Bo Burlingham, author of Small Giants (and well on his way to being the father of a new “Small Giants” movement) will be joining me in conversation next week. Our topic: the DNA of the best small companies in America.

Too many businesses focus on revenue growth at the expense of profitability. They’re choosing a dollar today even if it may cost them 99 cents to deliver the value. Small Giants, on the other hand, focus on profit. They run systematic, efficient companies and celebrate their nimble size as well as the purity of their products and brand reputation.

Many of us are at a critical juncture. Having slimmed down our companies, do we ramp up again for growth? Or stay small for profit? Burlingham’s case studies will give you more to think about as you map out your business strategy.

For more information about our upcoming meetings decoding “small giants”, taking place in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York City, click here.

Our special guest will be Bo Burlingham:

March 17 @ 8AM: Greenwich, CT
March 18 @ 8AM: Union, NJ
March 18 @ 12:30PM: Downtown Manhattan

The appetizer approach to raising funds. Mark Suster proposes the rule of hors d’oeuvres to decide how much money your company should raise. The idea is that it’s bad form to take the entire hors d’oeuvres tray, but it’s probably a good idea to take two servings (in case the tray doesn’t come around for awhile). In other words, if an investor offers you more money than you think you need, but still at reasonable terms, take the extra money. “I know you think you’re going to do a bigger round later at a higher price but the problem is that if someone offers you [extra money] now it’s guaranteed,” he writes. “That same extra [money] might prove very difficult to get one year from now if something fundamentally changes in the market, your company isn’t getting traction as quickly as expected or your competition makes a lot of noise in the market.”

A handy social media cheat sheet. Our friends over at Fast Company have a quick and dirty cheat sheet that breaks down the value of different social networking sites for communicating with customers, getting brand exposure, boosting site traffic, and helping your SEO. For a more detailed guide, see how you can use social netowrking sites to drive your business.

Ex-assistant to Yahoo’s CEO disses her old company when she moves onto Twitter. Kristen Cordle, who tweets at GGateGirl, has shrewdly ascended the corporate ladder, moving from program manager at Logitech to assistant to Yahoo’s Carol Bartz to assistant to Twitter CEO Evan Williams, according to Valleywag. But as soon as Cordle fully transitioned to Twitter, the veiled insults started. First with a tweet about Twitter having the most outstanding company culture she’d experienced (”#goodpeople”) and then maligning Twitter rival Facebook. We’re keeping it in mind for next year’s list of the op 10 Most Awkward Social Media Moments.

Competition for group buying heats up. GroupOn, the Chicago start-up that helps local businesses find new customers by offering discounts to groups, is very hot right now. The company raised $30 million from venture capital firms in December and, according to TechCrunch, is projecting $100 million in gross sales for this year. GroupOn is so hot, in fact, that it’s spawning lots of well-funded competition. VentureBeat reports that LivingSocial, a a Washington, DC group buying start-up, just raised $25 million. VentureBeat notes that part of the attraction of group buying for investors is that it’s easy to turn a profit–most group buying companies simply take a cut of sales–and because there’s “room for niche-focused competitors. (Think Groupon for moms or LivingSocial for athletes.)”

Have you been neglecting your company’s Twitter account? You’re not alone. According to Mashable, a recent study found that only 21 percent of Twitter accounts are active. Thirty-four percent of Twitter users haven’t even made one tweet, and 73 percent have tweeted fewer than 10 times. The rapid growth of the micro-blogging site has also slowed: in April of 2009 the site grew 20 percent, but in December of the same year it only grew .34 percent.

The Future of Mobile? Superphones. By 2013, the installed base of smartphones and superphones will exceed the installed base of PCs and web-browsing will become fully mobile. So predicts ex-RealNetworks chairman Rob Glaser, in his first speech since stepping down. GigaOm lists the five big opportunities that Glaser says will emerge from this new tech landscape, including “digital persistence” (the idea that all content will be available everywhere at any point in time), access to content across devices, and improving the discovery process.

New apps from the Google Apps Marketplace you should try. Google has caused quite a stir among cloud-computing enthusiasts with the announcement of their new app store, which allows software developers to sell their Google Apps-integrated web tools to other businesses. To help users get the most of the search giant’s new offering, Mashable has suggested a few of the best apps available so far, such as Intuit Online Payroll, which allows employees to retrieve their paychecks from Google Calender and help with e-filing taxes, and Aviary, a nifty graphics editor that helps create business cards and slide presentations. “We’re only scratching the surface in terms of what the Google Apps Marketplace can potentially offer users, as well as developers and other providers,” the post says. “But just looking at some of the apps and integrations that already exist, we have to say, this is exciting.”

Is it possible to teach entrepreneurship? In the past we’ve written about whether entrepreneurship is in a person’s genes but a new article on CNN Money attacks the question from another angle: can entrepreneurship be taught? More specifically how good of a job are we doing of teaching it in schools. While the number of colleges and universities with entrepreneurship programs has increased tenfold in the last three decades, a study published by the Kauffman Foundation earlier this year found that that explosion has resulted in “no appreciable impact on entrepreneurial activity in the United States.” Still, the next generation of entrepreneurs is honing their skills one way or another.

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What’s the value of your business? That depends on whom you ask. Ask potential buyers, especially when they’re being cautious in tough economic times, and it might not meet your expectations. Negotiating a sale of a privately-held business is never a breeze – and it’s much less so in a down market in which there is little competition among buyers to drive up the multiple. When a seller’s expectations aren’t being met by potential buyers, including an earn-out provision in the acquisition contract can help narrow the price-expectation divide.A common feature of many acquisitions, an earn-out stipulates that the original owners of a business are paid for the sale of their company, following which they are contractually obligated to stay with the company through a transition period, and they are provided with the incentive to have a demonstrable effect on the company’s financial performance going forward. Achieving or exceeding a certain level of performance – criteria are typically set over a period of several years – means the original owners will earn a much larger profit from the sale. For buyers, an earn-out can offer the owner protection against overpaying for a company that doesn’t end up thriving or growing in the way its original owners expected. It can also smooth the period of ownership transition.Call it an incentive; call it delayed gratification; call it a compromise. Brian Mutert, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based investment bank Stratagem, which specializes in mergers and acquisitions, says earn-outs can benefit both buyers and sellers. 

“It’s a way for the buyer to put some skin in the game for the seller after the deal closes, and to provide some financial incentive for them to work hard in terms of the company’s business after they close the deal,” he says. “In a situation where the seller might believe there is a great opportunity for future growth potential, they can take some added benefit in the transaction.”

Dig Deeper: What’s Your Business Worth in a Buyers’ Market?

Structuring an Earn-out: Setting Realistic ExpectationsWhen there is a gap between an owner and a potential acquirer in the perceived value of a business, it is usually caused by the expected future growth of the company. That’s only natural. But as a small business owner, it’s necessary to step back and ask yourself: If your expectations are higher than those of your buyer, why is that? 

After all, it’s commonly known that roughly three-quarters of all mergers and acquisitions fall short of the expectations that are stated when the deal is announced. And about half of all deals result in a loss of value for the buyer’s shareholders. So, analyze exactly what you’re optimistic about – and how much of your purchase price you’re willing to risk on being successful in the future.Being equipped with solid expectations for your businesses success over the next five years can prepare you well for negotiating an earn-out.

Consider next what portion of your asking price you’d be willing to risk – and work for in the future.”An earn-out is a contingent payout, which essentially involves shifting some of the purchase price to be paid in the future on the realization of future earnings or some other benchmarks of success,” says George Geis, an associate dean of the Executive MBA Program at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. “So the owner needs to be wiling to delay some of the price, and be aware they might never get it.”Because most earn-out clauses are tied to the company’s performance (measured in sales, earnings, or some other benchmark) over a three-to-five-year period, that’s the timeline you should be thinking about your company’s health within before embarking on negotiations. If your company had a track-record of performing at or exceeding forecasts in the past, this fact should give you added negotiating power.

Knowing expectations is vital is because the range of earn-out terms that could be offered is vast. A buyer might agree to pay 90 percent of the total purchase price you desire upfront with the remaining 10 percent paid in stock or cash after a year of earn-out time. Alternately, the buyer might split the sale price 50/50 over five years during which time the owner must agree to stay with the company and optimize its performance.When Disney acquired Club Penguin in 2007, for example, it paid $350 million upfront, with $350 million more promised through a series of earn-outs. For high-tech and service businesses with high-growth potential, a typical deal might include an upfront payment from an acquirer of between 60 and 80 percent, with the balance paid over time possibly as an earn-out tied to performance. Geis estimates that, in the post-dot-com-boom era, the owners of private companies regularly have been taking between 40 and 45 percent of the total pay-out through an earn-out agreement, according to surveys. If you are embarking on a sale, you will want to make sure you know their future involvement is worthwhile – and is the best way to spend time for the money offered.

Dig Deeper: What Happens After You Sell a BusinessStructuring an Earn-out: Keeping it SimpleFor entrepreneurs looking for a quick sale of their business, the simple

st earn-out is none at all. There are significant risks involved in any acquisition that involves future conditions – especially when the old owner is expected to come on board to work for someone else and live by their rules. ”A CEO must recognize they will not be in control of their own destiny in any part the same way they were,” Mutert says. “They will have new bosses and will have to march to a new set of rules than they had to when it was their own company.”Many earn-outs depend on an extremely complicated matrix of variables and goals. This should be avoided if possible. Earn-outs are most effective as an incentive for the seller when the size of the payout is determined based upon one or two simple variables. A buyer who constructed a complicated set of goals covering earnings, customer retention, and myriad other circumstances should be challenged. These conditions might not be fully under your control should you accept the earn-out. And too many variables – especially when some are out of your hands – can make achieving your earn-out impossible, Geis says.”What you don’t want to happen to make it so they control you and that you don’t make your earn-out,” Geis advises sellers. “That can be that they control some marketing expenses or some other element that would change the game for you and take any control of the situation out of your hands within a year or so out.”In order to avoid spending years of your life working on a possibly unattainable goal, you’ll want to enter acquisition negotiations armed with a legal counsel, as well as financial advisors, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Instruct them to fight for a simple deal with an earn-out based on an easy-to-quantify metric, such as higher corporate revenue or an expanded client base.

The simplest earn-out might be a model newly being set by Google. The search giant’s director of corporate development told the Wall Street Journal that though the company used to be “addicted to” earn-outs and milestone-based compensation, the company is now shying away from such practices. Identifying myriad benchmarks and determining fair pricing for the earn-outs proved to be just too difficult. Now, “we tend to have pretty generous packages but they’re time-based, whether in equity or cash, instead of specific milestones,” Google’s David Sobota told the paper. Aiming for simplicity is best, too, for the future relationship between a company and its new owners. With aligned incentives and clear objectives, you will have less cause for arguing – or potential legal squabbles – when it’s time for your payout. Dig Deeper: A Case Study in Managing an Earn-out AgreementStructuring an Earn-out: Avoid Earn-out Burn-outJust as simplicity is key, for the seller, staying true to your priorities as a business owner is equally important. Sure, if you believe strongly in your company’s potential, and want to guide its success through new ownership, an earn-out might give you the opportunity to do so. But ensuring that a few key elements are in place in your agreement can greatly strengthen the new arrangement.• Keep your key players. If other executives were integral to your company’s growth and success, will your company be able to function under new ownership without them? If not, come up with deals to lock them in, too.

• Keep the length of your contract as short as possible. It sounds obvious, but you’ll minimize the potential for burn-out by minimizing your time working with your new parent company. You can always renew and re-negotiate, but can’t hit undo. It’s that simple.

• Make sure you have control. Ensure that the contract expressly states that you will oversee any departments that will be executing on the goals and standards set forth in the earn-out. You should never allow yourself to be accountable for what you cannot control.

• Ensure that incentives are in place. You know what motivates you at work. One is seeing your business succeed, and the second is money.  If you’ve made a lot of cash in the initial sale, it’s natural to loose attachment to future goals for the company. The earn-out percentage should be high enough to keep you from losing interest, especially in the event of a setback. If you are going to commit, commit fully. Each of these standards, which you and your buyer will negotiate, can and should be included in your earn-out agreement. To vet that document, enlist acquisition specialists on both the legal and financial front. Mutert cautions that both buyers and sellers should expect to pay top-dollar for acquisition services, though, due to the complex nature of the work. In no case should the buyer be the only voice in determining any of these elements, though, Mutert says.”In downstream earn-outs you have to be very, very careful,” he says. “Know the people that you’re dealing with on the other side of the table, and work very hard to get the incentives aligned for all of the parties.”Dig Deeper: Retaining Employees Through AcquisitionsStructuring an Earn-out: Ensure Good Chances for Success (and Avoid Disaster)You already know the importance of laying out simple, clear-cut standards that must be met for an earn-out to pay-out. There are some additional questions both parties should consider before signing on the dotted line.Will the acquired party have enough autonomy?”Earn-outs tend to work well when the seller is going to continue to run pretty much as before,” Geis says. To that end, a seller should get in writing the seller’s commitment to leave operations largely unchanged. If certain redundancies or back-office functions are to be folded into the acquiring company, that’s fine. You simply want to make sure that every part of the acquired company that can be run independently is run independently.

Is the purpose of the earn-out financial or strategic?

An earn-out can be made for purely financial reasons, or a buyer can be making a bet on the owner’s ability to expand the business. You will want to know which motivation is at play—and whether it is likely to change after the deal is closed. If the acquirer keeps a respectful distance and seems to be giving you autonomy, that is a good sign. 

Who is the umpire? How will progress against an earn-out’s goals be evaluated?

Consider both who will be evaluating the entrepreneur’s performance under new ownership, and when evaluations will take place. Is it simply at the end of the period set in the contract, or will progress be tracked quarterly? Will the earn-out be allocated piecemeal or in one lump-sum? There’s no right answer, but these questions should be addressed early on in your negotiations.

What will happen in the event outside factors drastically change the outcome?Factors in neither party’s control can harm the buyer’s and entrepreneur’s ability to maximize the rewards pledged in an earn-out. What if your industry tanks? What if a natural disaster hits? What if your biggest client was Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns? Make sure to create contingency plans to address the most unlikely of scenarios – especially if you’re entering into a long-term earn-out deal.Dig Deeper: Striking a Good DealStructuring an Earn-out: Additional ResourcesWhat not to do:Deals from Hell: M&A Lessons that Rise Above the Ashes by Robert F. Bruner. Wiley, 2009.A solid textbook:Mergers, Acquisitions, and Other Restructuring Activities: An Integrated Approach to Process, Tools, Cases, and Solutions, by Donald DePamphilis. Academic Press, 2009. On financial and legal issues:Mergers and Acquisitions: A Step-by-Step Legal and Practical Guide by Edwin L. Miller. Wiley, 2008.

More resources from Inc.com: How to Structure an Earn-out

You’ve got to spend money to make money and, at any given time, your business undoubtedly owes someone something. Even if you’re a solo entrepreneur or an independent contractor, you’re likely spending for business purposes, and you need to keep track of expenses – both before and after they’re paid.Though the terminology can sound intimidating, accounts payable is simply the process of accounting for and paying invoices—it’s your company’s updated list of debts and liabilities. Managing accounts payable boils down to adding an invoice to a log – it can be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet – as soon as you receive it. When you pay a bill, you should remove it from your current log.

You probably already have an accounts payable system, however meager. If you track in a to-do list or calendar what bills are due, voila. That’s your starting point.

Formalizing accounts payable into professional documents so is not difficult, nor should it take a great amount of effort, says David Barrett, who worked in a string of start-ups before creating Expensify, an online finance program that aims to simplify business expensing. “Overall, setting up accounts payable doesn’t have to be terribly hard. There are bigger problems for any small business to deal with, so don’t stress,” he says. “But foresight here can save a lot of headaches down the road.”As your business grows, your accounting system will likely grow more complex, as you turn your focus to maximizing cash flow and integrate with suppliers. Strong accounts payable can also give you a leg up in managing your critical numbers and developing financial reports for your bank or for outside investors. We’ve compiled a guide to getting started on the right track – and incorporating best practices – to managing your accounts payable. Dig Deeper: Basic Small Business Accounting TipsSetting Up Accounts Payable: Getting OrganizedIf you have a business banking account (hint: you should), and you’re setting up a formal accounts payable system for the first time, you should pick an application with which you’re comfortable. Any spreadsheet or online finance program will do. For offline, manual-entry accounts payable, Excel is still the standard. QuickBooks is a good online option, and you can often find local classes to help you learn the in’s and out’s of recordkeeping. If you already use an online personal money-management program such as Mint, you might take a look at Outright.Once your system is set up, every receipt, business credit-card item, and incoming bill should be entered into your digital file. You’ll also need to keep your paper bills organized. Prepare to open them immediately, enter them digitally, and file the hard copy until it is paid. Once it is, retain a stub both virtually and in hard copy. Your next decision: Will you be the only person handling accounts payable? If not, who else will have access to this information and for what purpose? If your business has several employees, it’s just fine to have an administrator involved in entering data into the accounts payable system, but you should plan to keep a close eye on it always, says Kathryn Amenta, a San Francisco-based financial advisor.”I would recommend a business owner understand their finances fully before they turn it over to someone else to handle,” she says. “It’s super-important as an owner to have a finger on the financial pulse. That’s the bottom line – that’s why you’re in business.”That said, in growing companies, it is advisable to have more than one pair of eyes on outgoing payments to avoid both honest mistakes and billing fraud. If you have a head of finance, he or she should oversee bookkeeping operations and keep you updated on your company’s payables.Another consideration: Is there anything else you want to incorporate into accounts payable? Employee expenses are one possibility if you use the cash-based method of accounting rather than accrual. If you don’t know which of these you will be using, or if you’re not yet registered as an LLC or an S or C corporation, you should pause here and make some key decisions about incorporation.

Dig Deeper: How to Choose the Right Legal Structure

Setting Up Accounts Payable: Listing Expenses

If you’re using a straightforward cash system, the expenses you classify as accounts payable can include any of your own that are not strictly personal. Barrett suggests that you – and any employee allowed to file expenses – might want to be extremely disciplined about using a business-only credit card for expenses. “As you are growing, having everyone make purchases with on one business credit card is a great way to mitigate fraud,” he says. “Fraudulent cash purchases are fairly rampant in companies of any size, and with software that uploads data directly from your card account, it’s harder for someone to try to report the same expense twice.”If you’re using a spreadsheet rather than an accounting program, a basic template should include, in rows, the invoice provider’s name, account number, the category of the expense, the date the invoice was received, and the amount to be paid. Ideally, you’ll want to get this information into the spreadsheet as soon as a bill arrives. You’ll need a few other forms, too, for enclosing with payments, and to keep your own future books. Sample templates can be found on the site of the non-profit educational organization International Accounts Payable Professionals. Dig Deeper: Best Practices for Accounts PayableSetting Up Accounts Payable: Establishing Invoice Schedules and Other GuidelinesOnce you have the basic tools in place to track accounts payable, remember exactly why you are doing so: To monitor spending and maintain good relations with your service and product providers. For the latter, it is important is to establish a standard window for payment – with a reasonable expectation being to have each bill paid within 30 days.Amenta recommends you go a step further and strive to have any given bill mailed out three weeks before it is due. That will earn you professional respect from your suppliers. You can also, after a time, ask them about discounts or added-value services in return for prompt payment.Another goal of a sound accounts payable system is to monitor and maintain cash flow. Having a parallel, well- functioning accounts receivable system will help with this. Getting behind on your bills might seem inevitable in a start-up, but both of these systems can help you recognize and mitigate imbalances – by, for example, identifying seasonal patterns cush as periods during the year when purchases might outweigh sales.

One simple and necessary step to knowing how much flexibility you have on paying each account is to review existing supplier payment terms. If you have a contract with a supplier, it should include payment terms and available credit. Keep these on file so you can reference them if you should get in a tight spot.

Be cognizant of the risks of getting behind on your bills. You may alienate reliable providers, risk damaging your company’s credit, and could ultimately face legal action. Unpaid bills also cause stress and distraction at a time when you should be focused on managing your business.

Dig Deeper: Creating a System of Accounts Payable Safeguards

Setting Up Accounts Payable: Recognizing Trouble SpotsOnce you’re accustomed to your accounts payable system, you’ll start to observe trends. Notice when the most spending occurs for your business. What categories of spending are most in flux? When do you rely most heavily on your suppliers to finance inventory? For retail companies, the holidays are a time of tremendous inequity of accounts payable and accounts receivable. The goal is to be financially prepared for times of big spending that come in advance of payments received, but when that doesn’t happen, there are a couple of simple things you can do to maintain relationships that might come under stress.First, Amenta advises clients to be proactive. Be honest with your suppliers about when, if not within a 30- or 60-day window, they can expect to receive a payment. “Pick up the phone, call creditors and let them know what’s going on,” she says. “Be clear. Say ‘I’m going to pay this much this month, and this much next month, even if it’s just a token amount so they know you are on it.”Second, thank your suppliers for their flexibility and remind them about your prompt previous payments. If they become hostile about not being paid, offer references to your long-term financial stability, or even last year’s balance sheet to prove your continued viability. Help them get over their “check-is-in-the-mail” concerns.Dig Deeper: What to Do When You Can’t Pay a BillSetting Up Accounts Payable: Choosing Business Accounting SoftwareOnce your accounts payable grows beyond the size of a bill or two a day – or a manageable handful of checks to cut each week – you might want to consider either putting an employee in charge of the basic data-entry and accounting or adopting software to streamline the process.Some free options online can help at any stage of your company’s growth. Check out Outright, a free online bookkeeping system with a clean aesthetic. Some businesses swear by QuickBooks, which offers a free online trial. Intuit’s Quicken is another choice. If expenses are a big part of your accounts payable, check out software options that help integrate employee expenses into your accounting system, such as Expensify or Concur.If you’re looking to implement software but don’t feel as if you have the time or skills to set up the system, you can always hire a business accountant or bookkeeper to integrate an accounting system for you. Hiring for a quick set-up process should only require a contractor. Search sites such as eLance.com or TeaSpliller.com or even Craigslist can help you find a qualified professional in your area.Dig Deeper: How to Choose Business Accounting SoftwareSetting Up Accounts Payable: Additional ResourcesWith a variety of training and professional development programs for people working in accounts payable, the non-profit group International Accounts Payable Professionals can be a great training resource. The group’s website also offers accounts payable form templates for you to download.

If you’re just getting started and find yourself unfamiliar with some of the terminology involved in accounts payable, check out this thorough online glossary. The Financial Managers Society is another professional organization where you can look for advice, tools and guidance.

To speed the start-up process for student (and faculty) entrepreneurs, the University of Texas is launching a program called Texas Venture Labs.The university-wide initiative will guide entrepreneurs through the company birthing process and connect them with business, technology and legal resources. Funded by alumni from the McCombs School of Business, where it is housed, Texas Venture Labs will selectively take on projects and provide (student) labor to help the firms get off the ground. That includes doing market research, developing a business plan, building a team and seeking outside funding — all of which students will do for course credit. The program, which won’t take equity in the companies, will work closely with the university’s schools of engineering and law.Texas Venture Labs will also guide Austin companies and investors to the fledgling firms. Its first partnership: the 67-member Central Texas Angel Network, one of the nation’s leading groups. In 2009 — as venture capital funding declined across the US — CTAN invested $3.5 million in 12 ventures, 10 in Austin itself. That’s up from $1 million in nine deals during 2008. The news of the program, announced Wednesday night, comes as a Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report shows U.S. entrepreneurship education lagging and follows a decrease in VC fundraising last year. In 2009, 125 funds in the US took in $13.6 billion, compared to $28.7 billion raised by 203 funds in 2008 and $40.8 billion from 217 funds in 2007, according to VentureSource data cited in The Wall Street Journal.”Employers are looking for people who can manage innovation, and satisfying that demand requires that our students have tangible experience turning ideas into products and services,” said Thomas Gilligan, McCombs’ dean, in a statement.Rob Adams, the program’s director, said the program aimed to be a “central clearinghouse for helping entrepreneurs transform ideas and technologies developed on campus into start-ups.” Adams, who has contributed to Inc., has helped more than eight start-ups through an early stage version of this program  in the last five years, with each successfully raising multi-million dollar rounds of financing. Two of the companies, Phurnace and eVapt, ­ recently were acquired, generating venture class returns for their investors, Adams said.He described Texas Venture Labs as a “very novel” way to help produce results in a down economy.

The question is whether it will be a game changer?

Google has officially launched its Apps marketplace this week. These are third party applications progammed to integrate with everything else you or your company has sitting on the Google cloud (i.e. Gmail, Google calendar, Docs&Spreadsheets, etc.).

The Good

These apps are built to seamlessly integrate with other Google offerings (like Gmail, for example). Ideally you can do all your work in one universe with one password. How handy!

The Bad

These apps are built to seamlessly integrate with other Google offerings (like Gmail, for example). So, what happens to your business when Google has another one of their day-long or even 3 hour outages?

The Ugly

These apps are built to seamlessly integrate with other Google offerings (like Gmail, for example). As the video below demonstrates, it is as easy as pie to set up an app on your network. Step one: give the third party app maker carte blanche access to all your Google accounts (that’s Gmail, the calendar, files, etc.) so that it can do all that promised seamless integration.

((insert the souind of a car screeching to a halt))

The idea is to hand over the keys to your data kingdom to a thirdy party company (two college drop-outs working out of their parent’s basement).

What about network security?

What about compliance?

If someone isn’t already doing it, how long will it be before all the bottomfeeders who create elaborate phishing schemes and DNS attacks think to create apps just to get access to company information?

The stereotype startup guy or gal is a high energy, always schmoozing, hard pitching and hand-shaking go-getter. But since 50 percent of the population are identified by psychological studies as introverts, that stereotype might need some examining.

But most people believe there’s some sort of stigma about being an introvert, according to Nancy Ancowitz, author of Self Promotion for Introverts and blogger for Psychology Today. Ancowitz is a self-proclaimed introvert with a history in both large companies and her own enterprises. Many introverts, she says, “make great entrepreneurs.” Introvert stereotypes include being more considered, looking inward for approval and guidance, and researching problems looking for perfect answers. These same characteristics can make great business leaders.

What advice can help the introvert succeed in a startup? Ancowitz says “When selling as an introvert, use your abilities as a good researcher to really know audience, know what matters to them, and figure out a product match before you go in. You’ll be meeting with people, so rest up before social interactions with those you are selling to or speaking in front of. Prepare and practice because as an introvert you will think before you speak - as opposed to extroverts who speak as they think. So having a few lines ready, or thoughts composed in advance will be beneficial. Rest, prepare and practice is the magic formula because of the way introverts are wired.”

That seems to work for Adelaide Lancaster, co-founder of In Good Company Workplaces, a community and workspace for women entrepreneurs in NYC that provides events, consulting, shared desks and meeting rooms. As a graduate student in a psychology program, Lancaster found out she was an introvert. In 2003 she formed a consulting practice helping women in professional transition. It was research and data driven. “As an introvert it was more comfortable being a resource instead of being in an interpersonal mode all the time. Now I’m in business now with an off-the-charts extrovert. Our focus is on entrepreneurs, and our consulting led into creating the workspace.”

Lancaster gave me a tip for startup introverts. “While putting your business model in place, feedback is a critical component, but introverts may close themselves off to that - it might not occur to them to ask others for advice. They need opinions and iteration.” Lancaster didn’t talk to lots and lots of people, but she strategically chose 5 people to check in with and get advice from. She also notes “There’s an opportunity cost if you’re not connected to other business owners - if you over-emphasize research it can prevent you from finding easy solutions to your problems right, in your business network.” Lancaster uses Twitter and LinkedIn groups to connect with business resources and share tips.

This connects well with Ancowitz’s advice to “Get known as an expert, and build deep and meaningful relationships. Introverts do well with deep relationships and conversations rather than chit-chat. Be generous in introducing people to each other as well. Then it’s easier for you to ask for introductions from your good contacts.” She also notes “if you’re an introvert there may be activities you’ll like more than others, like writing or speaking to one person at a time. There are many ways to market with quiet activities like blogging, using Twitter, writing for newsletters, and doing guest columns that can help you promote yourself.”

Any introverts out there? Share your tips and tricks in the comments below.

(Disclosure: I am quoted in Ancowitz’s book as an expert and an NYU colleague. We both teach at NYU SCPS, but I did not hire her or have a business relationship with her. I report on the book not because of my quotes in it, but because it’s an important guide for those who may have trouble promoting themselves, and that’s why I agreed to be interviewed.)

Happy Birthday Craigslist. The schlubby classified ad site, which managed to blow up the newspaper business by behaving decidedly unbusinesslike, was founded nearly 15 years ago, according to a blog post from the site’s eponymous founder Craig Newmark. He digs up what he calls “the earliest archaeological find” from the site’s early days. It’s a message directing users of the Well, an early social network, to Newmark’s new home page. “My focus, on this page, is on events around San Francisco that involve arts and technology, privacy rights, local writers and artists, and any other item that strikes my fancy,” he wrote. “The approach is as minimalist as I could make.” PSFK, which flags the post, puts it in perspective, “From that simple start, today the site serves over twenty billion page views per month, putting it in 37th place overall among web sites worldwide and 11th place overall among web sites in the United States.”

When is it okay to check your cellphone? If you’re having dinner with your spouse and your phone buzzes with a text, do you reach for it? If you reach for it, do you text back? In Farhad Manjoo’s house, that would be verboten (at least not without asking permission). In fact, one shouldn’t text at all when having a face-to-face conversation, according to Slate’s attempt to set the ground rules for cell phone use. On Twitter last week, young technophiles like the New York Times’s Nick Bilton argued the opposite. When Bilton’s lunching with his boss he leaves his phone alone, but around other tech-savvy people his own age, he texts without compunction. We’re hoping the bit about his wife texting him to get his attention during dinner was a joke.

Google begins selling business software. Apple’s iPhone App Store has created a billion dollar opportunity for small businesses that develop applications and games for the popular gadget. Now Google is trying to pull off the same trick for business software, which could be great news for business-to-business companies in need of customers. TechCrunch reports on the release of the Google Apps Marketplace, which allows companies to sell web-based business software that integrates with programs like Gmail and Google Docs. The app strategy will undoubtedly improve Google’s already impressive (and free) software offering. But it could also be an opportunity for entrepreneurs. “For…small startup developers, it means instant access to more users than they can likely imagine,” TechCrunch writes. “It also potentially means something more important: money.”

How to handle employee turnover. Entrepreneur turned venture capitalist Mark Suster posted on his blog, Both Sides of the Table, about how the difficulty of moving from one job to the next. On A VC, Fred Wilson responds by breaking down the issue from every side: the employee, the current employer, and the future employer. One recommendation: If a key employee leaves suddenly, it’s worth exercising some patience before bringing an outsider onboard. In that scenario, a “battlefield promotion” might be the best option.

Charting the Facebook economy. We’ve written in the past about the dangers of building your business on someone else’s platform. But many companies, undeterred by that risk–and attracted by the prospect of hundreds of millions of potential customers–have built business models that rely heavily on Facebook. The Guardian takes a stab at estimating the size of the Facebook economy, figuring that among a slew of companies such as Playfish, Zynga, and Plancast, the social network’s broader economy is easily worth several billion dollars. The article asks “whether [Facebook is] a viable ecosystem, a bubble or a house of cards.”

How to simplify your phone system. Can’t get an invitation to Google Voice, the free service that transcribes voicemails and rings multiple numbers? (Read more about Google Voice here.) A start-up called Phonebooth.com is attempting to pick up the slack, Mashable reports. The website is now offering Phonebooth OnDemand, which is a full-featured phone service that will set you back $20 a month per user. The no-cost version, which is called Phonebooth Free and is aimed at small businesses, will give you a local number with up to five extensions, call-forwarding to multiple sources, and voicemail with transcription.

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CNN just published an article on a prototype that is being developed in London that could forever change the way we drive and consume resources. Volvo is working with Imperial College scientists to develop a car that would use composite materials to act as its own battery. Aside from the enormous cost savings for consumers, this would also help to reduce carbon footprints and natural resource consumption.

This is not the first attempt that has been made in this area. In 2008, the Paris Motor Show unveiled “The Eclectic,” a self-powered electric car that had been designed by French carmaker Venturi.

It does not look like a bastion of safety.

Curt’s company has software that helps the accidental project manager.