The Venture Edge

According to the Small Business Administration, 70 percent of Americans dream of one day starting their own businesses. And one of the most popular ways that people become entrepreneurs is by turning a hobby into a business.  

Whether or not you like Obama's health care reforms, the resulting law is (still) in effect, and it is beginning to have tangible financial impacts on business -- impacts that you should be aware of.  

A client of mine in Texas recently asked me if I had ever read the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, mentioning that it was one of his favorites. I admitted that although an early-'60s, 1,000-page+ paperback edition of the book has graced my bookshelf for as long as I can remember, I had never gotten around to reading it. Then, when a colleague of mine -- Traci Fenton, founder and CEO of WorldBlu -- mentioned to me that she was about to read the book, I knew that my time had finally come. I dusted off that old, yellowed copy of the book and dug in -- reading it in 5 and 10 minute bursts while waiting to pick up my daughter at school each day.