Palo Alto Software

Q & A: Investment: Size Matters

September 18, 2012

Question: Hello. I, along with a partner, have 20+ years combined experience in the carpet cleaning industry. After investing over 10k of our own money, we will still need an additional 30k for start-up of our own business. We are…

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Infographic: Small Business and the US Economy

July 20, 2012

Palo Alto Software’s marketing team prepared this infographic from information provided by 10,000 users of its LivePlan web application for business planning. So that’s not a random list of small business owners, but it is a list of people who have wanting to plan a new business, or grow an existing business, in common. So [...]

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The Joy of Startups, Revisited

March 2, 2012

Getting really into a new startup, when it goes well, is exciting like a clear mountain morning, like a warm spring rain, like falling in love. Cheesy? Sure. But I’m doing it again, and loving it. I’m not just saying what people always say; I’ve been there, and I’m there again right now. If you’re [...]

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I’m Loving the New Version of Business Plan Pro

August 4, 2011

If you’re a regular reader you know I don’t normally do sales pitches here on this blog, but this is special. Last week Palo Alto Software introduced a brand new version of Business Plan Pro incorporating (finally) my Plan-as-You-Go Business Planning ideas into the mainstream of the software. With this new version, when you start [...]

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True Story: Why I Lied to You When You Called

April 7, 2011

I’m a bit embarrassed about this story. It’s about lying. You’ll see if you read on that it wasn’t bad lying, not tricking anybody for any bad reason. But it’s a true story, so I’m posting it here because 1.) it might be useful to somebody; and 2.) I’m curious about how often it happens. [...]

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Family Business Succession 4 Years Later: The Rest of the Story

April 5, 2011

There I was, minding my own business, watching my twitter flow, contemplating my next blog post, when what should appear in my twitter but … well, you can see it here to the right, in the Tweetdeck version: mommyceo is Sabrina Parsons, my second of five grown-up children, who has been running Palo Alto Software [...]

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The Best Business Boost is Quick Sales

February 16, 2011

(Bias alert: this post is about today’s new product release at Palo Alto Software, and I’m one of the owners, and a fulltime employee there. So yes, you bet I’m biased on this one. No, I don’t normally post about company-specific products. I don’t want to turn this blog into sales pitches. Still, today’s the [...]

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Seth Godin on Rethinking Business Plans

May 26, 2010

It’s about time that business writers, assorted experts, entrepreneurs, academic and the rest start focusing on the huge damaging and wasteful misunderstanding that most of us have contributed to: that completely out-of-date idea that a business plan is a document, done once, related to raising money. So I’m delighted to see Seth Godin jumping onto [...]

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The Curious Paradox of Copying and Creativity

April 12, 2010

A couple of months ago I picked up this post on TechCrunch, which sort of accuses Apple of copying its iBooks application for the new iPad. I hate business copycats. Drives me crazy. As Palo Alto Software’s Business Plan Pro grew up, others copied our tag lines, our packaging, and the software. I hated that. [...]

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Has a Business Plan Saved Your Business life?

March 2, 2010

Many thanks to Lora Kolodny for this question she asked me in a comment to my post here yesterday: But I have to ask — any other cases? Has a business plan ever saved your (company’s) life? (cue song: Last Night a DJ Saved My Life) Yes, many times. With apologies for what might seem [...]

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