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The Curator: Employee Vacay, Startup Diversity, Smallbiz Resolutions, Business Body Language, Patents, Hiring Tips

Here’s our weekly link roundup of small business buzz, musings and muchness. A curation of the best small business talk around the web.

Here’s our weekly link roundup of small business buzz, musings and muchness. A curation of the best small business talk around the web.

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Small Business Guide to Surviving Employee Vacations

Larger businesses have plenty of employees who can pick up the slack when another employee decides to go traveling for vacation, but a small business usually lacks those extra personnel resources. This can be detrimental to a small business, as losing one employee for a few days leaves a bit of a void in the workload. All is not lost though: Here is how to keep things running smoothly when an employee goes on vacation.

 

The main culprits for startups’ diversity problem? Investors

The issue of female founders flared up again in the media last week when venture capitalist Paul Graham (and one of the web’s 25 most influential people, according to Bloomberg) made some rather muddled comments about the lack of women programmers that sounded a lot like “women aren’t hackers”, but which he claims was meant to mean “women who aren’t hackers aren’t hackers”.

 

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Small Business

New Year’s resolutions come in all sizes from the grand to the small. Whatever the size, for small businesses sticking to those resolutions can mean the difference between a prosperous year and a lackluster one. Here are five things for your resolution list this year.

 

10 Simple And Powerful Body Language Tips For 2014

Since writing “The Silent Language of Leaders” three years ago, and “The Nonverbal Advantage” a couple of years before that, I’ve spoken to over two hundred business, university, association, and government audiences — and, in the process of preparing to address these very savvy professionals, I’ve discovered even more about the role of body language in business success. Here are my ten simple and powerful body language tips for 2014.

 

10 Startups That Changed The Narrative In 2013

Real companies making real products that real people, you know, spend real money on. That’s what ReadWrite predicted would be the hottest of hot startups in 2013 and, for the most part, we were right. 2013 showed us new hardware built by smaller companies for what seems like the first time in a long time. They were birthed from places like Kickstarter and delivered (almost) as promised.

 

Small Business: Reviewing what worked, planning ahead

The end of the year is often a time of thought and reflection. As 2013 winds down, it’s a good idea to take a step back and evaluate what worked and what didn’t, to re-strategize and identify areas of improvement and growth opportunities.

 

5 Great Traits Effective Entrepreneurs Share

Entrepreneurs are like snowflakes: no two are exactly alike. But despite their differences, great businesspeople often share certain characteristics that drive success. We’ve sorted through Entrepreneur’s coverage from the past year and chosen five great traits that define the effective entrepreneur, all courtesy of leaders in social media, innovation and business. Let their insights help you better understand how the most interesting people make their dreams a reality.

 

Startups still face big challenges from U.S. patent law

The protection of intellectual property is no less important for smaller companies than it is for larger ones, and the technology industry is one of the most competitive landscapes for emerging businesses that need to ensure their IP is secured. Startups have a unique challenge in the patent protection world; their IP is basically the kernel they must protect in order to germinate and grow their technology, but tech giants are so aggressive with their patent litigation that startups often can’t withstand the courtroom fees.

 

A Large New Tax on Small Business

ObamaCare includes so many taxes that it’s hard to keep track, but one of the worst takes effect on Jan. 1. This beaut is a levy on health insurance premiums that targets the small business and individual markets. At $8 billion in 2014 and $101 billion over the next decade, the insurance tax is larger than ObamaCare’s taxes on medical devices and prescription drugs combined. The Internal Revenue Service classifies the tax as a “fee” but it functions like an excise tax on premiums.

 

10 Hiring Tips for Your Small Business

Hiring is one of the most important things an entrepreneur will do to grow her company. For a small business, each new hire has a tremendous impact and influences the company’s culture far more than a new hire at a 200- or 500-person company. The stakes are high, so you need to ensure that each of your new hires is a passionate, engaged and committed team player. “Great people versus okay people is the difference between success and mediocrity,” says Brett Lewis of Skillbridge, who says hiring is something founders spend too little time on in the early days, and believes your sixth hire should be a recruiter.

 

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