The term “startup” seems to carry a certain connotation, one of young entrepreneurs in the tech sector who are looking for the next disruptive game-changer. Certainly, in the venture capital world, that is often an accurate description. However, there are plenty of other startups that are simply new businesses in the early stages of getting off the ground. There may be no investors involved and a workforce of just one person – you – but it is a startup nonetheless. If you’ve been considering an entrée into the world of business, you can use this helpful checklist to make it official.

Consider Your Interests

If you already have a business idea in mind, that’s great. However, it is important to think about the long-term viability of your plan. Is the company you want to form something that will maintain your interest for decades to come? Or is the main goal to eventually sell the business and move on to a different venture? You stand a better chance of success if you enter a field that you are passionate about. Otherwise, you risk losing interest or getting overwhelmed before you reach your first business anniversary.

Write a Business Plan

Nothing will help you wrap your mind around the intricacies of owning a company better than crafting a business plan. It may seem as though this is an outdated hurdle that is not really necessary, but in truth it is vital. The process of writing a business plan will force you to examine exactly what your procedures will be, both in the startup phase and in the long run. You will need to list your mission, goals and operational plan in a concrete way. The plan will be your guide when making future decisions, and it can help you get started in a more organized and focused manner.

Get Some Help

Depending on where you live, you may have several free or low-cost resources at your disposal for learning more about the ins and outs of running a business. Check to see if there is a small business development center in the area, or perhaps the local chamber of commerce offers classes for startup businesses. You can get someone to read and critique your business plan, suggest funding options if you need them, or explain the legal requirements for hiring employees.

Choose a Location

Many new businesses don’t have a physical location. Instead, the owners work from home or choose an online-only format for the company. But if you are in the market for some office space, a workshop, or a spot in a business incubator building, this is the time to start looking. You might want to take your business plan with you, as the building’s owner might want to judge the potential longevity of the lease.

Think About Financing

Will your startup require funding from outside sources? If so, you will have to do some research on potential options. You could get a bank loan, apply for a grant, or seek outside investors. Depending on what your business will entail, you may be able to finance its initial operation yourself. But if you have your sights set on a bricks-and-mortar location, you’ll likely need a loan.

Legal Obligations

There are many paperwork hoops you have to jump through in order to start a company. You’ll need to file a “doing business as” registration with your local government, usually your state’s Secretary of State Department. You must also decide what type of business structure you want to use: sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation, or non-profit. Some of these structures require additional legal filings, such as an S corporation. Finally, you’ll likely be required to get a business license or permit of some sort. For example, if you want to follow in the footsteps of HamptonCreek and create a food-based company, you’ll need a commercial kitchen license from your state or local agency.

Register for Taxes

The income from your business, depending on the structure, will be eligible for taxation. You’ll need to register with state and federal agencies to obtain a tax identification number, and if you plan to hire employees, there are additional requirements for that process.

By following these steps, you should be well along the path toward a success business startup. All that’s left now is to start making your products or selling your service.

As any working mother will surely agree, it’s incredibly hard to balance work and family life as a working mom. We are responsible for ourselves, our children, and our tasks at work! We often find this tiring and worrying since at the end of the day, our family seems to suffer. Guess what? There are many things you can do to improve this situation. You can be a working mom and also be a great mother at home.

Packed in here are powerful tips to help you become the super mom that you were meant to be. These tips are as simple as they are effective. You could try them right away and see how wonderful they work. Now you don’t need to worry on how to cater for your kids while working. With these tips, you can be a working mom and still have a massive impact in your kid’s life.

Be You! You Are Like No Other

Comparison is the thief of joy!  Do not compare yourself with other mothers. They might be doing things you don’t do, but best believe that you do things they can’t do. Let me emphasize it, you are unique in your own way so don’t go stressing yourself thinking you are an awful mum. Parenting is one of the one of the most difficult skills to master. But the good news is that no matter how awful you think you are, your children are attached to you in your unique way.

Look At Yourself before Correcting Your Children

Are you guilty of that same thing you are correcting your child for? Then you are not parenting well. Do you appear downtrodden every now and then? You need to do things to revitalize your mind and body. You need to look inwards and take care of your needs before going for your children. They need to see that spark in you. That might be all you need to be a supermom.

Learn to Apologize When You’re Wrong

It is always right for a mother to apologize when she does wrong. Mistakes would occur at one point or the other. We aren’t perfect beings, we are mothers, humans! Be ever ready to apologize when mistakes happen. You are a role model to your child and apologizing is an essential skill to pass on to your child. Let your child know that they need to accept responsibility when they are wrong and apologize. If you as a mother poorly handled a situation where your child misbehaved, apologize. It goes a long way.

Little Things Make Great Things!

Yes. Little things are little things but little things make up great things. We know you are working and can be very busy but mapping out a little time to spend with your child would never go wrong. It could be taking dinner and breakfast together, having a bonding time during leisure or anything at all. It might seem little but you would be surprised at the impact it makes. You owe them every little moment to cherish, never take it for granted!

Lend Listening Ears

Often it is better to listen than to speak.  This goes beyond morals, this is wisdom! If you truly listen, you might have enough understanding to give helpful advice. After all “Life doesn’t come with a manual, it comes with a mother” (quote found on Quotereel). Cultivate the habit of listening to your children first then you may later dish out advice as you deem fit. If you believe they can handle the situation, let them. Do not nip issues in the bud by helping them out or forcing your ideas down their throats – we all don’t like being told what to do. The best coaches always listen, the superb mom does so as well.

 When Your Kids Misbehave, Listen To Their Message

When children misbehave, there is a reason behind it. You shouldn’t be too fast to label them bad kids or being under the influence of bad friends, pay attention to their needs. If your child gets angry all the time, it could be that he/she needs attention. If your children do not respect others’ feelings, it could be because you order them around, not giving importance to their feelings. Your child’s misbehavior could be due to a variety of reasons. Try to get into your child’s mind to know why. You don’t need to shout at them. It actually worsens the situation.

Exemplify the Ideals That You Teach

If there are values and beliefs that are attached to your family, share it with your kids. Not only that, live it!  Be an example for them to follow. If you hold kindness and respect in high esteem, are you living it? As a working mum, you should exhibit these family values.

Let Your Children Deal with the Consequences of Their Actions

Experience, they say, is the best teacher. As tough a decision as it might be for you, to help your children become responsible as a super mom, you need to let them single-handedly face the consequences of their actions. If your child doesn’t safely play with his toy, collect it and don’t return it, even if he is upset. When he sees his peers using theirs, he would learn to use it well. If your girl child doesn’t want to take her lunch to school, leave her. When she gets to school and hunger strikes, she would be self-reminded to take her lunch pack next time. It works as simple as that.

Remember To Be More Than a Mom

Every human being, and indeed every woman, has passions and interests that have molded them into who they are. It’s important to keep those passions because you were once a woman before motherhood. But do you even remember what your passions were? Or have they all been sacrificed because of the exhaustion that comes from the exertions of being a mom, or because of the guilt you feel for working so hard?

So many working moms out there often put their wants and needs last, and what happens is they usually lose themselves. This is totally wrong. You should always strive to be the best example to your children about what it takes to genuinely know, value, and take care of yourself. The more you take care of yourself, the more you’ll be able to give to your child, which will help you to master the challenge of being a working mother.

Great parenting usually sets the perfect environment and the right foundation for all great things. These parenting tips are no exception. True connections, close bonds, less stress and more energy, coupled with kids who grow into resilient and successful adults are some of the great benefits that come with laying the right foundations.

What do you really know about guitars including giannini guitars? It seems like there’s a lot of things to know. For example, it is a good idea to know how one guitar can differ from many other guitars. Depending on the price, you will be able to get a better or worse guitar. Usually, those better guitars will cost you more, but there are some exceptions to this rule.

There’s no magic formula to success. If you want your business to make it, you have to put in the necessary time and effort. Sometimes, though, that’s not enough. Given how tough the competition is these days, you also need to invest in the right tools. Good thing technologies like video communications are now changing the way companies expand and grow.

Brings Teams Together

Video’s advantage is that it offers face time. However, that advantage isn’t likely going to matter if video quality is compromised. A good video system though, delivers, on the experience. You can expect the same benefits to a live meeting, says Computer Weekly, but sans the usual schedule issues or commuting stress. No need to go to a single location just to get that meeting underway and done. This is especially handy for startups and small companies that are looking to expand with other branches or sites, nationally or on a global scale. With a high definition video resolution, it’s easy to talk to everyone on the team as though you were all in one room together, regardless of whether or not you share the same city, continent, or time zone.

Find the Right People

Getting the right people on your team and into your company is one way to build your organization. The right team will always make a difference to your bottom line. But before you get to that point, you need to find and hire them in the first place. There’s plenty of competition, though. With every company out there looking to hire high-skill talents, you’ll need to have deep pockets or offer great incentives to lure in the best and the brightest. But those incentives don’t always work. A lot of companies are finding it hard to recruit talents that meet hiring standards and qualifications, especially for STEM positions, because many of these employees are millennials who demand more flexibility and balance in their work and life. With a video system, though, even small and midsize companies can now compete with big-budget enterprises by offering flexible work solutions for high-skill talents who want to work from home a couple of times a week. With enterprise video conferencing solutions from BlueJeans, getting the right people on board your company and building a dream team is now possible.

Build Better Engagement

With flexible work arrangements come the need for ways on how to monitor remote and offsite teams to ensure peak productivity levels. Just imagine the travel costs if you had to send in management to the site on a regular basis. One way to resolve that pain point is to resort to video communication. It eliminates any need for travel so that you can stay in touch with your team every day. That also helps offsite employees bond and grow closer to each other, says B2B Marketing. Any company worth its salt knows that camaraderie or team work is essential to building a high-performing team. Face to face contact through video encourages that. Remote teams can especially feel isolated from everyone at work. With regular video calls and conferences, ensuring your offsite staff feels the love is easy.

Low Cost Solution

One of the best parts of video solutions is that you get the advantage of a live meeting, all without racking up major communication or travel costs. It’s an efficient, low-cost solution that ticks off all the boxes. No need to shell out money upfront for an expensive communication system, with costly hardware upgrades. That doesn’t have to be in your future anymore. With video, you just download a software, install it, and you’re good to go. It’s a cost-effective way of keeping in touch with your employees.

Expands Your Consumer Base

The major draw of video communication is that the technology helps you get in touch with literally anyone, anywhere. With a good internet connection, you can easily expand your talent pool to anywhere in the globe. This helps you expand your marketing in no time. If the local market can’t sustain your business, then expand your marketing and services to the rest of the world. A number of startups and small businesses are already using this approach. When consumer reach is global, you get so much more out of your target market. No need to make do with markets that offer less than stellar ROIs, much less give barely enough returns to keep a chicken alive.

Meet New People

Video systems like this allow you to meet up with new people from anywhere. Whether they’re a potential client, colleague, or employee, you won’t have a problem building a network, which is crucial if you want to run a business. New people can be the lifeblood of your organization. By using video to your advantage, company growth and success surely won’t be far behind.

We all have dreams about accomplishing something. Some of us dream big, while some us tend to dream small. The secret is to dream big because we only have one life and if we just vegetate instead of accomplishing any goals we might waste our lives forever.

Even if you haven’t dreamed big, now might be the right time to start doing so and start to Work Smart. When it comes to working at home, some of us work smart, while some of us don’t work that way. When you are at home alone, it is so easy to get distracted and start doing things that are not worth doing such as reading websites that are time wasters. There are millions of such websites on the Internet and you should be very careful what you do and how you approach them.

Now, if you have decided to dream big, you might want to have the help of a coach who will proper you in the right direction and who will offer you the best advice according to their knowledge so that you know what to do on your own. Accomplishing your goals will be a lot easier this way and you will have somebody to rely on in case you need their help.

If you know something about musical instruments you probably know already about akai rhythm wolf. They have a wide range of various drum and bass modules that every musician is guaranteed to benefit from no matter what their interests are. If this is something you are into there is no way you would be able to ignore it as well.

Have you ever owned a speaker system with a subwoofer? If yes, then you know that music that is played through a earthquake subwoofer sounds completely different from music that is played without one. I would like to challenge you to give both of them a try so that you can see a clear difference and you will be likely to know what I mean by that. You will take your whole music experience to a completely new level.

Buying a home is a major commitment that includes more than structural research. You need to know about the neighborhood and city that the home resides within. Every piece to this puzzle contributes to your quality of life. In most cases, you’ll want to remain in this home for several years. Before you place a deposit on that perfect home, take a good look at all of the options available with the property. You might be surprised at both the advantages and drawbacks to the purchase.

Feel the Vibe

If you’ve lived in a particular city for many years, you may already know the neighborhoods very intimately. However, every block seems to have its own personality or vibe. Walk along the street where you want to purchase a home. Choose different times and days to perform this activity. A street with many children playing in their yards is preferable for most families. In contrast, questionable characters loitering in the neighborhood is a sign that you should look elsewhere for properties.

Neighborhood Amenities

Some of the newest communities being built have shared amenities. There might be a recreation center where weight rooms, pools and other perks are shared among the neighbors. Although the pool might be a communal type, this fact means that you aren’t required to maintain it on your own. The entire neighborhood contributes to its care. In contrast, these amenities may not be wanted by your family. You should look for another property if that’s the case.

HOA Fees

Most communities today have HOA or homeowner’s association fees. These monthly charges go into a shared account where it’s divided out to different property needs. There’s normally a reserve for exterior upkeep, such as landscaping and woodwork. Fees will also cover those recreational perks. As more amenities are added to a community, however, those fees will rise. Take these costs into consideration before you place a bid on a home.

Varying Property Sizes

A quaint cottage might be perfect for your needs today, but a growing family can quickly feel cramped in this space. New communities are often built with varying home sizes. One- to three-bedroom structures are usually available for sale. Consider your family’s current and future size. Ideally, you should buy a home that’s slightly larger than you need today. New babies, returning college students and aging parents might move in soon.

Proximity to Work

No one wants a long commute to work. You may find the perfect community for your family, but it’s located an hour away from your office. Try to pick a home that’s reasonably close to schools and employment. Ideally, take a test drive during rush hour to see the traveling distance. A home won’t be very attractive if you’re always on the road. A short commute time with a reasonable home price is your main goal during the bidding process.

Picture yourself in the here and now, and then imagine your life five years in the future. If a property won’t fit your needs within that time period, look for another home. Although you can certainly sell a home whenever you please, the investment is enhanced as you pay down the balance and watch the equity rise. You should have some wealth in the home before it’s sold to another bidder.

Running a business without the requisite insurance is like playing with fire near a leaking fuel pump. It is unnecessarily risky and can cost you a lot.

Many businesses, particularly startups and small business owners, don’t see any need for an insurance coverage. For many of them, the excuse is that insurance is often too expensive and that it’ll eat into the business’ profits. In fact, studies have shown that many small business owners often incorrectly estimate that insurance costs are often triple the standard costs.

Every insurance company has an affordable coverage for most business. Talk to a real insurance agent today before making those assumptions and leaving your business unprotected.

What Does Commercial Insurance Cover?

Before we move forward, you need to understand that commercial insurance is typically categorized into three:

• Property Insurance

• Commercial Liability Insurance

• Workers Compensation

Property Insurance

This insurance policy is meant to cover any loss or damages to your personal property. For example, if your personal office goes up in flames, your property insurance coverage will take care of all arising expenses, repairs, and losses.

Depending on your specific needs, property insurance, is often best combined with a few other necessary insurance policies such as debris removal, glass, machinery, crime, theft, kitchen equipment, business interruption and so much more.

You need to speak with an insurance agent to come up with the best commercial insurance coverage for your unique business situation.

Commercial Liability Insurance

Commercial liability insurance policies are designed to protect every business from claims filed against the business entity by outside parties. These claims, usually made by third parties who are injured on the business premises, would be paid by the business out of its own pockets if they don’t have a commercial liability coverage.

Unfortunately, most businesses or their owners are often held liable for injuries sustained on their premises. It doesn’t matter if the injury was caused by a mistake, carelessness or negligence. As long as someone gets injured while in your place of business, you would need to assume the costs of their compensation or pay for damages.

Having a commercial liability insurance policy also protects your property in the event of damage, covers company products as well as all contractors working on your premises. It essentially provides liability coverage against all foreseen and unforeseen events that could happen on your site.

Therefore, if someone were to sue you for injuries sustained while working on your business premises or loses their items, the insurance company will cover the litigation expenses and settlement up to the policy limits.

Please note that this is not the same as workers compensation –hence the emphasis on third parties. You’ll need to take out a different insurance policy for that one.

Workers Compensation

Worker compensation insurance policies are often designed to help cover injuries sustained by your employees while on the job. For instance, if a driver gets in an accident while running errands for the company or a construction worker falls off a scaffold and breaks a leg, all arising expenses and compensation will be covered by the workers compensation insurance policy.

Now that you know all these, it is imperative to start shopping for an adequate commercial insurance policy that will suit your business’ needs. Talk to insurance agents at Insurance Land for guidance. You may not need all three policies at once. You can and should start with at least one, and then add more as your business grows and become a bigger operation.

If you’ve kept tabs on the technology industry over the last decade, you’ll know all about Charles Phillips.

Co-president and director of Oracle, MD of Morgan Stanley and now CEO of Infor, to say his CV is impressive is a massive understatement.

Unsurprisingly, many coin him as one of the best leaders in the field of technology.

However, rather than looking at his career in general terms, it’s worth breaking it down to see exactly what makes this man, or specifically his businesses, tick.

Infor, and the rest of Phillips’ business affairs are just blessed with success and as we’ve found out with two of his biggest projects – a lot of this is put down to shrewd acquisitions.

It started at Oracle

Being co-president and director of Oracle for seven years is something substantial in itself. When you also look at the figures Charles Phillips tenure at the tech giant becomes all the more impressive; during that period he saw the company’s revenue grow almost 300%.

One of the main reason for this surge in revenue was because of Phillips’ acquisitions. During the seven years, no fewer than 70 companies were acquired. Some of the names included BEA Systems and PeopleSoft – huge brands that just made Oracle an even bigger beast in its marketspace.

Ultimately, it’s one of the reasons why Oracle are rated as being one of the top business software companies in the world.

It then continued into Infor

As coincidence may have it, Oracle actually stand in the way of Phillips now. Now part of Infor, Oracle and SAP are the two companies currently dominating business software – although it would be fair to say that this gap is most certainly closing.

Again, acquisitions have played a huge part in this. After joining Infor in 2010, Infor has proceeded to acquire at least two different companies per year.

Perhaps the most impressive thing is that these companies aren’t just being bought because of their size. Instead, Phillips has orchestrated a completely different approach, delving into various niches in a bid to take the market away from the likes of SAP and Oracle. In other words, there is plenty of thinking behind each of these acquisitions – they are making Infor completely different to their competitors, which could work wonders in the long run.

What’s next for Phillips?

If Phillips’ career is anything to go by, one could assume that he is going to continue acquiring companies for Infor in a bid to make them overtake their two main rivals.

However, there is also a suspicion that he might start to slow down in this area – with the company now planning a marketing offensive which should give them the impetus to begin their assault on the “big two”.

Whatever he does, you wouldn’t bet against him – he’s achieved miraculous results with this industry and if recent interviews are anything to go by, he doesn’t look to be stopping anytime soon.