When a business consultant found no angel investor interested in funding her dream venture – $30,000 to start her small practice – she came up with a brilliant idea.

She promised her first ten clients a full refund on their fee at a follow-up consultation (six months later) provided they paid her upfront for the first visit. Temporarily at least, her problem was solved and she ended up signing quite a few clients.

The thing is that if you are new in a business and without any track record, you may find it difficult raising capital from lenders or investors. The chances of getting VC funding for such a venture are as bright as getting struck by a bolt of lightening!…

Another large credit card company this week launched a business credit card to specifically meet the needs of small business owners. This launch is yet more proof of how fast the small business segment is growing and contributing to the U.S. economy.

According to Ruth Davis, Vice President, D&B Small Business Credit Products, “The small business segment is still underserved and many small business owners continue using their personal cards for business expenses instead of business credit cards. They are still unaware of how critical building and managing their business credit is to the success of their businesses.”

For small businesses and entrepreneurs, D&B Small Business Group recommends that:

Small businesses should use a business credit card over a personal credit card.…

More than half of U.S. small businesses do not use accounting software.

AMI Partners, Inc., a research firm that specializes in global small business market research, notes this in a recently-published study, entitled “Small Business Accounting is Big…and Getting Bigger”:

“U.S. small businesses (SBs; companies with 1 to 99 employees) spent approximately US$410 million on purchasing accounting software solutions in the last 12 months, and this figure is expected to cross the half-billion-dollar mark by 2008. The nearly 6% annual increase in accounting-software-related dollars augurs well for industry-leader Intuit (with their QuickBooks portfolio) and Microsoft, which recently jumped on the small business bandwagon with its release of Small Business Accounting 2006.