. The Portland area is fortunate to have a number of recognizable business incubators, which serve startups by helping them become established (more…)