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Harri Sudhaann

How to Protect Your Business Idea Without a Patent. Free Non-Disclosure Agreement Forms. What Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Valuations. Getting your first term sheet from a venture-capital firm is among the most exhilarating moments that you'll experience as an entrepreneur.

What Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Valuations

It probably sits up there with the college acceptance letter in the pantheon of milestones. How to Value Your Startup. It's commonly said that business valuation is more art than science.

How to Value Your Startup

If this is true, then the practice of valuing a startup business is squarely in the domain of the artist. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs need to put a value on their startups in order to raise money, and investors need to put a value on their investments to generate liquidity. Since neither entrepreneurs nor investors are known for right-brain artistic thinking, this article aims to provide some tips for left-brain thinkers to make sense of startup valuation. 1. You are what the market says you are. However, this isn't always true. How Much Is This Business Worth? - If you're interested in purchasing an existing business, here are a few ways to gauge its value.

How Much Is This Business Worth? -

Q: I am looking into trying to buy an existing teashop. The owner said to make him on offer, but I'm not sure of the best way to determine the worth of the business. How Should We Divide Equity Among Co-Founders? I understand that one's share of equity should be contribution-based.

How Should We Divide Equity Among Co-Founders?

However, when you are making arrangements with co-founders, is there a generic rule of thumb that you must follow? If you want to control future decisions of the startup as originator of the concept, how do you make sure to retain the full control? There are many different ways to approach equity compensation for the founding team. There is not necessarily a one-size fits all answer to this question. How Should We Divide Equity Among Co-Founders? How to Attract Talent With Little Cash. Editor's Note: Entrepreneur's Ask the Expert column seeks to answer questions about everything from starting a business to growing one.

How to Attract Talent With Little Cash

To follow the column on Twitter -- and ask a question -- use hashtag #ENTexpert, or leave a comment below. Your query may be the inspiration for a future column. Q: It seems like investors want a team before they provide funding but a startup needs funding before they can attract great talent. So, how can I attract great talent with no capital, so I can present my strong team to investors?

It seems like the answer is always equity but in expensive places like Silicon Valley, my employees need something to live on. Small Business Encyclopedia. Definition: A business arrangement in which one company gives another company permission to manufacture its product for a specified payment .

Small Business Encyclopedia

There are few faster or more profitable ways to grow your business than by licensing patents, trademarks, copyrights, designs, and other intellectual property to others. Licensing lets you instantly tap the existing production, distribution and marketing systems that other companies may have spent decades building. In return, you get a percentage of the revenue from products or services sold under your license. Licensing fees typically amount to a small percentage of the sales price but can add up quickly.

For example, about 90 percent of the $160 million a year in sales at Calvin Klein Inc. comes from licensing the designer's name to makers of underwear, jeans and perfume. On the other side of the coin, you could be the one with the interest in licensing the high-recognition brand name of another company. Licensing offers three major advantages. The Complete Inventor's Guide. One of the strengths of our free-market economic system is competition.

The Complete Inventor's Guide

After all, because of competition, we have choices in both quality and price in the services we use, the places we shop and the products we buy. However, if you are an inventor or manufacturer of a new product, competition can be a major problem. For this reason, I am often asked how to protect an invention or new product from being stolen or "knocked off. " In my experience, the answer to the competitive challenges is to create a strategy based on the goals for the invention, the specific product itself, and the approach to be taken. 5 Signs You're Standing In Your Own Way to Success.


5 Signs You're Standing In Your Own Way to Success

Each of them seemed to make a lot of the same mistakes -- ones that could be easily remedied, but when left unaddressed, could mean the difference between success and failure. Here are five signs you're getting in your own way to success and how to move over and let yourself be the best you can be: 1. You're unable to complete a task before starting a new one. Some entrepreneurs just cannot finish. The 7 Sleep Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs. We all know lack of sleep is harmful to our health -- sleep affects mood, increases risk of psychiatric disorders and depression, cardiovascular disease and lowers immune system health.

The 7 Sleep Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs

Yet the stress of running a company and long working hours means entrepreneurs often find themselves functioning on little sleep. Evanston, Ill. -based sleep expert Dr. How Square Earned a $3 Billion Valuation. Three years ago, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey started a company called Square to offer business owners a new way to accept payments over mobile devices.

How Square Earned a $3 Billion Valuation

This week, after closing a $200 million round of financing, the San Francisco-based company is reportedly valued at $3.25 billion. It's enormous news for a startup that has grown from about 150 employees a year ago to more than 400 today. Square says it's processing more than $8 billion in payments each year. So how has Square managed it? Here are three strategic choices the young company made that helped put it on its current trajectory: 1. Everyone from plumbers to food-truck owners suddenly had a third way to get paid besides cash and check, and customers could use their plastic in more places than ever before. Related: How 'NFC' and Mobile Wallets Will Change the Way Retailers Do Business 2. In May 2011 it announced two new mobile apps, Card Case and Register. Feeling Down? Here Are 3 Ways to Stay Motivated.

Editor's Note: College Treps is a weekly column that puts the spotlight on college and graduate school-based entrepreneurs, as they tackle the tough task of starting up and going to school. Follow their daily struggles and this column on Twitter with the hashtag #CollegeTreps. How Entrepreneurs Think Differently and You Should Too. Image credit: Shutterstock.