Entrepreneurship

I have been in a retail business with a partner for several years (we have a limited liability company). The business has been clobbered by the economy and we have decided to shut it down. There is no bank debt, but we do have a lease and some credit-card balances that we have both personally guaranteed.

Jeff Henderson’s love affair with food and cooking began in a most unlikely setting: a federal prison. At 24, Henderson was sentenced to 10 years for selling crack cocaine. Soon, he was trading his culinary creations (chicken-and-cinnamon rolls, for example) with other inmates for shirts and whatever else he needed.

To succeed as an entrepreneur after a successful career in corporate America, you have to grow a new skin — more precisely, a new way of looking at the world.

A lot of people — especially those who like to cook — are looking to get into the catering business these days. Here are some tips for getting off on the right foot:

Stories abound of bartering during the Great Depression.

Clearly, the past several months have not been kind to small businesses. There is a growing consensus that we are looking at “hard times” in the world economy for at least the next several business quarters and possibly longer. Here is a “checklist” of questions you should be asking yourself right now.