Fraud

Horror Story of Small Business Fraud

By Tim Berry

If you’re a business owner, and especially if you’re in the expert business, you should know this small business fraud story. It involves a very sophisticated scheme, including a fraudulent cashier’s check, and a very well faked charity, that would have fooled me. This could happen to me or to you Melinda Emerson, a good... Read More »

The Best Place to Start Your Business …

By Tim Berry

… is where you are. Sure, there are exceptions. Maybe you’re young, and have no roots. Or maybe you just want to move to somewhere else. But, barring special cases, look around you. The best place to start you business is where you are. In my email and on Quora I get a steady stream... Read More »

10 business plan myths

10 Business Plan Myths That Hurt Your Business

By Tim Berry

The need for good business planning is as strong as ever, and the potential benefits are as important as ever. Every business owner ought to have a business plan. But the best strategies for business planning are different than they used to be. And these 10 pervasive business plan myths get in the way, much... Read More »

entrepreneurs without salary

True Story: Missing Assets Equal to A Year’s Sales

By Tim Berry

This kind of accounting nightmare happens way too often. When expenses are not assets, accounting fiction can be a real problem Read More »

5 Simple Rules for Better Business Decisions

By Tim Berry

They teach decision sciences in business schools. Those of us doing business, either as entrepreneurs, business owners, or careerists, talk a lot, and think a lot, about business decisions. We all want better business decisions. I’ve taken some of those courses and heard a lot of the talk, and I’ve survived running my own business... Read More »

Startup Culture is as Leaders Do

By Tim Berry

The question over on Quora was How should a new startup develop and sustain a strong company culture? I decided not to answer the essential how-to, but rather to share my experience in this area, which is more like a reality check on startup culture than anything else.  The following is straight from my Quora answer. Culture is not... Read More »

Build Yourself a Compatible Goals Filter

By Tim Berry

Suggestion: on any kind of business relationship, take a step back, open your eyes, and look for compatible goals. For example, one variety of hell is a startup with founders and investors having different goals. Differences on how to achieve goals are hard enough. You can talk out those differences. But when investors want one... Read More »

Beware of the Myth of Persistence

By Tim Berry

I worry a lot about the myth of persistence. Persistence won’t necessarily make your business successful unless a lot of other things are also right. And persistence alone can turn failure into disaster. But still, people who should know better—people who succeeded—still talk about it all the time. There’s a logical trick to it. Almost everybody... Read More »