We want to share with you our thoughts on business projections, cash management, small business, entrepreneurship, finance, startups, and business planning.



Whenever I speak at a workforce center on starting a small business, I always ask the question, “How many of you have written a business plan before?” I always get one or two people who have attempted the process, and they always say the same things. They usually point out that the process is extremely complicated, they may not understand the words being used, they do not like having to write so much, and they absolutely do not know how to do the financials spreadsheets required for most business plans. ... [continue reading]

This blog is part 2 of the most common financial mistakes that I’ve seen small business make in my 30 years of small business experience. In part 1 I discussed not understanding your numbers of your business and thinking that profit is the same thing as cash flow. Today I have two more for you. Avoid these big ones and you’ll miss some potentially huge setbacks. Mistake #3: Markup is not the same as Margin I have seen this mistake many, many times. People use the terms Markup and Margin interchan... [continue reading]

This blog is part 1 of the most common financial mistakes that I’ve seen small business make in my 30 years of small business experience. Avoid these big ones and you’ll miss some potentially huge setbacks. Mistake #1: Understand your numbers! Most people start a business because they have a passion for something. They want to meet a need in the marketplace or do some good in the world. They know their product, and they know who their customers are and how to reach them. What’s the one thing they... [continue reading]

As an experienced entrepreneur (or BizOwner) and college entrepreneurship instructor, I have answered questions from over a thousand students looking for advice on how to start a business. A few months ago, a student in one of my classes raised his hand and asked, “Okay, Bob, you’ve given us lots of great advice and feedback, but if you could boil it down, what is the single best piece of advice you can offer about starting a business?” I remember saying something about keeping focused on customers, b... [continue reading]

As the Business Entrepreneur instructor at Dakota County Technical College for over 15 years, I feel I have every right to hate the word “Entrepreneur.” Because it is in my title and identifies the program I helped create and taught for fifteen years, I was required to spell that stupid word over and over again. It seems like each time I spelled it, I get it wrong! So right here and right now I choose to change the word to something that has more meaning and is far easier to spell. In our society the... [continue reading]


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Five stars

"Great tool to have for starting a business! Easy layout and step-by-step direction on how to get finances organized."
~ Kevin, Startup entrepreneur

Five stars

"As someone with little business experience, ProjectionSmart took the fear out of creating a business plan. It helped make the numbers easy to understand and surprisingly fun!"
~ Elizabeth, entrepreneur

Five stars

"I've started a few businesses, and for the last three I ran my ideas through ProjectionSmart to help me make a go/no-go decision. Without that initial review of what the future might look like, I wouldn't have known which ones were a good use of my time and which ones were a bad use of time. ProjectionSmart guided me to the right decisions. It's easy to use and a fantastic product."
~ John, serial entrepreneur

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