While many business owners are savvy enough to select the proper entity on their own, many do not understand the difference between trade names and trademarks. Others accidentally give the rights to their logos and other commissioned artwork to their graphic artist and the content of their website to their web host.  Some will think they can choose whether a worker is a contractor or an employee.  A good business attorney can address these issues on the front end, and save much expense and aggravation later.

Likewise, a good certified public accountant isn’t just a number cruncher — he or she is a trusted advisor who understands your business and today’s economic climate.  CPAs evaluate business ideas, plan for growth, minimize taxes, monitor cash flow and help keep proper financial records.  Poorly set up books can make it impossible for companies to track costs, make profits and attract financing.

Those of us that work with startups are familiar with the intersection of  providing value and penny-pinching, and can often work with the bootstrapped entrepreneur on how the services are provided and paid for.

Related articles

• Moving beyond the kitchen table (csmonitor.com)
• Bootstrapping Mistakes You Can Easily Avoid (startupbiz.wordpress.com)
• How to Get Good At Making Money (inc.com)
• About Starting a Small Business (thinkup.waldenu.edu)

The City’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) is now accepting applications for the Retail and Professional Services Grant Program, formerly known as the Merchandise-Based Incentive Grant Program. OEWD’s Retail and Professional Services Grant, specifically targeted for the Downtown Development Tier, will provide economic development incentives to eligible projects that support the creation, retention, or expansion of businesses within this tier. 

In order to be eligible for this grant, the project property must be a street-level retail business, restaurant, or a certain professional or personal services business including, but not limited to, law firms, architectural firms, financial services firms, childcare centers, or beauty salons. The applicant must be the owner of the property or have a fully signed lease and a letter of approval from the property owner supporting the proposed improvements. The business must be open at least five days a week, eight hours a day. Organizations that are not eligible to apply are religious organizations; government agencies or offices; businesses or private clubs that exclude minors as patrons; and residential projects.

Grant recipients are eligible to receive up to $15,000 in matching funds from the City for a project that meets eligibility criteria and scores high enough in the competitive evaluation process. Only funds spent on work performed after City approval of the grant are eligible for reimbursement. Eligible expenses include, but are not limited to, security systems, telephone systems, point-of-sale equipment, kitchen equipment, millwork, built-in display furnishings and shelving, HVAC, coolers, plumbing, demolition, flooring, grease traps, sprinkler systems, electrical, installation of walls, package and labeling equipment, and similar items.

To assist applicants with identifying whether proposed projects are located within the Downtown Development Tier, a state-of-the-art mapping application has been developed by the City’s Geographic Information Systems’ Division. The application is available on the City’s website.

 The deadline to apply for the grant is Monday, June 13, 2011, by 12 p.m. All efforts will be made to evaluate and determine funding requests within 45 days of the submission deadline. The City anticipates notifying applicants of their award status by Monday, July 18, 2011. 

For a complete description of the grant application guidelines, application process, and mapping application visit the City’s website at www.DurhamEconomicDevelopment.org. Interested applicants for proposed projects within the Downtown Development Tier may also contact Joy Mickle-Walker, coordinator of Downtown Development & Marketing with the City’s OEWD, via e-mail at Joy.Mickle-Walker@DurhamNC.gov or by phone at (919) 560-4965, ext. 15208.

 About the Office of Economic and Workforce Development

The City of Durham’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) implements a comprehensive and responsive business development strategy that supports business formation, retention, expansion, relocation, and employment opportunities created by the business development strategy. OEWD also works with community partners to ensure that Durham residents have opportunities to be placed and retained in these employment opportunities.

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These days most businesses have web sites of some sort.  Have you ever wondered if a dissatisfied or injured customer in Peoria, Illinois or Honolulu, Hawaii could make you defend a lawsuit in their state just because they can view your website there?  This is a question I’ve been spending a lot of time on lately. 

A court only has jurisdiction to decide a case if it has jurisdiction over the subject matter and the parties.  Before a court has jurisdiction over a nonresident (or foreign) defendant, the defendant has to be afforded certain due process.  The defendant must have “minimum contacts” with the forum, so that making the defendant defend a suit in that state “does not offend the traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.”  If there are no minimum contacts, the court does not have jurisdiction and the case must be dismissed. 

In some cases, the defendant’s contacts with the state (sales, product delivery, bricks and mortar location) also provide the basis for the suit, and allow the defendent to be “haled” into a foreign jurisdictions.  In other cases, a court will review the nature and totality of defendant’s interactions with the forum state.  What types of Internet activity would subject a company to a foreign lawsuit? 

The leading case is Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo DOT Com, 952 F. Supp. 1119 (W.D.Pa 1997), which provides a three-prong, “sliding scale” framework:

The Internet makes it possible to conduct business throughout the world entirely from a desktop. With this global revolution looming on the horizon, the development of the law concerning the permissible scope of personal jurisdiction based on Internet use is in its infant stages. The cases are scant. Nevertheless, our review of the available cases and materials reveals that the likelihood that personal jurisdiction can be constitutionally exercised is directly proportionate to the nature and quality of commercial activity that an entity conducts over the Internet. This sliding scale is consistent with well developed personal jurisdiction principles. At one end of the spectrum are situations where a defendant clearly does business over the Internet. If the defendant enters into contracts with residents of a foreign jurisdiction that involve the knowing and repeated transmission of computer files over the Internet, personal jurisdiction is proper [citation omitted]. At the opposite end are situations where a defendant has simply posted information on an Internet Web site which is accessible to users in foreign jurisdictions. A passive Web site that does little more than make information available to those who are interested in it is not grounds for the exercise personal jurisdiction [citation omitted]. The middle ground is occupied by interactive Web sites where a user can exchange information with the host computer. In these cases, the exercise of jurisdiction is determined by examining the level of interactivity and commercial nature of the exchange of information that occurs on the Web site [citation omitted].

The outcomes of these cases are highly fact-specific, depending on the claims alleged, the specific actions of the defendant,  and the nature of the website, among many other factors. 

The thought of having to defend a lawsuit in a far-flung corner of the country could keep a business owner up at night.  But there are several concrete steps a company and its business attorneys can take to reduce the exposure. 

What steps are you taking to protect yourself from risks coming from your web site?

Here is what Fortune said:

To hear local entrepreneurs tell it, Durham is putting the D in diversity. Once known for tobacco and textiles, today it’s part of The Research Triangle, the world’s largest research and development center. The city is home to an array of high-tech, medical and financial services companies, as well as federal agencies and educational institutions.

The locals are a highly educated bunch: Duke University, North Carolina Central University and Durham Technical Community College employ and train area residents. Business support organizations like the Institute for Minority Economic Development and the Women’s Business Center offer the resources entrepreneurs need to thrive.

The city’s strong sense of community helps its assorted enterprises and individuals come together. It’s the kind of place where businesses embrace struggling local schools by donating supplies, volunteering classroom speakers and hosting field trips.

Living, business and construction costs remain low compared to national averages. Another local perk: Durham offers plenty of ways to unwind after a hard day’s work, from kayaking and hiking to performance art and gallery tours.

I’d love to hear from people who have started in Durham and in other places. What has the Bull City experience been like?

What’s so scary? Many executives fear posting something personal (on Facebook) that might prove damaging. It needn’t be a lampshade on the head, either. Perhaps it’s vacation photos from a second home that looks too opulent at a time when employees are losing jobs. Or maybe their support for a controversial ballot proposition proves a bit too vocal. . .

Obviously it’s never a good idea to post “personally identifiable information” that can lure identity thieves and other malefactors. And only a very careless or foolish person would publish proprietary company information onto a social media site. But what about all the stuff in the grey area–the pictures of you barbecuing at home, gin and tonic in hand? The tweet about the movie you just enjoyed? The link to that Atlantic article recommending an overhaul of the banking industry?

Similarly, companies are debating who should “people” the corporate Twitter account, marketing, executives, CSRs, tech help, etc..

Twitter, the microblogging service, which limits posts to 140 characters, has become a favourite of celebrities and digerati. Businesses worried about being left behind are experimenting with using the service to promote themselves. Done badly, the effect can be like watching your grandfather dance at a wedding disco. So should it be left to a company’s marketing department to tweet?

Everyone has a different comfort level about what information to post. It is clearly a good idea to be cautious, as I’ve blogged previously. But when we use social media as a relationship-building tool, to do so effectively means we need to put ourselves out there by more than providing the product/service “name, rank and serial number” (and by that I mean, posting more content than mere brand puffery, PR and cliche).

Personally, I use this blog , LinkedIn and Twitter most often for business purposes. On the blog, I try to post legal updates, commentary on legal issues and commentary on issues relevant to small businesses and their owners (like this one). Each post is an initial remark that is intended to spark an ongoing conversation.

I connect with new business acquaintances and referral sources on LinkedIn. Although many people find LinkedIn impersonal and cumbersome, to me it is only the first step in business-relationship building. I am as active as I can be in groups that match various professional interests, and dialog with people through discussions that often start on the web and continue offline. As we get to know each other, we develop an actual relationship, outside of LinkedIn.

I use Twitter to promote the blog and develop relationships with referral sources and potential clients. I try to keep my Twitter posts relatively business-like and have decided not to post about the whether, what I am eating (unless I am talking about a new restaurant/business in the area) or what my dogs/kids/spouse are up to. I realize everyone has a personal philosophy about these types of post, and “small talk” tweets often lead to strong relationships. Again, for me, public tweets are like meeting someone at a Chamber meeting — if I want to know more, we meet for coffee later in the week for a more substantive and personal interaction.

I have made a deliberate decision to limit Facebook to keeping in touch with actual social friends and family, and not to use it as a business development tool. Nonetheless, I never post anything on Facebook that I wouldn’t want both my mother and our firm’s Board of Directors to see.

I’m interested in how other people use these tools. Where are your boundaries?

According to the Home Builders Association of Durham, Orange & Chatham Counties, first on the agenda should be addressing the free-falling housing industry. At the association’s installation of officers last week at Hope Valley Country Club, incoming president Bo Root encouraged the crowd to write their elected officials to “Fix Housing First.”

The premise is simple:

The housing market collapse is pulling down the entire economy, creating a credit freeze and putting hundreds of thousands of American jobs at risk. To get our economy back on track, Congress must address housing.

A housing stimulus would include a short-term incentive for qualified home buyers in the form of a meaningful tax credit coupled with a permanent low mortgage rate.

The program encourages supporting and strengthening existing foreclosure prevention programs to stabilize home prices, enhancing the Home Buyer Tax Credit, and creating below-market 30-year fixed rate mortgages. For more details, click here

Construction accounts for 3 percent of the Durham County, North Carolina economy, and is even more of the Wake County, North Carolina economy. And the bottom is falling out of the local housing market, according to the Triangle Business Journal. It reports pending sales of existing homes were off by 35 percent in November, and the inventory of homes for sale continued to increase, with the average home sitting on the market for 100 days versus an average of 72 days two years ago, according to Triangle Multiple Listing Service.
So, support our local construction industry. Check out FixHousingFirst.com, and if it makes sense to you, write your congressional delegation. And, let me know what you think.