Inc. Magazine: July 1, 2003
Features
- What's Your Company Worth Now?
- Knowledge is power, and knowledge of your company's value is the ultimate power tool. Here's what you need to calculate your own magic number. By Randall Lane
- Death to Cool
- For years, iRobot designed stuff cool enough for the Sci-Fi Channel, but its new product sells on the Home Shopping Network. Here's how a boutique high-tech firm broke out by reinventing itself as an appliance company. By Leigh Buchanan
- Make Corporate America Work for You
- They're big and corporate and many don't "get" small and entrepreneurial. But they're your vendors, and you can't live without them. So how do you make the relationship work? By Alison Stein Wellner
- If At First You Don't Succeed
- Entrepreneurs are creative, independent, brave. They leave a mark on everyone they touch -- especially their families. One writer looks back on her father's lifelong quest for a success that was always beyond his reach. By Hillary Johnson
Priority
- The Economy: Back to the Future
- The tax policy that so troubled one Bush is embraced by another.
- The Inc. Survey: Facing the Online Music
- The fate of entrepreneurs depends on the future of online music.
- Controversy: Ray-gulation
- New regs leave the indoor tanning industry feeling burned.
- Legislation: A Gross Tax Proposal
- Kentucky's governor puts forward a controversial tax proposal.
- Importing: Bayou Boycott Spurs Buying
- Why Francophile merchants have learned to love the threat of boycotts.
- Academia: The Little Green Schoolhouse
- A start-up school in Seattle mixes business and social responsibility.
- Leisure: Catering to Those Who Want Their Gun TV
- Meet the media mogul who got his start in the gold-prospecting business.
Briefs
- Small-Biz Owners' Wild Mood Swings
- Is the economy half full or half empty?
- The IRS Goes Fishin'
- This summer's company outing could get you in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service.
- Faster Tech Transfer
- Carnegie Mellon University is trying to streamline technology transfer.
- Cut Travel Expenses
- The big travel websites are scrambling to help small companies cut costs.
- The Activist Ingredient
- To avoid employee burnout while maintaining growth, Paul Osterman of the Sloan School of Management at MIT suggests you take a lesson from grassroots political groups.
- You Know My Name (Don't Call My #)
- No more telemarketers? Don't be so sure.
- What It Says on the Tag
- Conference wallflowers rejoice: nametags that do the talking for you.
Hands On
- Strategies: What Your Country Can Do For You
- Looking to get your hands on Uncle Sam's contracting dollars? Your best bet is to start off as a sub.
- Customer Service: A Recipe for Perfection
- America's poshest inn reveals its secrets for satisfying the world's toughest customers.
- Technology: The Price Is Right
- Setting prices has always been more art than science. New software aims to change that.
- Case Study: Just Say Om
- With tough, new rivals like Nike and Reebok, Sara Chambers's yoga business is suddenly getting stressful.
- Ask Inc.: Dividing the Corporate Pie
- A pair of business partners grapple over who's entitled to what. Plus: Updating your business plan.
Columns
- Street Smarts: The King and I
- A visit with a king provides some unexpected business lessons. By Norm Brodsky
- What's Next: Power Surge
- Thanks to new technology, your next Internet service provider could be the power company. By Robert X. Cringely
- Grist: Wanted -- Something New Under the Sun
- If we measured consumer excitement about new products and used it as a bona fide economic indicator, we'd all be pretty worried. That's because there's too little cool stuff to buy these days. By Adam Hanft
The Inc. Life
- Travel: Getting Away and Meaning It
- Work can drag a summer vacation down, especially for your companions. Mixing business with pleasure? Do so sparingly.
- Essentials: Things I Can't Live Without...
- The things a Bay Area pizza chain owner can't live without, plus his one object of desire.
- Private Lives: All the Right Moves
- For one California entrepreneur, time spent in Madrid leads to a lifelong love of flamenco.
In Every Issue
- Letter from the Editor: Behind the Numbers
- Shannon Pratt knows what your company is worth. Introducing the dean of business valuation.
- Mail: July 2003
- Jennifer Lopez: savvy brand builder or trademark thief? Plus: Sales commissions, employee stock ownership, and embezzlement.
July on the Web
- Reaching the Mass Market
- Before its Roomba vaccum hit the news, iRobot looked nothing like a mass-market sensation, note Leigh Buchanan in "The Death of Cool." The engineers at the innovative tech company were more at home designing one-off robots than manufacturing appliances. But after years of patience, passion, and education by consumer-product pros, iRobot is making its way into the mainstream. How do companies turn seemingly niche concepts into mass-marketing sensations? Dive into the Inc. archives to find more strategies for going mainstream with your product.
- Pricing to Sell
- As Randall Lane points out in "What's Your Company Worth Now?", knowing your business's net worth provides a useful snapshot of where your company stands, what options it has, and how it can be improved. But finding your business's true worth is not easy. Inc.com shows you how to price your business by subjecting a fictional company to some of the methods many owners use independent of appraisers. Also, valuation experts discuss the pitfalls of determining a sales price on your own.
