Mike Colwell of the BIZ recently wrote an excellent post on IowaBiz titled Partnerships a Guaranteed Divorce. Mike explains in his post that wise business people will always plan for the divorce. The end is inevitable, whether it’s due to death, retirement, disagreement or other reasons.

Mike also linked to my recent seminar on

The Boulder Business Advisor has a general overview of the three main types of business structures and the factors that go into making a decision about which entity to choose for your startup business.

It’s important to get tax advice when deciding what entity is best for you. Another critical question, as mentioned in

 I was busy reading an article on Why Lawyers Don’t Run Startups (And Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers) when I ran across a terrific lesson learned from the article’s author, Steve Blank. 

In every company that gives you a contract there’s someone who wants a deal. When you run into contract issues, call them first

Over the years I’ve noticed that very few businesses actually plan for selling or passing on their business to employees or family. It’s one of the most important things any business owner can do.

I’ve teamed up with business coach Monte Wyatt to provide a free seminar to business owners on business succession planning. The

 The Business Innovation Zone (BIZ) is holding its annual Raising Capital seminar at StartupCity Des Moines on March 27 starting at 9:00 a.m. Raising capital for your business is complex and often time consuming. This is a great seminar to get you started.

There are several lawyers, accountants and business people presenting including Ben Milne

In the past many new business owners funded their ventures through home equity lines of credit. But with the decrease in home values over the past few years, it’s been tougher for the start-up business owner to rely on home equity for funding. So what’s a new business owner to do?

An article from the Wall

I was quoted in this article from The Street entitled, "When The Parent Company Drags You Down". The article discusses the financial woes of some franchises including Quiznos and the impact on franchisees.

If your a franchisee caught in a system experiencing financial problems, my first piece of advice is to carefully review the terms of your

Joe Kristan of the Tax Update Blog has a very interesting post on So What is the Right S Corporation Salary? The blog post discusses a recent 8th Circuit case where a West Des Moines accountant had to pay FICA taxes on about $91,000 of his earnings from his professional S corporation –rather than $24,000–