By Mike Mulhall, The Entrepreneur

Do you have a great business idea but can’t find the funds to start it? An angel may be looking for you. Angel investors are individuals looking to invest their own funds into new businesses. Generally, they look for high risk, high reward startups that are in need of $50,000 to $750,000 of seed capital. (Don’t confuse them with venture capitalists. VC’s usually manage pools of other investors’ money in a fund.)

Financially, the capital an angel investor can provide upfront can allow an entrepreneur to start operations and scale quickly. However, the knowledge and experience an angel can bring to the table may prove to be even more valuable.

Most angels are successful entrepreneurs, meaning they have the contacts and insight to make your idea a success. They’ve already made the mistakes and learned from them. An angel can serve as a mentor for you and your business, and that can be priceless.

Because of the difficulty of acquiring loans in the more conventional manner, angel investing is becoming a popular option. How do you find your own private angel? Here are a few tips:

1. Check out your local trade organizations – Networking is crucial to finding investors.
2. Visit your Chamber of Commerce – Chamber meetings and mixers are great networking opportunities. It’s also a great way to gain local business contacts.
3. Check out PartnerUp.com
4. Google search – Do a quick search on angels in your industry. Your search is bound to turn up some related forums and discussion sites. These can be good tools in finding your angel.

-By Mike Mulhall, The Entrepreneur

In the books, magazines, and blogs I read, everyone is talking about the power of visualizing your success.

One book in particular said that visualizing your goals in your mind is one thing, but creating a tangible visual aid is even more powerful.

I always tell colleagues one of my ultimate goals is to be on the cover of Wired magazine.  So, instead of just imagining the light at the end of my entrepreneurial tunnel, I made it shine right in front of my face literally.  Honestly, deep down, I can see it happening! It’s a great feeling.

I used Adobe Photoshop, but I found some great sites anyone can use to create magazine cover. Let’s face it, if you make it onto on the cover of your industry’s magazine, you’re doing well. The sites are:

• MyMagPic
• http://graphics.imagetemplate.net/magazines/

But look beyond my example.  A magazine doesn’t have to be your beacon.  Visualize whatever it is for you and then make a tangible reminder to keep you on track. Get creative and try having fun with it. Maybe your goal is to buy a new car or a house in the near future. Try it out and see what happens.

Small banks suck (to put it plainly). I don’t care what you’ve heard or what you think; using a small bank for your business needs is risky and can be detrimental to your success. This is one case where BIGGER is better.

For my businesses, I’ve gone the small bank route and was burned multiple times. You’ve heard it all before:

• “Small banks care more about their customers and provide better service” – FALSE
• “It’s easier to get a loan or line of credit” – Ehhh! Try again…
• “Small banks make less risky investments and are more safe and secure for my money” – Are you kidding me?

The larger banks have so many more tools that can make life easier for an entrepreneur. But most of all, they provide better security for your money. In a time when identity theft is rampant and fraudulent online transactions are growing exponentially, the larger banks are taking huge strides to combat this.

Most large banks are also publicly traded, meaning their books are open to the public. There are many savvy businessmen that won’t use a certain bank until they’ve combed through their balance sheets and investment practices. Good luck trying to get that kind of information from a “Mom and Pop” bank. Considering the recent economic collapse and torrent of bank failures, this type of caution should always be exercised.

Trust me…stick with the big guys on this one.

I use Bank of America. And I always will.

-By Mike Mulhall, The Entrepreneur

Fruit for the entrepreneurial mind…check out one of my favorite sites Springwise.com. Springwise is made up of a weekly compilation of good (and bad) ideas that entrepreneurs all over the world are pursuing.

I can’t tell you how many brainstorming sessions and eureka moments I’ve had from reading this site.

-By Mike Mulhall, The Entrepreneur

Going into business with a partner is a lot like marriage, so treat finding one like dating. The last thing you ever want to do is jump into a financially committed “relationship” with someone you don’t know well. I’ve made that mistake more than once, and it can be devastating financially and emotionally.

Business partners are going to go through a lot together. That’s just the nature of business. The partnership will be tried, tested, stretched, pulled and stressed to the limit. Therefore, compatibility on multiple levels is crucial. Partners should be comparable in reliability, intelligence, financial stability and character. Those are the four big qualities I’d focus on, but there are many more.

Don’t let the excitement of starting a new business cloud your judgment when considering a partner. I’ve seen many people make fatal decisions because of hope and inexperience.

Here are a few pointers for finding and maintaining a good partnership:

• Family members don’t make good business partners. We’ve all heard it, but most of us ignored it until it was too late.
• Make sure the risk is split fairly between partners. Financially lopsided partnerships experience even more pressure.
• Don’t be afraid to run a background check. If I had done that with my very first partner, I would have saved myself a fortune.
• Ask around town. A person’s reputation can tell a lot about them.
• State the goals, duties and expectations of each partner (in writing!) before commencement of the business.
• Hire a lawyer to protect your interests and ensure the partnership is fair.  I know this sounds aggressive and expensive, but it will save you should things go sour.
• Create a strategy to maintain high levels of communication and interaction between the partners. Weekly or even daily meetings are a must.
• Maintain non-business interactions as well. Periodic dinners and recreational events are great ways to ease any tension that may be present.

Remember that good partnerships can be beautiful while bad partnerships can be ugly and life altering. So tread carefully, don’t rush into things and always trust your intuition. You wouldn’t marry a stranger (I hope!), nor would you enter into one of the most important business relationships of your life without doing your due diligence. This is probably the most important advice I could ever offer an entrepreneur.

-By Mike Mulhall, The Entrepreneur

People start blogs for a variety reasons. Some start out of personal passion; many businesses create blogs to engage their existing customers; some seek to generate revenue. Blogging is an integral part of any social media marketing strategy for a brick and mortar or virtual business.

However, you can’t simply start a blog and expect a translation to sales overnight.  You have to first assess your goals and then compose a plan that entails more than a stream of thought post about the features of your company.

Personal bloggers will love the features of Tumblr or Posterous (a great mobile blogging platform). Simply sign up for an account and you will be blogging in less than two minutes. Seriously! Unfortunatley, if you’re looking to generate revenue, these sites won’t serve you well for several reasons.  Due to their lack of flexibility they are difficult to monetize because they fail to:

• Optimize well with search engines
• Allow for design customization
• Feature add-on applications/plug-ins

If you’re serious about blogging as a business, I would suggest checking out WordPress. WordPress is a blogging platform that requires more work and effort, but offers a lot more flexibility and potential. Here’s a simple breakdown of what you need to do to create your own self hosted blog:

1. Choose a hosting service. I use Godaddy, but there are a lot of these types of services out there. Mary uses BlueHost, for example.  Both are reliable one-stop shops.
2. Choose a domain name. I think people over emphasize choosing a name for their website sometimes. Create good content and people will find it no matter what. Food for thought: Myspace was actually a furniture website before becoming a social network and Google was supposed to be spelled “Googol.” They messed up the spelling when registering the domain. Oops!
3. Install WordPress. If you don’t use Godaddy, you’ll have to install WordPress. Go here for simple installation instructions.
4. Choose a theme. This is the fun part. WordPress is incredibly flexible. Check out Themeforest, Rockettheme or WordPress Themes. You can choose any theme you want for your blog and it requires no programming and little design work on your part.
5. Get some plug-ins. WordPress has thousands of free, easy-to-install add-ons that range from creating a chatroom on your blog to adding a shopping cart to automatically optimizing your site’s SEO.
6. Start writing! - And that’s it. Check out Mary’s post, Blogging 101, for great tips on how to successfully engage your readers.

For a great comparison of different blogging platforms, check out this article as well. It’s clear and concise.

Now get out there and start sharing. And if you need any help, don’t forget I’m always just a click away.

-By Mike Mulhall, The Entrepreneur

Here are some cool apps I’ve used which will help any entrepreneur. Enjoy!

I just started using this app a few weeks ago and I love it! I use it to organize my thoughts, ideas, notes and even my blog posts. I especially like it because it’s based on their servers, meaning you can access your notes from any device connected to the web.

This is one of my favorite online apps for small business owners and independent contractors. It allows for invoice creation, tracking and collection. It’s done completely online and its simple to use. Because of its professional look and streamlined operation, this tool will help improve the perception your clients have of you.

If you’re not already using Gmail or Google Calendar…start. It’s simple in that Google way and very powerful. Cool features include: Users can share their calendars with others and post events on other’s calendars, and it runs on Google’s servers which means it can be accessed from any device or desktop.

Campfire is like instant messaging, but designed exclusively for groups. There’s a few sites out there like this. Google Wave is another that just came out, but Campfire has been around a while. There’s nothing to install and it’s very secure. You can share text, files, and code in real time. You can also conduct business negotiations with a group.

An very simple app that has saved my butt many times. It basically an online calendar on steroids. Setup it up to remind you about tasks or events via sms, email, instant messenger, skype etc.

I love this app! I’m all about sticky notes, so this is a dream for me. It allows you to place sticky notes on actual webpages. Then you can go back any time and look at the notes you left. If you do a lot of online research (bloggers, etc.), this may prove to be an invaluable app.

This is a fascinating concept that seems to be working very well. You essentially upload all of your bank-account and credit-card information, and the site maintains a running list of every transaction. Other Wesabe users can observe your spending habits and offer advice on what you should do or change. Scary but effective!

Another great tool for the independent contractor or someone who does a little work on the side. This site will hand your tracking, invoicing and reporting. It takes a very tedious task and makes it simple.

A great app for anyone that doesn’t have their TI-82 anymore. It is a highly intuitive online calculator that can actually be quite fun to use.

One of the entrepreneurial questions I’m asked most (some friends were asking me last night which inspired this posting) is in regards to the legalities of forming a business. I’ve formed so many LLC’s and “Incd” (that’s lingo for incorporated) so many companies that it’s no longer a very complicated process for me. In fact, I’ve had to find the easiest and cheapest methods available to form these business entities, and now I’d like to share them with you.

The name of the game is limit your liability. I put that in bold because it’s very important. As an entrepreneur, your going to take risks, a lot of them. Picture a corporation or an LLC as an artificial person that you’ve created. Now all of the business you do, the bank accounts you open, the merchant credit card accounts you start and the lease you sign will all be through this artificial person that you’ve created. If for some reason the business goes belly up or some one decides to sue you for any reason, they can’t go after you personally. They can only go after the LLC or corporation and its assets. So your car, your house, your money outside of the company is safe!

If the business can’t pay the bills, the business goes bankrupt not you, unless you’ve signed personal guarantees on anything (which they will most likely make you do when leasing a building, etc).

A sole proprietorship is the exact opposite of what we’ve discussed above. YOU are liable for your business and anything that happens to it. I don’t recommend this as your liability is far too great and you have no artificial person protecting you.

Anyone can start an LLC or corporation, for just about any reason. Whether you have a blog, a restaurant, an Ebay business or you’re a tutor, anyone can run their business through a company. In fact, it is very wise to do so. To provide a good example, I own a restaurant and I have plans on opening many more. What should I do? Open them all under my name or a corporation / LLC. Both would be wrong. I would open each restaurant under a separate corporation or LLC, thereby limiting each restaurant’s liability to themselves. So if one restaurant fails, the others are protected under their own corporations. That’s something they don’t teach you in college! It’s tricky at first, but gets much easier over time. It’s amazing how many novice entrepreneurs (my former self included) have jumped recklessly into ventures and not considered how to limit their risk exposure. It’s a crucial element of the game!

Now that you know why you need an LLC or corporation…it’s time to learn how…here is a very simple breakdown that will explain EVERYTHING you need to know:

• Corporation – Planning on going public? Then this might be for you. But if this is for a small business, you’ll probably want to form an “S-corporation.” If you form a regular corporation, you will be taxed on both the corporate earnings as well as your personal earnings, which means you’ll be double taxed. That’s no good! An S-Corporation stops that from happening. So you’ll most likely want to form an S-Corp. Drawbacks to forming a corporation are paperwork, record keeping requirements which very state to state and a large lack of flexibility. The main benefit from using an S-Corp is employment tax savings. So only the salary you collect can be taxed, not the profits you collect depending on the amount of shares you own.
• LLC (Limited Liability Company) – This is what I usually recommend to anyone who wants to start their own business. For all intensive purposes, an LLC is treated just like a corporation, BUT there is very little paperwork, almost no record keeping requirements, complete flexibility in ownership (have as many partners as you’d like), you can distribute the profits however you like and you are still protected by that “artificial person.”
• Sole Proprietorship – Don’t do it…

So odds are you going to want to start an LLC. Don’t go to a lawyer or accountant to do that! They’ll overcharge you for a service that a monkey can now do (I’m going to catch heat for that one)! There are plenty of online services that you can set this stuff up on. I use Bizfilings.com, they are very reliable and very fast. With a few clicks of the mouse and $150, you’ll have your very own corporation or LLC. A lawyer would charge you $2000. Thank me later….

On a final note, you can form your new LLC or S-Corp in any state you like, but I recommend forming it in the state you’ll be doing business in. Delaware and Nevada are both great places to form these types of entities because of their corporate laws and lack of taxes, while California is probably the most unfavorable place due to their minimum tax of $800 (you have to an annual $800 no matter what, unlike most other states) and their higher taxes. It all really depends on the business. Example: I own a restaurant in California…I formed that LLC in California. The various internet companies I own are mostly run through LLC’s in Nevada and Delaware because they’re based on the internet, not an actual physical location. So why not benefit from less taxes and better laws.

So that covers it all…now go start your company and get the ball rolling!