Top 3 Things You Should Do Before Choosing Your Private Label Olive Oil Supplier

There are many reasons why people are ecstatic about creating their own product line of olive oil.

One reason is its growing market. As people become more aware of the benefits brought by it, the demand is steadily increasing. The fact that you can find olive oil as an ingredient in almost any healthy product, any entrepreneur would really be tempted to join the industry.

Another reason is passion. Health gurus and beauty bloggers are just a few of the people who love olive oil, and incorporating their passion into their business is never a bad idea, right?

So before you start choosing and calling your private label olive oil supplier, here are the top three most important things you should do first:

Study the Market

Regardless if you already own a business or are just starting up, you should study first your target marketplace.

Who would possibly buy it? Can your market afford to purchase extra virgin olive oil? The best customers are those who won’t mind paying a high price as long as the product is worth it. But this is not the only factor you should consider.

Price Competition

Knowing the current prices on the market will serve as your guideline in choosing the right supplier in terms of the pricing of bulk orders.

You can also determine how much profit you can gain, and how competitive you can be in the market. More importantly, since you are creating a privately labeled line, make sure that your price can compete with the branded ones.

Qualify the Suppliers

Truth is, the olive oil industry is quite a small niche, so you will want your product to stand out.

Basically, you can really stand out if you choose the right packaging. Packaging includes the style of the bottle, how much of it you want in a single bottle, and also, the creativeness of the whole packaging concept.

But the question is, can the manufacturer achieve this kind of packaging?

There are a lot of suppliers, but if you think that you can just pick the right one up easily, think again. The right supplier should, above all, catch up on your vision for your products.

For example, the best private label olive oil supplier are those who have sample packages ready but also welcomes their clients’ ideas and desired characteristics. There are even companies that will send a virtual sample for their clients to see how their order will look like. This kind of flexibility gives ultimate freedom for the clients to own their product.

Everybody loves the idea of venturing into the business world, and olive oil is a great product because it is sellable, marketable, and is hot in the market.

However, the roadmap to any venture is not that easy. No matter the how high the hype is, it will still take a lot of research, study, budget planning, and most importantly, the right partner.

Garnet Minerals – The Many Colors of Garnets

Spessartine is an uncommon garnet. Spessartite or spessartine is manganese aluminum garnet, Mn3Al2(SiO4)3. Madagascar’s spessartine garnet is a recently discovered variety with a beautiful raspberry body color, and spectacular salmon-pink fire. Spessartine is an orange-red or plain orange stone, also called “Mandarin garnet. Mandarin Garnets were recently discovered in East Africa and are a variety of Spessartine Garnets. They were found in the German Spessart Mountains, hence their name Spessartine.

Rhodolite garnet is a combination of almandine and pyrope, and is sometimes referred to as pyrope-almandine garnet. Rhodolite is a purplish red variety of garnets that has been used since ancient times. Rhodolite garnet, like all garnet is a fairly hardy gem. Rhodolite Garnet boasts a vibrant cranberry color, and its name is derived from the rhododendron flower that shares a similar hue. The color ranges from pink to purplish red in color and is mined in Africa, India, and Sri Lanka. Rhodolite Garnet is used as affordable substitutes for the Ruby. Pyrope garnet is also called anthill garnet in Arizona because ants bring the gem to the surface while building their homes. The term “American ruby” is actually a pyrope garnet (and not a ruby at all).

Hessonite (also called “cinnamon stone”) is a cinnamon-brown to orange gemstone variety of grossular garnet. Hessonite Garnet is a special Garnet used in Vedic gemology to increase creativity and imagination. The oranges and browns of Hessonite hail from Namibia and Sri Lanka.

Commonly called Tsavorite Garnet, this green grossular are very rare. Tsavorite is among the most coveted members of the garnet family. We adore Tsavorite Garnet because it offers the color and hue of an emerald and yet, it’s more rare, and much more vibrant. The name for Tsavorite Garnet comes from the Tsavo National Park in Kenya, which is the only region where Tsavorite Garnet is mined. Tsavorite can be considered a “new” gemstone since it was unknown before its discovery in Kenya in the 1960s. Tsavorite has a beautiful vivid green color, is bright and lively with a high refractive index, and has a garnet’s durability and high clarity. Even though Tsavorite Garnet is rare, the lack of demand keeps the prices well below that of the more plentiful Emerald.

Grossular is a pale green, pink, brown, or black garnet, Ca3Al2(SiO4)3, occurring alone or as a constituent of the common garnet. Tsavorite is a variety of green grossular garnets discovered in 1967. The name Grossular comes from the Latin Grossulara (the name of gooseberry fruit) which is the same color as the greenish variety of garnet. Some grossular garnets can have round and elliptical inclusions. Massive white grossular has been found with jade in Myanmar and has been carved by the Chinese. A variety of Grossular Garnets, Hessonite comes in two colors, golden and cinnamon (this variety is commonly known as the Cinnamon Stone.

The demantoid belongs to the large gemstone family of the garnets, and is actually a variety of the garnet mineral andradite. One of the rarest and most sought after colored gemstones have always been demantoid garnet. The name Demantoid means diamond-like, because it has a very high adamantine luster, and color dispersion higher than diamond. As seen with the demantoid garnet, inclusions can sometimes be a benefit to garnets rather than a liability. Demantoid garnet was used lavishly by the Tsars of Russia. Originally discovered in Russia, the Demantoid garnet was favored by Russia’s leading court jeweler, Carl Faberge’. Demantoid garnets are softer than other garnets and should be protected. Demantoid has been called the “emerald of the Urals” from its occurrence there, and is one of the most prized of garnet varieties. “Horse-tail” inclusions in demantoid garnet make it more valuable because they prove it came from Russia. It can be more expensive than ruby and sapphire.

Andradite garnet can be yellow-green, green, greenish brown, orange yellow, brown, grayish black or black. Andradite is a calcium-iron garnet, Ca3Fe2(SiO4)3, is of variable composition, and may be red, yellow, brown, green, or black. Andradite garnet is usually black and of no interest to the gem trade, but one variety called “Demantoid” is a lively green. A new green Andradite Garnet has been coming out of Namibia, but some experts say they lack much of Demantoid’s character and luster. Andradite can be found in calcareous metamorphic rocks, especially marbles and skarns.

Uvarovite, an emerald-green variety from Russia and Finland, is rarely suitable for gem use. Uvarovite garnet is found only in tiny sizes. Uvarovite is a calcium chromium garnet with the formula Ca3Cr2(SiO4)3. The uvarovite garnet has been synthesized (mineralized with borax to facilitate diffusion of precursors) by several sols-“gel methods. Uvarovite is quite brittle; this makes it difficult to cut for jewelry. Uvarovite, like other garnets, forms rounded crystals with 12 rhombic or 24 trapezoidal faces or combinations of these and some other forms. The Uvarovite Garnet is found In Russia and is a bright green cluster of crystals sometimes also called drusy. Uvarovite develops in a metamorphic environment in serpentines with chromite and in metamorphosed limestone.

Mandarin Garnet is a bright orange garnet. Mandarin Garnet is a trade name for bright orange spessartine from Namibia. Recently, there was a new discovery of Mandarin Garnet in Nigeria with an unbelievable neon orange color. Mandarin Garnets are the intensely bright orange red varieties of the rare orange Spessartite Garnet, also known as Spessartine.

The Merelani Mint is a green grossular garnet. Merelani Mint Garnet is rapidly emerging as a collector’s stone and it is becoming quite prominent due to its beauty and rarity. Merelani Mint is the name given to a bright mint green variety of grossular garnet that has been recently discovered in the Merelani Hills of Tanzania.

Role of Customer Service – Why It’s Important to Your Business

Plan to get the financial Data:

Blockchain technology usually attends the financial sector, but they could transform the number of industries and range from the Internet of Things (IoT) which support to healthcare and from the supply chain to arts and entertainment.

Blockchain expert explains the technologies has broad reach comes from its employment to secure and efficient way. To ensure data integrity, transparency, immutability and fairness, across different types of transactions.

Existing business functions Ideas:

We are the proprietor and managing director of cryptoappfactory.com, and also Blockchain. We can improve an existing business system using pursuing the idea to create a competitive advantage through more efficient accounting processes and solving potential customers’ challenges.

We are ready to prove the second point where P2P energy-trading platform, eliminates the middleman from renewable energy sales. And another Blockchain startup provides a platform that seamlessly shares data along supply chains. Investors seem to like the startups’ solutions to everyday problems, awarding more than million to Origin Trail and over million to Power Ledger.

Capital fundraising:

Ideas to create a new service model and products to launch on your business, we support the capital work concept for better choose blockchain services and support for business.

We use Cryptocurrency to get the alternate solution to the traditional funding project. The Cryptocurrency has startups using work capital amount on the direct investment tag using token generation events. The fellows have some policies to maintain and support the project as per legal services.

Attain New Customer Services:

Blockchain technology has cryptocurrencies model that they could transmit the data into an extended field on market. The Cryptocurrency have private and public investment to verify the transaction on recognizing companies to attract the Bitcoin and other online currency also. It helps to support and translate into sales.

According to blockchain tool, we have large media data to highlighted and transmitted on the forum through small family business. The PIVX has storage devices to get a new client and customer in to get the Bitcoin easier and faster on payment modes.

Cyber Security Empower:

We use half of the Bitcoin to share on private data breaches and half of the data to share on public data breaches. In each company they have some qualify experienced support for learning the business into the next level of approaches. Blockchain technology can be used to reduce your risk of a data breach.

Blockchain has enhanced cybersecurity efforts which we have infrastructure, transparency, event tracking, cryptography and other security data sharing information systems.

Ensure Bitcoin Privacy:

Privacy policies have several complementary tasks on cybersecurity systems. It is an important consideration to follow the particular consumers to purchase the Bitcoin to safeguard your information through online.

Bitcoin privacy is very important because even implementing your regulation of your Bitcoin the data protection has many features which we have more strength privacy laws. Blockchain can solve the element by creating and protecting the consumer data attention to build transparency and trust between consumer and brands. We offer a sample of data to share on live idea market using the big platform. The blockchain developers have big user ability to share and store the information on different entities.

Global Challenges using Cryptocurrency:

At last, we have entrepreneurs who like to capitalize on the employing blockchain technology to build the other places to devastate by natural disasters.

We have stated with Forbes who can share the capitalist done on the market using Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and blockchain. We residents have a panel to interact and reconnect to get the power grid, and also we sell Bitcoin wallet for either local private or public ventures.

This blockchain is the easiest way to help the Cryptocurrency platform in the easiest way of response. We offer Bitcoin and other currencies in the market which is empowering your business in an easy manner.

An Insight Into Big Data Analytics Using Hadoop

The large heap of data generated everyday is giving rise to the Big Data and a proper analysis of this data is getting the necessity for every organization. Hadoop, serves as a savior for Big Data Analytics and assists the organizations to manage the data effectively.

Big Data Analytics

The process of gathering, regulating and analyzing the huge amount of data is called the Big Data Analytics. Under this process, different patterns and other helpful information is derived that helps the enterprises in identifying the factors that boost up the profits.

What is it required?

For analyzing the large heap of data, this process turns very helpful, as it makes use of the specialized software tools. The application also helps in giving the predictive analysis, data optimization, and text mining details. Hence, it needs some high-performance analytics.

The processes consist of functions that are highly integrated and provides the analytics that promise high-performance. When an enterprise uses the tools and the software, it gets an idea about making the apt decisions for the businesses. The relevant data is analyzed and studied to know the market trends.

What Challenges Does it Face?

Numerous organizations get through various challenges; the reason behind is the large number of data saved in various formats, namely structured and unstructured forms. Also the sources differ, as the data is gathered from different sections of the organization.

Therefore, breaking down the data that is stored in different places or at different systems, is one of the challenging tasks. Another challenge is to sort the unstructured data in the way that it becomes as easily available as the accessibility of structured data.

How is it used in Recent Days?

The breaking down of data into small chunks helps the business to a high extent and helps in the transformation and achieving growth. The analysis also helps the researchers to analyze the human behavior and the trend of responses toward particular activity, decoding innumerable human DNA combinations, predict the terrorists plan for any attack by studying the previous trends, and studying the different genes that are responsible for specific diseases.

Benefits of Big Data Analytics:

There are three classifications under which the benefits can be divided:

Cost Savings: The software helps the business in storing the massive amount of data and getting rid of spending the amount on the traditional database. The data is usually stored in the clusters and further transferred to the traditional database for further analysis as and when required.

Competitive advantage: The analytics help the organizations to access previously unavailable data or that data that was difficult in accessing. Hence, this increase in data access help to understand the product and work on it accordingly like planning the business strategies; hence, facing the competitive challenges.

New business offers: It helps in exploring the trending business opportunities. Many enterprises use the collected for knowing the customer trends and launching the new product ranges.

Hence, this analytics software is helping the organizations, to grow their business by boosting the sales, revenues turnovers, the marketing end results, reducing risks or improvising customer handling experience. An efficient analyst is of great importance to the organizations and learning all about its concepts can be done through a formal training of Hadoop, which is a widely chosen software, around the globe.

5 Reasons Why People Are Afraid Of SEO

Why are people afraid of SEO?

In case you’re an entrepreneur or a small business owner you have likely heard from everyone that you should learn SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and prepare an online strategy for your business. After all, most people frequently search for products or services on the internet.

You are well aware of the fact that you require a website, and that it requires a little work for it to appear on the web search engines. Thus you invest some time and energy – possibly outsource the job – and built a website for your business. Possibly you utilize a pre-designed theme to get the site up and running.

Incidentally, in spite of your earnest attempts, the site isn’t sufficiently improved.

You comprehend that; however, you would not like to manage all that “SEO stuff.” From all that you heard, search engine optimization takes a lot to time and the techniques are too technical for you. You thought it (SEO) doesn’t ensure critical outcomes. So why bother with it?

A ton of business owner feels along these lines. They find out about how vital SEO is, yet at the same time delay to begin SEO themselves or hire an organization.

Here are some facts that make people scared of SEO-

1. There is no magic formula-

If you believe that SEO is some magic elixir for quick online profit and success, you’ll be sorely frustrated and disappointed. Search engine optimization is significant to your business’ productivity, yet it will require some serious time and energy before you’ll see an ROI (Return on Investment).

In business, each system and crusade must yield some profit i.e. some ROI. If there is something that won’t help in developing your business, you won’t do it. Since the ROI from SEO is slow in arriving, numerous people feel that SEO doesn’t have any importance and in this way, they stack it to lower priorities.

Those new to SEO will put a considerable amount of time and money into it and are regularly frustrated by the absence of results. This makes many business owners hesitant to start a SEO campaign and to stick it out for the long haul.

One should understand that the results will come in the long run if the strategy is planned and executed well. They just won’t come immediately. Search engine optimization is an important technique for one’s business and ought not to be overlooked. Be patient and search for logical strategies and processes, not magic.

2. It Takes Too Much Time

Those new to SEO imagine that this sort of online marketing strategy is a quite complex and the process includes many steps and parts. While there are a ton of components to consider while enhancing your site, they shouldn’t be altogether done at the same time.

Like points #1 above, those new to SEO are frequently hesitant to begin an expensive and tedious SEO strategy when it creates the impression that all the work and time invested is in vain. Once more, be patience.

There are several alternatives for busy business owners in handling SEO. The primary choice is to hand over all the SEO assignments and obligations to a digital marketing agency. When you essentially don’t have sufficient time to do it without anyone else’s help, obviously, you can appoint the whole procedure to a SEO organization. Along these lines, you can invest your time and energy into maintaining your business while the organization runs the online campaigns.

The other choice is to handle the SEO yourself. Try not to begin off by trying to do everything, except do it step by step. You’ll save money and learn more about SEO; however, you’ll have to invest a great deal of time all the while.

3. Search engine optimization is Too Technical.

Numerous business owners new to SEO have this thought SEO is a technical, complicated process that is done by a web designer or a “brilliant computer geek.” They feel under qualified to execute SEO or even endeavor to learn it.

Many components of SEO can be performed by anybody. You needn’t to have a computer diploma to perform SEO activities. A person with basic computer knowledge can easily perform some of these activities. Basic SEO is anything but difficult to learn and just takes a couple hours of learning. At the point when your organization is young and you’re new to SEO, it is best to just focus on executing a few basic key SEO components and strategies.

There are numerous technical parts to it, as well and many small businesses are concerned that digital marketing agencies will attempt to overwhelm them with a huge amount of digital terms and odd claims. Try not to let that stress you, simply clarify your concerns and ask plenty of queries, and a good agency will walk you through all aspects of the procedure.

4. Not getting enough customers online.

One of the broadly discussed parts of SEO is keywords. Keyword research and target audience is a very common strategy that is promptly started when you start up any campaign. In case you’re doing this all by yourself, you may immediately run into the tremendous number of relevant keywords and feel a bit overwhelmed with the potential outcomes. But how will you decide which keyword to focus on?

Finding out about keyword research can enable you to get an idea which words your site is as of now positioning for and which ones searchers are using to discover your site. You can also find keywords based on relevance, level of competition and volume of search.

The more that you analyze your website and discover patterns keywords, the easier and quicker it will be to identify keywords that will target the right audience that is looking to buy your product or services and thus converted from traffic to your clients.

5. The complexity of SEO.

You will be a little bit surprised if someone tells you that there are more than 200 factors that the Google analyze when ranking a website. How one can tackle all these factors?

This complexity of SEO is enough to frighten off business owners who would prefer not to waste the time and energy to manage everything. Or on the other hand, they may go the other way and start to focus on a single ranking factor. Some entrepreneurs or business owners are content with finding out about SEO and implementing a couple of fundamental SEO activities for their sites. This is a start; however, the full power and capability of SEO will never be completely realized.

Search engine optimization takes time, money and sincere efforts. The scares that SEO is excessively technical, complex, and gimmicky are common delusions among people new to SEO. The more you learn about SEO yourself, you’ll more comfortable and confident to do your own SEO or work closely with any digital marketing agency.

How to Procure the Most Suitable GPS Service Provider

In the current age of competitive business, companies and entrepreneurs are facing several cost and efficiency related challenges. It is becoming more and more difficult to sustain the competitive advantage or retain your customers due to the emergence of new and innovative entrants in the marketplace.

Contrary to common belief, big businesses are also affected by these phenomenon as much as small and medium sized businesses. This makes it necessary for an entrepreneur to constantly come up with new ideas in order to ensure customer retention as well as growth for his business.

For people in the commercial fleet and transportation business, GPS tracking devices can prove to a value-added advantage that will give them an edge over competitors.

When you try to find a GPS tracker, you will come to know that there are certain factors that should be kept in mind before pinning one down for dealing. Below, you can find a few useful tips that will help you locate the best option for locating the best service provider in this regard.

Ascertaining your Return on Investment

As a general rule, no one wants to invest in something that will not provide him with higher returns on his investment. This makes it imperative for you to ascertain, beyond reasonable doubt, that the GPS tracking system will be good for your company – both operationally and financially.

Do some background research on the GPS tracking devices and service provider

There are several service providers in the market who specialize in GPS tracking. You cannot just go out and simply pick one of them. You should first make a list of all your requirements and then find out whether the provider is dispensing all those services. You should also make sure that the service provider has the capability to fulfill your future needs with the growth of your business. The service provider should have the ability of initially deploying the system at your premises.

Assess the service provider’s capabilities

Technology is the key. In order to get ahead of your competitors, you must procure and employ advanced technological solutions. Ask your GPS tracker service provider about the technological infrastructure that they will be able to provide. There are certain aspects of technology in this regard: security of the system and data, and user-friendly operation.

Final Evaluation

Any driver can encounter any problem anywhere. In such a case, he will call the provider’s customer service. You should check whether the customer service staff is friendly and supportive. You should make a final cost-benefit analysis to finally reach a conclusion whether you can, in the long run, afford the GPS tracking devices. If so, then you should go for it!

Startup Law 101 Series – Ten Essential Legal Tips For Startups at Formation

Here are ten essential legal tips for startup founders.

1.  Set up your legal structure early and use cheap stock to avoid tax problems.

No small venture wants to invest too heavily in legal infrastructure at an early stage. If you are a solo founder working out of the garage, save your dollars and focus on development.

If you are a team of founders, though, setting up a legal structure early is important.

First, if members of your team are developing IP, the lack of a structure means that every participant will have individual rights to the IP he develops. A key founder can guard against this by getting everyone to sign “work-for-hire” agreements assigning such rights to that founder, who in turn will assign them over to the corporation once formed. How many founding teams do this. Almost none. Get the entity in place to capture the IP for the company as it is being developed.

Second, how do you get a founding team together without a structure? You can, of course, but it is awkward and you wind up with having to make promises that must be taken on faith about what will or will not be given to members of the team. On the flip side, many a startup has been sued by a founder who claimed that he was promised much more than was granted to him when the company was finally formed. As a team, don’t set yourselves up for this kind of lawsuit. Set the structure early and get things in writing.

If you wait too long to set your structure up, you run into tax traps. Founders normally work for sweat equity and sweat equity is a taxable commodity. If you wait until your first funding event before setting up the structure, you give the IRS a measure by which to put a comparatively large number on the value of your sweat equity and you subject the founders to needless tax risks. Avoid this by setting up early and using cheap stock to position things for the founding team.

Finally, get a competent startup business lawyer to help with or at least review your proposed setup. Do this early on to help flush out problems before they become serious. For example, many founders will moonlight while holding on to full-time jobs through the early startup phase. This often poses no special problems. Sometimes it does, however, and especially if the IP being developed overlaps with IP held by an employer of the moonlighting founder. Use a lawyer to identify and address such problems early on. It is much more costly to sort them out later.

2.  Normally, go with a corporation instead of an LLC.

The LLC is a magnificent modern legal invention with a wild popularity that stems from its having become, for sole-member entities (including husband-wife), the modern equivalent of the sole proprietorship with a limited liability cap on it.

When you move beyond sole member LLCs, however, you essentially have a partnership-style structure with a limited liability cap on it.

The partnership-style structure does not lend itself well to common features of a startup. It is a clumsy vehicle for restricted stock and for preferred stock. It does not support the use of incentive stock options. It cannot be used as an investment vehicle for VCs. There are special cases where an LLC makes sense for a startup but these are comparatively few in number (e.g., where special tax allocations make sense, where a profits-only interest is important, where tax pass-through adds value). Work with a lawyer to see if special case applies. If not, go with a corporation.

3.  Be cautious about Delaware.

Delaware offers few, if any advantages, for an early-stage startup. The many praises sung for Delaware by business lawyers are justified for large, public companies. For startups, Delaware offers mostly administrative inconvenience.

Some Delaware advantages from the standpoint of an insider group: (1) you can have a sole director constitute the entire board of directors no matter how large and complex the corporate setup, giving a dominant founder a vehicle for keeping everything close the vest (if this is deemed desirable); (2) you can dispense with cumulative voting, giving leverage to insiders who want to keep minority shareholders from having board representation; (3) you can stagger the election of directors if desired.

Delaware also is an efficient state for doing corporate filings, as anyone who has been frustrated by the delays and screw-ups of certain other state agencies can attest.

On the down side — and this is major — Delaware permits preferred shareholders who control the majority of the company’s voting stock to sell or merge the company without requiring the consent of the common stock holders. This can easily lead to downstream founder “wipe outs” via liquidation preferences held by such controlling shareholders.

Also on the down side, early-stage startups incur administrative hassles and extra costs with a Delaware setup. They still have to pay taxes on income derived from their home states. They have to qualify their Delaware corporation as a “foreign corporation” in their home states and pay the extra franchise fees associated with that process. They get franchise tax bills in the tens of thousands of dollars and have to apply for relief under Delaware’s alternative valuation method. None of these items constitutes a crushing problem. Every one is an administrative hassle.

My advice from years of experience working with founders: keep it simple and skip Delaware unless there is some compelling reason to choose it; if there is a good reason, go with Delaware but don’t fool yourself into believing  that you have gotten yourself special prize for your early-stage startup.

4.  Use restricted stock for founders in most cases.

If a founder gets stock without strings on it, and then walks away from the company, that founder will get a windfall equity grant. There are special exceptions, but the rule for most founders should be to grant them restricted stock, i.e., stock that can be repurchased by the company at cost in the event the founder leaves the company. Restricted stock lies at the heart of the concept of sweat equity for founders. Use it to make sure founders earn their keep.

5.  Make timely 83(b) elections.

When restricted stock grants are made, they should almost always be accompanied by 83(b) elections to prevent potentially horrific tax problems from arising downstream for the founders. This special tax election applies to cases where stock is owned but can be forfeited. It must be made within 30 days of the date of grant, signed by the stock recipient and spouse, and filed with the recipient’s tax return for that year.

6.  Get technology assignments from everyone who helped develop IP.

When the startup is formed, stock grants should not be made just for cash contributions from founders but also for technology assignments, as applicable to any founder who worked on IP-related matters prior to formation. Don’t leave these hangning loose or allow stock to be issued to founders without capturing all IP rights for the company.

Founders sometimes think they can keep IP in their own hands and license it to the startup. This does not work. At least the company will not normally be fundable in such cases. Exceptions to this are rare.

The IP roundup should include not only founders but all consultants who worked on IP-related matters prior to company formation. Modern startups will sometimes use development companies in places like India to help speed product development prior to company formation. If such companies were paid for this work, and if they did it under work-for-hire contracts, then whoever had the contract with them can assign to the startup the rights already captured under the work-for-hire contracts. If no work-for-hire arrangements were in place, a stock, stock option, or warrant grant should be made, or other legal consideration paid, to the outside company in exchange for the IP rights it holds.

The same is true for every contractor or friend who helped with development locally. Small option grants will ensure that IP rights are rounded up from all relevant parties. These grants should be vested in whole or in part to ensure that proper consideration exists for the IP assignment made by the consultants.

7.  Protect the IP going forward.

When the startup is formed, all employees and contractors who continue to work for it should sign confidentiality and invention assignment agreements or work-for-hire contracts as appropriate to ensure that all IP remains with the company.

Such persons should also be paid valid consideration for their efforts. If this is in the form of equity compensation, it should be accompanied by some form of cash compensation as well to avoid tax problems arising from the IRS placing a high value on the stock by using the reasonable value of services as a measure of its value. If cash is a problem, salaries may be deferred as appropriate until first funding.

8.  Consider provisional patent filings.

Many startups have IP whose value will largely be lost or compromised once it is disclosed to the others. In such cases, see a good patent lawyer to determine a patent strategy for protecting such IP. If appropriate, file provisional patents. Do this before making key disclosures to investors, etc.

If early disclosures must be made, do this incrementally and only under the terms of non-disclosure agreements. In cases where investors refuse to sign an nda (e.g., with VC firms), don’t reveal your core confidential items until you have the provisional patents on file.

9.  Set up equity incentives.

With any true startup, equity incentives are the fuel that keeps a team going. At formation, adopt an equity incentive plan. These plans will give the board of directors a range of incentives, unsually including restricted stock, incentive stock options (ISOs), and non-qualified options (NQOs).

Restricted stock is usually used for founders and very key people. ISOs are used for employees only. NQOs can be used with any employee, consultant, board member, advisory director, or other key person. Each of these tools has differing tax treatment. Use a good professional to advise you on this.

Of course, with all forms of stock and options, federal and state securities laws must be satisfied. Use a good lawyer to do this.

10. Fund the company incrementally.

Resourceful startups will use funding strategies by which they don’t necessarily go for large VC funding right out the gate. Of course, some of the very best startups have needed major VC funding at inception and have achieved tremendous success. Most, however, will get into trouble if they need massive capital infusions right up front and thereby find themselves with few options if such funding is not available or if it is available only on oppressive terms.

The best results for founders come when they have built significant value in the startup before needing to seek major funding. The dilutive hit is much less and they often get much better general terms for their funding.

Conclusion

These tips suggest important legal elements that founders should factor into their broader strategic planning.

As a founder, you should work closely with a good startup business lawyer to implement the steps correctly. Self-help has its place in small companies, but it almost invariably falls short when it comes to the complex setup issues associated with a startup. In this area, get a good startup business lawyer and do it right.

Importance of Corporate Governance For SMEs

There are several definitions for corporate governance. However, the most appropriate definition which is more relevant to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) describes corporate governance as “a set of rules, regulations and structures which aim to achieve optimum performance by implementing appropriate effective methods in order to achieve the corporate objectives”. In other words, corporate governance refers to internal disciplines or systems which govern the relationships among ‘key players’ or entities that are instrumental in the performance of the organization. Moreover, it supports the organization’s sustainability on the long term and establishes responsibility and accountability.

The guidelines of corporate governance aim to achieve greater transparency, fairness and hold executive management of the organization accountable to shareholders. In doing so, corporate governance plays a pivotal role in protecting shareholders and, in the meantime, duly consider the interest of the organization at large without prejudice to employees’ rights. Whilst executive management should have reasonable level of power to run the business, corporate governance ensures that such powers are set to practical dimensions in order to minimize misuse of authority to serve objectives not necessarily in the best interest of the shareholders. Therefore, it provides a framework for maximizing profits , promoting investment opportunities and eventually creating more jobs.

In general, corporate governance highlights two major principles:

A. Oversight and control over the executive management’s performance and strategic directions

B. Accountability of the executive management to the shareholders

For that reason the principles of corporate governance apply on those who assume the ultimate responsibility for success or failure of the organization. On the other hand, it is imperative to understand that the proper implementation of good corporate governance does not necessarily guarantee success of the organization. Meanwhile, a bad corporate governance practice is certainly a common syndrome causing failure in many organizations.

It is interesting to know that a recent survey revealed that more than 48% of investors are willing to pay additional premium over stock prices for companies known to implement sound corporate governance practices as opposed to other companies which may have same level of profitability but characterized with inefficient management or a record of poor governance practices.

The misconception about SME’s stems its roots from the size and contribution of this segment to the economy. The reality is today SMEs may appear small in size but likely many of them have potentials to grow and become big entities in future. Sadly, this prophecy still not well realized and as a result, implementation of good corporate governance practices continues to be ignored.

SEMs in Egypt form large segment of business activities. Generally, they take the form of private companies owned by small number of shareholders. Often have less than 100 employees. Such companies are usually family-owned run by family members where the authorities and powers are generally held by an individual normally the major shareholder. For that reason the owners commonly consider themselves as running their personal properties.

Perhaps the question that strikes the mind of business owners and directors of small and medium size companies as well as the executive management team ” why should we opt to choose to introduce new systems and internal rules which impose limits on the way we do business and our business conduct?”. The answer is simply corporate governance plays a significant role for SMEs since it defines the role of shareholders as owners on the one hand, and as business managers on the other hand. This is best done through a process that spells out governance rules and guidelines. These aim to assist all parties to understand how to manage the organization. As a result, internal conflicts would be better managed and more attention given to achieve growth objectives and support profitability.

There are at least three reasons for small and medium size companies to show greater interest to implement corporate governance principles:

A. The good governance practices pave the way to companies to grow or attract additional investors as alternative to raising capital through borrowing from banks at high cost. Additionally, companies may consider going public through IPO.

B. Sound governance practices lead to improved internal control systems which results in more accountability and higher profitability. The latter is attributed to enhanced controls which minimize the likelihood for fraud losses.

C. Corporate governance framework ensures that shareholders are freed from executive and administrative duties. As a result, conflicts among business owners who assume management roles in the organization would be reduced to a greater extent particularly in organizations owned by few number of shareholders where the distinction between ownership and management capacity is blurred.

Raising capital has been for a long time seen as the major challenge facing SMEs. The real challenge is absence of good corporate governance practices in such organizations. Consequently, it would be difficult to access sources of finance from banks or investors.

Adoption of corporate governance framework is not common not only in Egypt, but also in most developing countries. This is mainly due to lack of awareness about what corporate governance is about and its relationship with corporate performance and objectives. Besides, the widespread fallacy that implementing corporate governance entails high costs coupled with doubts that such costs would not generate the envisaged benefits to the organization.

The biggest challenge for small and medium size companies in Egypt is about how far they can cope with the external business conditions and internal problems which threaten their ability to survive. Surveys indicate that one-third of this category of companies collapse after three years for the following reasons:

-Absence of planning and forward thinking

-Inadequate leadership and management skills at senior management level

-Lack of future business plans for growth and new investment plans

-Problems with cash flows

-Inability to innovate, present ideas for business development and cope with ever changing business environment and economic conditions

-Inadequate access to technical assistance

If we consider the main reasons why small and medium size companies fail, we may conclude that implementing corporate governance contributes to a far extent to support chances for these companies to perform well, grow and adopt better process for decision making. For family owned businesses, corporate governance improves management efficiency, limits internal conflicts and helps in making transition of ownership to heirs a smooth process.

Practically speaking, we need to realize that SMEs may face several problems in implementing corporate governance framework which may often seen costly exercise. Consequently, it is essential that consideration should be given to reduce the relevant requirements for compliance and disclosure and introduce less expensive financial and administrative alternatives which such companies can afford.

In order to help small and medium size organizations to implement corporate governance, we recommend that the competent state authorities issue a code for SME’s corporate governance similar to that issued by General Authority for Investment in collaboration with Cairo & Alexandria Exchange. Particular attention should be given to the following:

-Transparency (strategies, organization chart, processes etc)

-Role of Advisory Board and relationship with other entities

-Risk management system and planning

-Human resources function with focus on succession plans for senor management

Finally, we propose a short prescription to deal with the challenges and assist in implementing corporate governance framework for SMEs:

-Separate ownership from management duties and specify clear roles and responsibilities for business owners, partners and other stakeholders

-Create a balanced board and invite non-executive directors who would add value to the board (replace the board of director with an advisory board for companies that are not legally required to establish a board of director). Non-executive directors play an important role in ensuring integrity of the financial data provided to the board and to protecting shareholders’ interest. They also exercise control over executive management and reduce the risks arising from poor management practices or gross negligence

-Introduce Code of Business Conduct

-Raise corporate culture with a focus on benefits of corporate governance

-Develop senior management’s administrative and technical skills particularly in areas such as strategic planning and leadership

-Create clear organization charts

-Establish independent internal audit function (or employ an internal auditor based on the size of the organization)

-Create job descriptions which establish clear responsibilities and reporting lines

-Introduce succession plans and rules for conflicts of interest

Business Tax Return – All You Need to Know

Any running organization in a country needs to pay some amount to the government. The amount is a fixed figure and is decided by the respective government of any country. However, in many countries there is no tax on business. But still majority of countries charged a fixed amount from any business or organization.

The amount of income one earns is taxed. There is a prescribed percentage that is levied upon every profit or business. If you are a fresh start up or is a known business owner, you must be familiar with the basics concept of business tax return. There are many of the assumptions that help in solving the puzzle of tax and help you to find precise way to get relieved from these business taxes.

The business tax return term is coined in connection with the relieving of a specific amount from your tax deduction, on the basis of various extra spending you made. To make it more clear, we can say that it is the return of your taxed money in case you have spend it on a specific place or way.

If you are a start up, it is advisable to spend a little time in getting in depth knowledge of the same. If you are smart enough to break the codes, you can easily get a benefit of tax saving through your investments. In case of small businesses, you can file Schedule C which allows you to reflect your calculation of Costs of Goods. It helps in reporting and documenting the amount of your business profit and the cost kept behind making the purchase of the goods. The whole review of the difference between the two costs of purchase as well as of selling will reflect the actual amount of tax, you have to pay for.

Another important section is including the Schedule SE in your income tax return for various businesses. It is defined as self employment tax and it includes the calculation of total amount of money you have earned.

With the help of inclusion of these two sections, you can easily go ahead and can save a lot of your money.

To summarize, we can state that detailed information about Business tax return that can help you to take a wise decision. Every single penny you saved is equal to the amount you earned.

Hence, before going ahead with the process of Business tax return, you can get the expert advice from the professionals.

Outsourcing Statistics – What Figures Will Tell You

If you are still in the dark about the many benefits of outsourcing then you are left behind already – way behind. In recent years, outsourcing has gone from being a hot trend to a standard in business. Outsourcing statistics will tell you that the number of companies that are employing this strategy is increasing every year and the practice has now spread to industries that are not traditionally known to employ outsourcing. Now, even entrepreneurs and small business entities are taking advantage of the many benefits that hiring offshore companies and individuals brings.

When the concept was first introduced during the 1970s (though some experts would argue that the history of outsourcing goes way back), only manufacturing companies are contracting out some or majority of their job functions to other companies. Then as it is now, the biggest reason to outsource is to save money. Wanting to expand yet realizing the cost implications of hiring new personnel and creating new departments, companies simply thought of contracting out their menial yet still important requirements to outside parties. The result, companies are still able to pursue their growth aspirations and cut back on cost at the same time.

At the onset of globalization and with the invention of the Internet and other communication technologies, the vast pool of highly skilled yet affordable workforce that are present in the East and other developing countries became accessible to Western companies. Countries like the Philippine and India are just two of the Asian countries that more developed countries turn to for cheap yet quality work. By the year 2005, outsourcing statistics have shown that the industry has reached the $10 billion mark. It is continuously growing almost exponentially since then and the interesting part is that it is not expected to slow down even in the face of the recession that the United States and other major economies are experiencing.

Here are some more interesting outsourcing statistics and facts for you:

. Information Technology is still the most outsourced type of job accounting for almost 30% of the whole industry. It is closely followed by human resources and sales.

. The most popular source of labor are Philippines, India and China. Companies favor these three countries because of their stable communication infrastructure and the presence of highly skilled and trained individuals who are fluent in both written and spoken English.

. It has been estimated that more than 4 million jobs have been transferred from Western countries to developing countries because of outsourcing. This number is expected to rise exponentially in the years to come.

. The economic development of India as well as other developing countries has been largely attributed to their ability to provide cheap yet reliable workforce.

May these facts and statistics on outsourcing provide you with an idea of how big the concept is and what it can do for your business. Your hesitation to outsource may be affecting your company’s chances to compete and grow in this highly competitive business environment. Therefore, you must seriously consider outsourcing to expand your business and make it globally competitive.

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