I recently had the pleasure of presenting at the Raising Capital Seminar sponsored by the Business Innovation Zone. I discussed business entity formation and certain start-up issues. The presentation touched on forming S corporations, LLCs, business valuation methods, intellectual property ownership and the use of non-disclosure agreements.

You can see the video highlights here

Sometimes knowing what not to buy may be just as important as what to buy.

From BlueMauMau you should see this list of the 25 worst franchises to buy in 2011. The list is based upon failure rates of SBA loans only (with 50 or more disbursements). Eight franchises have over a 50 percent failure rate on getting the SBA loan

I hear two words from prospective franchisees all the time. In fact, almost every time someone visits with me regarding a franchise opportunity. But a blog post on the Franchise King’s Blog says these two words don’t exist in franchising

If you are a prospective franchisee read the post from the Franchise King and take it to heart.

It is not unusual for a franchisor and franchisee to have a dispute that is resolved and then the franchisee continues in business. In those circumstances, a franchisor will often resolve the dispute with the franchisee in exchange for a full release of claims. These releases state that the franchisee is releasing the franchisor for any and all

This post comes via Monica Dolezal of BIZSTARTS. The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced it will be continuing its successful Emerging 200 Initiative in Des Moines.

For the last three years, Des Moines has been selected as one of a limited number of cities nationwide to participate in the SBA’s Emerging 200 Initiative

The Franchise King, Joel Libava, has an interesting post on Small Business Trends asking Why Aren’t Women Interested in Franchise Ownership? Joel says it’s all in the numbers. According to Joel, about 25 percent of franchises are owned by women.

Joel references a book by Iain Murray that says women often have excellent qualities that allow them to become successful

The Wall Street Journal Reports that many law firms have begun offering flat monthly fees to their business clients. Done correctly, these type of arranagements can be advantageous to the client and the firm. I have worked with several companies in this way for several years and prefer to charge flat fees for many different

The Wall Street Journal recently featured Rush on Business in The Journal Report on Franchising. Other Web sites featured included MyFranchiseLaw.com and Fox Rothchild’s Franchise Law Update. This blog was also featured in a Wall Street Journal article in March of 2009 as one of the blogs for prospective franchisees to read.

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