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How to Calculate Start-Up Costs
Got a pen handy? To best estimate your start-up costs, you'll need to make a list— and the more detailed the better.
- Video: Calcuating the Costs of Starting a Small Business
- Tool: WSJ Startup Calculator

Insurance Tax Breaks for Self-Employed Individuals
How to claim this otherwise hard-to-get health-care deduction.
When Business Credit Scores Get Murky
Credit scores are often touted as the make-it-or-break-it factor for business loans, but even entrepreneurs with high business credit scores may have trouble getting financing.
- Vote: Should biz lenders tap personal reports?
- Video: A Great Credit Score Won't Cut It
A Bump in the Road? Prepping for Pregnant Employees
For some business owners, creating a maternity or paternity policy isn't top of mind— until a staffer becomes pregnant.
How to Weatherproof Your Business
The debate over global warming isn't going away. Are you prepared for the next storm?
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Tech Wealth Gap Widens
A handful of cash-rich companies are consolidating power in the tech industry, using their wealth to expand into new businesses and making it harder for small competitors to break through.
- Chart: Flourishing in Tough Times
Bank Failures Threaten Small-Business Lending
The U.S. Treasury Department is concerned the steady pace of bank failures could keep many small businesses from gaining access to new credit as the economy rebounds and companies seek to expand.
Three Best Ways to Export
Exporting may seem daunting, but it can open up a whole new market. Here's how to navigate the process.
Loan Squeeze Thwarts Small-Business Revival
The travails of two Michigan companies illustrate the tough choices their community bank must make.
The Best Tax Breaks for Small Business
Scrambling to get your taxes in order? Don't miss these small-business write-offs.
- Good Year, Bad Year: Tax Breaks Either Way
Bank Chief Accused of TARP Fraud
The former president of New York's small Park Avenue Bank was arrested on fraud charges, one of the first such cases involving a TARP recipient. The bank was shut Friday.
- Law: TARP Fraud, An (Alleged) First
- Interactive Graphic: Bank Failures
Bottlers Eye Landscape
In the wake of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo's acquisitions of their biggest bottlers, some smaller bottlers are concerned about having to match price promotions.
Where The 'Top 50 Venture-Backed Companies' Reside
Not surprisingly, many VC-backed start-ups hail from Silicon Valley. But where's Boston or Seattle on this list?
How I...Got Red Hot by Rebranding
Entrepreneur Sarah Prevette was starting up RedWire. But then a heavyhitter began using the same name.
Social-Media Updates Could Spell Trouble
Some employees are over-sharing on social-media sites, causing embarrassment and possible financial harm to small enterprises.
- Readers React: Employee Fraud, Who's to Blame?
The Ultimate Start-Up Challenge?
Companies on this week's Next Big Thing list detail strategies for dealing with rapid expanision.
- Top 50 Venture-Backed Companies.

The Next Big Thing

Sizing Up Promising Young Firms
Pacific Biosciences, which makes DNA-sequencing instruments, came out No. 1 in a ranking of the 50 venture-backed companies in the U.S. with the greatest potential.
This Week's Tip
Forming a C Corporation
Whether you're starting a business from home or opening a large-scale operation, you'll need to decide on the best legal structure for your new company. Part three of a five-week series.
Enterprise
Entrepreneurs Mixed on Social Media
Services like Facebook and Twitter have become a popular marketing tool for small firms, but new evidence suggests social media may not be as effective as hoped.
- Vote: Does social media marketing work?
How I Built It
A Housewife Inventor Builds a Homespun Empire
Entrepreneur Debbie Meyer cleans up with kitchen gadgets – and leaves the $100 million mark in the dust.

Venture Capital Dispatch

Vote and Discuss

Management Headlines

Subscriber Content Read Preview

Medicare Changes Draw Flak
Caterpillar issued an 11th-hour salvo against the health plan, saying its Medicare adjustments and insurance mandates would increase the company's costs by $100 million in the first year.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Blankfein's Pay in '09: $862,657
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Dimon's 2009 Total Pay: $1.3 Million

Small Business How-To Guide

How to Decide if Entrepreneurship is Right for You
Starting a business is a lot like becoming a parent. Not only do you have to prepare for your start-up emotionally and financially, but you have to be committed to its constant needs until it's mature enough to hum along on its own. And even then (much like a child) it will always need you in some capacity, no matter how old it gets.
How to Create a Disaster Plan
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Building Your Business

Forming a Partnership
Whether you're starting a business from home or opening a large-scale operation, you'll need to decide on the best legal structure for your new company. Part two of a five-week series.
From Wall Street to Mancakes: A Lawyer Turns to Cupcakes
Services Combine Social Media, Marketing

Technology

Tech Start-ups Cope With Data Flood
A number of technology companies on the Next Big Thing list aim to help businesses deal with data overload.
The Tangled Web Site
Three Best Ways to Build an iPhone App

Financing

A Plea for Direct Lending
Proposed legislation calls for the Small Business Administration to help small-business owners find willing lenders and, as a last resort, issue the loan directly.
The Promise and Peril of Plastic
Asset-Based Lending Grows in Popularity

Franchising

McDonald's Plans $1 Summer Drinks
McDonald's executives have been trying to sell franchisees on the offer of $1 soft drinks in recent weeks at regional meetings.
Quiznos Carves Out Broader Niche
Living With Chains

Columns

Small talk
By Colleen DeBaise
Advice on Patenting Ideas, Marketing Jewelry and the Costs of a Family Restaurant
On franchising
By Richard Gibson
Burger King Franchisees in a Pickle

WSJ Startup Calculator

Starting a business is more expensive than you might think. Have you thought through the assets you need? How about monthly expenses?

Use this startup calculator to figure out the true costs of launching a company. How much do you think it will take to open your business?

From Palo Alto Software, the makers of Business Plan Pro

With inspiration from the Better Business Bureau

Highlights

Local Businesses Sue Review Site Yelp
Yelp, a popular Web service that allows users to rate local businesses, is in the hot seat to defend the way it sells online ads to local businesses.
- Digits: Yelp Goes On the Offensive About Filtering
Good Year, Bad Year: There's Tax Breaks Either Way
Was 2009 a banner year for your small business? Or did you struggle through? Whatever the case, there are ways to trim the tax bill.
Tech Start-ups Cope With Data Flood
A number of technology companies on the Next Big Thing list aim to help businesses deal with data overload.
Venture-Capital Firms Struggle
The technology bubble popped a decade ago, but the venture-capital industry that helped finance the boom stayed largely intact. Now venture-capital firms are going through their own brutal culling.
How to Develop an Employee Handbook
A useful tool for any growing company is the employee handbook, which can communicate your vision and help shield you in the event of lawsuits.
- Vote: Does your business have a handbook?
Small Businesses Seek More Action to Curb Health-Care Costs
Some small-business advocates criticized Obama's proposed health-care overhaul as imposing stiffer requirements on employers to provide insurance for workers while not doing enough to lower costs.
Stimulus Funding for SBA Loans Runs Out—Again
The popular stimulus provisions reduced fees and offered a 90% guarantee to banks, which catalyzed SBA loan activity.

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Small Business How-To Guide

Visit our How-To Guide for Small Business to get tips from The Wall Street Journal's reporters and columnists on everything from "How to Pick a Credit Card for Your Business" to "How to Attract Talent to a Small Company."
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The Wall Street Journal on Small Business
Insights for starting and running a small business. Tuesdays

THIS WEEK: Hear a discussion on why politicians in Washington are conflicted about a certain small business request; what some small business owners have done to punch back at the recession; and the good-news and bad-news about small firms learning to operate with fewer employees.

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I am looking for a way to make it easier for entrepreneurs and angles to get together to reduce the incredible amount of time (and cost) it takes for a start-up to get out of the first pre-money round. This new WSJ Community seems like a great place to c...

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Columns

By Colleen DeBaise

By Richard Gibson

By Staff

WSJ Startup Calculator

Starting a business is more expensive than you might think. Have you thought through the assets you need? How about monthly expenses?

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