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Articles by Russ Fujioka
What's Got Small Business Owners Spooked This Halloween
Think about what really scares you as a small business owner. Is it the infamous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho or a visit from the tax man? Is it flesh-eating zombies? Or, is it running out of cash? Is it a doll that has come to life? Or is it realizing you forgot to respond to a customer email? Horror movies can seem like child's play in comparison to some of the fears you face on the daily, running a small business.
7 Ways To Protect Yourself From Being Hacked
You'd be hard-pressed to find an American business that doesn't rely on the internet in one way or another. It's a great business tool that opens up global markets to small businesses everywhere. But all businesses need to be wary of how being part of the connected world can put you in contact with hackers and scammers out to take advantage and profit at your expense.
Trump Vs. Clinton: What Really Matters For Small Business
As I watched the first two presidential debates between Secretary Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump something struck me about the current narrative around small business and the US economy. With the debates twisting towards talk of tax returns and emails, we need to re-center - to focus on what will move the boulders currently blocking growth in our economy.
How These 3 Smart Technologies Are Changing The Face Of Small Business
With improvements in cloud technology spreading like wild, small businesses are in a position where they can take advantage of these advancements. They can leverage tools that will help them run their business more effectively from anywhere at anytime, gain real-time insights into their performance and streamline their selling and customer service initiatives.
Surefire Signals Your Business Is Behind-The-Times
The world has been through a mass amount of change. Think back to what it was like to do business without smartphones, laptops and even email - the newest members of the workforce have never known a world without those advancements. Technology has flipped the way customers find and communicate with you. Ignoring some of these changes means you're probably leaving business on the table. Businesses that operate on dated technology and workplace cultures run the risk of getting left behind.
Not Accepting At Least 1 Of These Payments? Your Business Is Behind-The-Ball
The average person in the US makes more than 370 non-cash purchases every year. The exchange of money between businesses and their customers is more convenient than ever thanks to disruption in the payments sector. This revolution in fintech has seen improvements in mobile payments and a focus on making the customer experience seamless.
How After-Hours Email is Sapping the Energy of Entrepreneurs
We've all been there, it's late and the blip of a notification on your phone lights up the dark of your bedroom. The impulse to check it is almost impossible to subdue. Before you know it, you've got your laptop open and you're doing work when you should be asleep. Being constantly connected can be a blessing and a curse.
Microsoft, Walmart and Verizon's Latest Tech Buys Can Teach Us Something Extremely Important
With an estimated $260 billion in tech deals announced this year alone, there's a ton of M&A activity in the industry at the moment. Some of these mergers are a sign of the success of the company that is being bought, while, for others, it may signal the end of the road. While not every startup sets out to get acquired, it's virtually unanimous that all want to achieve success.
Why Small Businesses Are Turning To Cloud Computing Faster Than Ever
From the coffee shop down the street to the local grocery store, a growing number of America's small businesses are using cloud technology in some way, shape or form. Even if they don't realize it. Small businesses are the country's largest job generators and collectively make the biggest contribution to GDP. It's a highly fragmented market but one that is increasingly being connected by technology.
Business Lessons Learned From Competing In The Olympics
For these two weeks in August, the world's attention is on Rio. What draws us in? It's the athletes themselves. It's watching their strength and dedication over the past four years, over a lifetime really, come to a head on the world's biggest stage. Most of us are able to have "off days," but for athletes competing at the Olympic level, it would seem those words aren't even part of their vocabulary. It takes a unique amount of skill, determination and hard work to make it at that level.
Employee Perks Don't Have to be Crazy Anymore
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google in a garage back in the late 90s, they didn't have a bowling alley attached to their original offices, but they did have a ping-pong table. The mega tech company has come a long way from that Menlo Park garage. Google undoubtedly offers some of the best perks in Silicon Valley.
The 1 Thing That's Killing Your Productivity, and How To Beat It
Distraction is the one mortal enemy of productivity. While lovely, light open-plan offices are undoubtedly more inspiring than the dimly-lit offices of the past, there are times when it can be hard to block out the noise and get your work done. Add this to the already long list of distractions in your work day - notifications galore, chat apps, phones and emails - and you've got yourself a bit of a monster on your hands.
3 Simple Ways You Can Improve Your Online Security
An owner of a brick-and-mortar business, or anyone for that matter, knows that they wouldn't just leave the front door wide open when they leave for the day. It's just common sense really. This kind of security common sense applies to a business' digital assets, however, may not be enforced as diligently. When it comes to protecting your small business' digital data, it all starts with being aware.
3 Tools to Improve Your Mindset and Streamline Your Business
There is no one app or tool that will completely change your life. However, when it comes to improving your mindset and streamlining your business, it's all about finding a synchronicity between the tangible and intangible resources at your disposal. Change does not happen overnight. Human behavior specialist and serial entrepreneur, Mel Robbins, recently shared with me three tools we can use to kickstart a fresh state of mind as well as develop a more refined business practice.
Why You're Doing Mindfulness All Wrong
If you're up-to-date on your buzzwords, then you'll know that mindfulness is the new black. It seems that everyone has their own idea of what it means to be mindful. Apps like Headspace, Smiling Mind and iMindfulness promise to help you center yourself, clear the noise from your brain and assist to de-stress. There really is an app for everything.
How Pokemon Go Can Help You Catch Millennials
"Pokemon are for paying customers only." It's a statement several small business owners have made this week off the back of the phenomenal success of Pokemon Go. The augmented reality app has revitalized the anime craze that millennials grew up with.
3 ways cloud technology is boosting productivity
If your business isn't already using cloud technology, you run the risk of being left behind. With younger startup companies starting out in the cloud and an increasing number of existing companies making the move, it's time to step away from that pen and paper and even your desktop software; the cloud is here and it's already showing just how much value it can add to your business.
Congress Wants To Make IRS Audits Less Painful
Getting a letter from the IRS is enough to make you break out in a cold sweat. It's this anxiety that the U.S. House of Representatives Small Business Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax, and Capital Access is currently examining. The Subcommittee is looking at how small businesses are treated during an IRS audit and, in particular, whether the tax agency is too aggressive when it deals with the nation's largest contributors to GDP and job generators.
What Mark Cuban Really Wants When He Invests in Your Startup
Returns. That's what Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban wants. It's all about the math. When he's listening to pitches, Cuban is likely thinking about the potential multiple and what the probability of achieving that multiple is. With Shark Tank deep into its seventh season, the pool of small business owners looking to try their luck with the likes of Cuban and his investor friends feels bottomless.
How to recruit & empower the new accounting workforce
The long-term success of any business relies on constantly evolving and adapting to change in order to leverage what technology has to offer. With so much innovation in the accounting industry, learning to cope in this new world is imperative if you wish to build a sustainable practice. A part of establishing an accounting practice that has a long term future is recruiting the right team.
5 reasons to be at Xerocon San Francisco 2016
Xerocon attendees expect a lot from us, and rightfully so. After all, Xerocon is the must-attend cloud accounting event of the year. But if you’ve never been, you’re probably asking – why attend? You run a busy practice and time is money. So while other conferences waste your time with “motivational” speakers and topics that have absolutely no relation to you – we make sure that Xerocon is all about you.
Are you losing sleep over your business?
Dolphins can stay continuously alert for over two weeks at a time. They only sleep with half their brains turned off at a time. This helps prevent them being eaten by sharks. Entrepreneurs will no doubt find this fact hauntingly familiar. There’s something about starting a business that destroys all concept of time. There’s nobody to tell you when to stop, so many business owners simply don’t. An 18-hour day isn’t unusual when you’re trying to get your business off the ground.
4 Things Banks Are Doing So You Never Need to Visit Them in Person Again
Technology has once again put the banking sector into a state of flux. Since the release of the world's first ATM in 1969, banks have been working to automate services once handled by tellers in branches, to make them more widely available. The birth of the internet saw the finance industry recalibrate itself again, moving to replicate its traditional banking operations on their respective websites. Banks worked hard on developing mobile apps and streamlining their online presence.
5 Reasons You Need to Move Your Business to the Cloud Right Now
For many small business owners, running their operations in the cloud means they can access their data from anywhere, on any device at anytime. Embracing cloud not only assists the bottom line, it helps tighten company security and business owners are afforded greater flexibility and more opportunity.
The 3 positions you need to hire now
There comes a time in every growing business where an entrepreneur has to make some key hires to ensure the health and longevity of their operations. Our survey of 2000 small business owners showed successful small business owners don’t pretend to have all the answers. Instead, they establish a strong network of family, advisors, and mentors, including an accountant or financial advisor.
The Surprizingly Positive Effect Of San Francisco's Tech Boom
Launched just three years ago, ladies apparel company NV BLUE is one of the thousands of small businesses that have emerged from San Francisco's tech boom. Founder Nicole Murphy explains that she has a business "because of the tech industry".
How Small Businesses Are Benefiting From Amazon, Google and Microsoft's Cloud Race
The benefits of cloud technology are spreading from Amazon to the smallest family-run companies in the US. Down in Arizona, Governor Doug Ducey is considering a state law that would require agencies to shift their IT resources to the cloud. If passed, it would be a significant step forward for the state and spark a new era of innovation in government services. It would also set a precedent for other states to follow, helping to accelerate the pace of innovation in the US, again.
You can run your business from your pocket
Retailers don’t need to be told mobile devices have reshaped the retail landscape. It’s as obvious as a boxing day sale. They’re seeing their customers using their phones in every step of the purchasing journey, from finding fashion inspiration via their favourite blogger, to using Apple Pay in store to make purchases. To keep pace, many retailers have focused their efforts on creating apps and optimising their offerings for mobile.
What We Can All Learn From Elon Musk's Scary Cashflow Problem
No matter the size of a company, cashflow is the blood that keeps operations pumping. If cash veins run dry, owners face some tough decisions about payroll, creditors and order fulfillment. It can rip a company apart very quickly. Dealing with cashflow is something a small business owner needs to be constantly thinking about, and talking about with their financial advisor.
3 Hires That Will Make Your Life Easier
There comes a time in every growing business where an entrepreneur has to make some key hires to ensure the health and longevity of their operations. A survey of 2000 small business owners, conducted by my company, Xero, showed successful small business owners don't pretend to have all the answers. Instead, they establish a strong network of family, advisors, and mentors, including an accountant or financial advisor.
How To Reward Employees Without Offering More Money
Raising the minimum wage is a topic that can cause even the coolest small business owner's brow to furrow. It's been a hotly debated topic by the presidential candidates, and California recently voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Any increase directly impacts a company's bottom line. The competition for talent is fierce and many small businesses can't afford to outbid their big rivals in order to attract and build strong teams.
5 big business strategies for your small business
This article was originally published on Inc. Big business strategies can be complicated, convoluted and take entire armies of employees to implement. But the theory behind some of them can be extremely useful to small business owners, especially when they’re working on becoming more productive. Here are a few big business strategies and how you can use them for your your small business.
5 Tips To Close Your Next Sales Deal
The biggest mistake small business owners make in the early days is that they don't think about how they're going to make sales and close deals. Healthy cashflow, which is generated by sales, is critical for business survival. Running low on cash is one of the main reasons around 12% of the 28 million small businesses in the U.S. shut down each year.
5 Big Business Strategies That Will Help Launch Your Startup
Big business strategies can be complicated, convoluted and take entire armies of employees to implement. But the theory behind some of them can be extremely useful to small business owners, especially when they're working on becoming more productive. Here are a few strategies big corporations use and how to take that thinking and apply it to your small business.
How to Cope With the 3 Worst Days You'll Face as a Business Owner
As a small business owner, you're going to have good days and bad days. Some days will be worse than others. Part of coping with the darker days that come with managing your own operation is being primed and ready to handle them when they arrive. This involves building a network of advisors around you, hiring the right team and implementing the right technology so you have all the resources to push through and come out the other side with a healthy and stable business.
How Sheryl Sandberg's 'Fail Fast' Mantra Is Being Completely Misunderstood
Sheryl Sandberg told startup founders to fail fast, she didn't tell you to fail. It's a subtle difference I'm calling out because there's a trend starting to emerge, particularly in the Bay Area, that flat out failing is completely acceptable. You set yourself up for failure when you haven't done your due diligence or just basic foundation work.
This 1 Number Shows Just How Much the American Work Force Has Changed
America's freelance workforce has swollen to about 53.7 million people, or around the size of one-third of the U.S. full-time labor force. The growth signifies a massive transition in the makeup of our working population, a transition that has largely been driven by the growth of on-demand services and the proliferation of cloud and mobile technology.
The 8 Craziest Tax Deductions Small Businesses Tried to Claim Last Year
Tax regulation is dizzyingly complex. Accountants spend their entire careers navigating the rules, helping keep their clients out of trouble and maximize their list of deductions. Nobody wants to pay more than their fair share of taxes. And with the thousands of claimable items, many tax pros have seen more than their fair share of strange deduction attempts.
Avoid This One Thing If You Don't Want to Get Audited by the IRS
If you ask an accountant what commonly causes an IRS audit, many will say mixing personal and business expenses is the number one trigger. Each year the IRS audits around 1 percent of all U.S. taxpayers or about 1.2 million people. My company, cloud accounting software platform, Xero, recently asked a few hundred accountants what the most common mistake small business owners make that triggers an IRS audit.
We're Turning Into a Freelance Nation. Here's What That Looks Like.
With more than 53.7 million freelancers working the United States, the group now makes up about one third of the nation’s labor force. It’s a number which signals just how much the U.S. job market has changed in the years following the Global Financial Crisis. startupstockphotos.com Researcher Bill Tancer said recently: “We believe there has been a fundamental shift in the U.S. job market.
The 1 Leadership Quality Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Marc Benioff All Share
Long before Apple launched the iPhone and changed the world forever, it was a mission driven company. Every product that left its doors, while Steve Jobs was in charge, was the result of his mission to combine technology with beautiful design. Clearly defining his mission and executing it was an obsession. It even guided the way he recruited.
4 Things You Absolutely Must Do Before Launching a New Venture
The aftermath of the recession created the perfect environment for entrepreneurs and innovation. During the financial crisis, the U.S. economy shed 8 million jobs, Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data published in the Journal of Management Strategy indicates. With fewer companies hiring, many of the unemployed and underemployed went out on their own, launching small businesses, freelancing or taking advantage of the growing on-demand economy.
1 Simple Thing Every Uber and Lyft Driver Can Do to Earn More
The on-demand economy is spawning thousands of new opportunities across America and giving millions of people the chance to either supplement their existing incomes or go out on their own. Research conducted by my company, Xero, shows there are now more than 53.7 million freelancers working in the United States, equating to about one-third of the nation's labor force.
The Small Business Market Is a Massive Opportunity No Longer Hiding in Plain Sight
Apply now to join us at the Circular Summit, a two-day event for women entrepreneurs seeking advice growing a business. Learn more here. Until recently, the small business market was highly fragmented, expensive to reach and costly to serve. But technology is closing that gap. Increasingly small business platforms are connecting big business with the small business opportunity, making it far more efficient to offer solutions that were once only viable for enterprise-level corporations.
You're Going to Be Hacked. Here's What to Do When It Happens
Despite the best efforts of some of the smartest minds in security, companies still get hacked. As we increasingly live our lives online, our digital information is vulnerable, but the biggest risk is actually us. This month, the IT security conference RSA was held in San Francisco. As one of the largest events of its kind, it attracts some of the best in the field to discuss what is the right mix of technology, talent and processes to keep intellectual property out of the wrong hands.
5 Easy Ways to Know if Your Company Needs Freelance Help
I'm a firm believer in the notion that a business is only as good as its people. But, in today's economy, those people don't necessarily need to be full-time employees. Emerging technology, stagnating incomes, the rise of millennials, and other factors, are driving a fundamental shift in how workers in the U.S. find and earn income.
5 Challenges Your Growing Startup Will Face (and How to Solve Them)
Tech startups are often taught to "move fast and break things". But as a business expands it will inevitably face growing pains. Chat ops app, Slack, has been on an incredible growth trajectory. In just two years it has hit 2.3 million daily active users (20% joined in the last two months), and over 675,000 of them are paid users. To support that growth, its headcount grew from 80 to 385 employees in 14 months. It's an expansion rate that has CEO Stewart Butterfield worried.
How Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg All Thrive as Introverts
Not many people know that I am, indeed, an introvert. At parties, I'd rather stand in the corner, chatting quietly with a close buddy, than work the room. However, as cloud accounting company Xero's president, standing in the corner and watching isn't an option. It's my job to rally the troops, motivate, and push for results. To get the job done, I often act the part of an extrovert. And it seems I'm not alone. In fact, I'm in esteemed company.
3 Reasons You Absolutely Must Move Your Business to the Cloud
By 2020, more than 78 percent of U.S. small businesses will have fully adopted cloud computing into their business practices. Many nascent and fast-growing companies are quickly beginning to realize that a cloud computing-centric solution helps in many, many ways: cutting costs, freeing up capital, and providing flexibility to meet ever-evolving operational needs.
6 Reasons Your Accountant Should Be Your Business Valentine
Who's your Valentine this year? If you're a small business owner, it should be your accountant. No, I'm not suggesting you date your accountant. But what I am suggesting is that, well ahead of tax season, your accountant should be your closest confidant and biggest ally. Too many small business owners have an on-again-off-again relationship with a financial advisor.
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