Help with small business tech resources

March 12, 2004 9:42 PM

Can someone recommend a book or a resource for the small business owner, especially in regards to tech/eCommerce? Not a tech book, but something that can clue me in to 'businessy' stuff like advertising, accounting, employee issues, etc?

There's *a lot* of stuff at amazon and at my library. A few recommendations would really be appreciated.

posted by skallas to Work & Money (2 answers total)

I like the Nolo Press pages and books on small business. They aren't geared towards tech and ecommerce specifically, but are well written and helpful.

Nick Usbourne's Net Words is a strong primer for copy writing on the web. Andrew Chak's Submit now: Designing Persuasive Web Sites and the Stanford Web Credibility Research pages cover a lot of ideas about building an effective ecommerce site.

There's an excellent course on starting a business from a nonprofit group called My Own Business which focuses upon business plans, marketing plans, insurance, finding tools and office space, accounting, and some other points. It covers a lot of ground. I'd recommend that if you don't have much business experience, you consider taking a class or two at a local community college, or contacting your local Small Business Administration. The SBA also has a lot of helpful publications in their library.

There are also quite a few consulting books out there that do focus upon tech/ecommerce, and those might be your best bet when it comes to practical advice concerning the business topics you mention. For those, I'd recommend going to a big box book store, and looking through the many you'll likely find there until you come across one or two that look useful to you. You can plan ahead for that trip by looking through some of those books at Amazon and reading through reviews.
posted by bragadocchio at 1:58 AM on March 13, 2004

You're welcome. They do a nice job of presenting information on their site, and I've read three or four of their books, which were all really well done.
posted by bragadocchio at 2:51 PM on March 13, 2004