Small business owners gain benefits from Goldman Sachs classes

Many American entrepreneurs who have an idea of a business to start have already benefited from classes held by Goldman Sachs, aimed at teaching them some of the finer points and providing some startup capital, according to Bloomberg Business Week.

Jessica Johnson, one of the 10,000 Small Businesses programs first graduates, said traditional business education had been insufficient preparation for the world of the entrepreneur.

“I went to business school, but that really prepared me to go to work for somebody else,” she told Bloomberg, adding that her business has expanded since she took the intensive courses and added employees.

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Global media conglomerate News Corp. (NWSA) on Wednesday saw its quarterly earnings more than double from a year earlier on the strength of growth at its cable networks both in the U.S. and abroad.

For its fiscal second quarter News Corp. reported net income of $642 million, or 24 cents a share, compared with $254 million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose by 1% to $8.76 billion, up from $8.68 billion during the same period a year ago.

“I am confident that the significant positive momentum from these businesses will not only continue to drive News Corporation’s growth for the remainder of the fiscal year, but also strengthen the Company for growth in the years to come,” said News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch in a statement.

News Corp. is the parent company of FOXBusiness.com.

In case you haven’t noticed from the myriad of posts that I’ve written over the past couple of months, there are a LOT of incredible resources available to sellers on Etsy.  To recap so far, we covered:

• Part 1: Alchemy & the Forums
• Part 2: Pounce, Etsy Emails/Newsletters & The Storque Blog
• Part 3: Treasuries & Virtual Labs

Even if you think you have a handle on these resources, I implore you to check them out as even I learned new things researching for these articles (as did some of the commenters).

Today we’re going to take a look at just some of the Etsy Apps available as this topic alone may need more than one post – there are 43 outside applications that Etsy offers that can help you with your business.  And I’m not talking about phone apps, these are applications that you can use online in collaboration with your Etsy shops.

First, do you know where to find these Etsy apps?  Sign in to your account -> Your Etsy -> Resources (lower left hand side of screen) -> Etsy Apps

First, let me just mentino that I previously wrote a post back in May on Etsyhacks, my favorite application, which has provided me a lot of great shortcuts/tools that help me run my business.  I already wrote a post devoted just to this wonderful application here and it is one of the apps that Etsy has listed under its Resources.  

Now since there are so many apps available and writing one post on all of them would go on and on, I’m just going to touch base on a couple of them today based on team feedback I received (and save the others for future posts).  There is surely something that each of us will find interesting, intriguing and new!

** Please note that on each App page it mentions that “Etsy does not endorse or guarantee any third-party applications.”  And neither does EcoEtsy, so please do your homework to make sure any App is a good fit with your business.**

Craftopolis

According to the Etsy App Gallery, Craftopolis offers the following features:

“Shop Lovers: Gives sellers access to their sales data, hearts, views and alerts of upcoming expiring listings in a friendly calendar format. Combining both Google Analyt

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January, traditionally a month when thoughts turn to new ventures, is over in just a few days. So if you’re thinking about starting your own business, or even if you’re already knee-deep in entrepreneurship, I want to share a cautionary tale (or two) with you.

I’m coming up on my three-year anniversary as a small business owner. The fact that my partners and I are still standing after launching in the middle of the Great Recession must mean that we’ve at least done some things right. But we’ve also made a ton of mistakes.

So in the spirit of do as I say and not as I did, here are some startup don’ts you should be careful to avoid:

1. Don’t price your services too low. It’s easier to set prices when you’re selling products, since there are clear-cut costs, and often industry pricing formulas. But determining pricing for a service business is a lot harder.

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Wally Weitz released his Q4 letter to shareholders and detailed some of his holdings. For those of you not familiar with Weitz, he’s known as that other guy from Omaha. He’s averaged more than a 12% return annually for the past 25 years. He’s the founder and president of Wallace R. Weitz & Company, which is a registered investment advisory firm that started with $10 million under management in 1983. It now has $3 billion under management. I always make it a note to read his quarterly letter and look through his holdings. His stock holdings are a good place to generate ideas.

Weitz notes that many of his holdings went from “dirt cheap” to “moderately cheap” as 2010 went on. He owns a collection of Liberty Media companies, which are John Malone’s spin-offs. Weitz owns Liberty Global , Liberty Interactive , Liberty Capital , Liberty Starz , Discovery Communications , and Ascent Media . Two I’d like to

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