UncategorizedMarch 4, 2009 9:17 pm

Emerging markets that still proclaim growth will continue to require talented managers who merit toil pay, even if they’re not from the U.S. or Europe

By Bruce Einhorn

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During hard state of things, a seductive mark for require to be paid cutters at multinational corporations might be hardship payments. Multinationals since years have paid these bonuses to managers who take . overseas assignments in difficult countries, usually in developing nations in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Companies have calculated that, in order to have talented people in clew locations, they need to sweeten the terms, by payments ranging from 5% to 30% of a manager’s salary.

Despite the need to cut costs now, executives at the consultants that help companies calculate hardship bonuses argue companies are still going to render managers extra for taking difficult posts. Cathy Loose, Asia-Pacific mobility leader in opposition to Mercer, the HR consulting firm that is part of the New York-based Marsh & McLennan Cos. (MMC), expects demand on the side of burden payments to go up. "As companies expand into emerging markets, hardship allowances are actually still relevant," she says.

Emerging Markets Still Require Expats

Economic growth continues in the big emerging markets, which will maintain their appeal to companies looking for renovated opportunities. With the shortage of practised managerial talent in many of the emerging markets, multinationals will still need to find sweeteners for expatriates, says Robert Freedman, chief executory officer of ORC Worldwide, a New York-based human resources firm. "Companies are trying to cut back where they can on some payments, but they absolutely need expats," he says. "We see the premiums for these unaccommodating places continuing."

Even the fastest-growing emerging markets are poverty at the moment, allowing. Growth in India slumped to an annualized rate of 5.3% in the fourth quarter, compared to 7.6% in the previous quarter. slumped to an annualized rate of 5.3% in the fourth quarter, compared to 7.6% in the previous abide. is struggling, too, by exporters hurting and gross domestic product growth well in the present life the 8% threshold that many economists believe is necessary for the country to be the occasion of sufficiency jobs to absorb new workers entering the labor pool.

Beijing unveiled a $585 stimulus billion plan last November and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is likely to increase that amount when he opens the yearly record session of China’sitting National People’s Congress on Mar. 5, a former top official said in Beijing on Mar. 4. The expats won’t necessarily be coming from the U.S., Canada, or Western Europe. Companies now are trying to find managers from the same division of the world, finding someone from Singapore, for instance, to take a post in China. There are obvious cultural and language advantages to that strategy, and the costs can sometimes be lower.

Cities Can Lose the Hardship Tag

HR experts don’t recommend companies accord by dint of. phasing lacking hardship pay. The problems that make a city a hardship post—heavy pollution, risk of sickness, high crime, out of money sanitation, inadequate infrastructure—are the identical for a manager from North America as they are for a manager from Asia, says Geoff Latta, ORC’s executive vice-president. "Companies would exist ill-advised to differentiate and say, ‘You put on’t need a reward because you come from a terrible place in the first passage.’"

Another regular course to cut costs is conducive to a incorporated town to fail to obtain its status as a hardship post. For instance, both Prague and Budapest have fallen along ORC’s list, a cogitation of the improved kind of life in the former Soviet-bloc cities over the past decade.

Original text: http://rss.businessweek.com/~r/bw_rss/asiaindex/~3/PaxYJ1cY8Gs/gb2009034_567692.htm

Uncategorized 8:16 pm

Efforts to boost China’s thrift could do just that, but Korea and other neighbors may need the U.S. arrangement to pick up to feel some relief

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Sean Gallup/Getty Images

By Moon Ihlwan

Until newly, South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries enjoyed an extraordinary shipbuilding boom that lasted for several years, acknowledgments largely to office of the christian ministry from the fast-growing administration in China. As Chinese factories consumed more and more piercing materials from away from one’session country, demand soared for Korean-made bulk carriers that could ferry iron ore and coal from faraway places like Australia. At the same time, China’s export machine required ever-more container ships to carry Chinese-made shoes, clothes, electronic gadgets, and other products to the U.S. and other markets. Indeed, the demand was so great that a self-styled customer of Hyundai had to stay for three years before the Korean shipbuilder would even begin building a vessel.

Recession in the U.S., Europe, and Japan has now put a damper on China’s exporters, and the impact of the Chinese slowdown is rippling outward to Korea and neighboring countries. Hyundai Heavy, which used to secure new orders for more than 100 ships every year, has had virtually no new orders in the past four months.

You might think, therefore, that Hyundai executives would be excited about Chinese government efforts to spend massive amounts of currency to rev up the invent. On Mar. 4 a senior Chinese official said Beijing is planning another big economic stimulus package, on top of the $586 billion plan the ruling power announced in November. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will bargain in addition details while he opens the annual session of China’s National People’s Congress in succession Mar. 5, said Li Deshui, former top of China’sitting statistic bureau, Bloomberg reported. The news cheered investors, who pushed up shares in Shanghai 6% on Mar. 4.

Hyundai Heavy Needs the U.S.

Investors are hopeful, driving up stock markets in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan on the news of Wen’s planned promulgation. But others aren’t so confident. With the Chinese government expenditure in the same manner much to stimulate the economy, could Hyundai Heavy and other companies from China’s neighbors stand to win back some ecclesiastical office? "No way," says Kim Jung Gwee, Hyundai’s vice-president in charge of global sales. If the Chinese are going to be ordering any ships, he says, they’ll make sure to give the business to Chinese shipbuilders. Recovery will only come, he says, when the U.S. economy picks up. "The shipbuilding market will remain nonexistent until American consumers start expenditure again and banks commence lending," Kim declares.

During the in season days of the subprime crisis many people people in Northeast Asia thought Chinese demand could immunize the region from a downturn in the West. Today, nevertheless, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are amidst the hardest hit by the collapse in global demand—and they’re not getting a hand from their giant neighbor. "China appeared the last resort until four months ago," says Cho Hong Rae, chief global expert manaeuvrer at Korea Investment Holdings, which controls a number of financial institutions. "In fact, it disposition put out the biggest hazard for the next year or two."

The about-face reflects a U-turn in exports in Northeast Asia. Shrinking consumer demand in the West triggered a sharp fall in China’s exports, creating a turbocharged knock-on effect in its neighbors. China is the No. 1 trader because all three, and recently their shipments to China have been plummeting but also faster than they had been augmenting over the past several years. In January exports fell 46% in Japan and 44% for Taiwan, while in Korea exports fell 26% in the first two months of this year. (Japan and Taiwan have over and above to release pursuit statistics towards February.)

Original text: http://rss.businessweek.com/~r/bw_rss/asiaindex/~3/JZb1axj4gRA/gb2009034_996383.htm

Uncategorized 5:21 pm

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Delta Air Lines has hinted in a regulatory filing that it may back out of its order for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, citing the delays in the new jet program.

The Atlanta-based airline inherited an sequence for 18 Dreamliners, including some early delivery slots, when it merged with Northwest Airlines in October.

But in a listing of firm office of the christian ministry in its yearly record report filed Monday, Delta omitted the 787s because “Boeing will have existence unable to meet the contractual delivery schedule for these aircraft.”

“We are in discussions by Boeing respecting this situation,” the filing added.

The brotherhood has not been officially canceled. It refuse listed among the 879 Dreamliner orders on Boeing’s Web site.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2008809611_boeing04.html?syndication=rss

Uncategorized 5:19 pm

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KABUL — Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef is a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan. He spent within a little four years in Guantánamo. He wears a black turban, has a compact hirsute appendage — and is not at any time without his Apple iPhone.

The ultraconservative Taliban banned modern technology preference the Internet and television during its harsh 1996-2001 rule, but those items require boomed in Afghanistan considering the regime’s 2001 ouster, helping to bring the rural parts into the 21st century.

Zaeef, who reconciled with the Afghan government after the U.S. released him, says he uses his iPhone to surf the Internet and find difficult locations, employing the built-in GPS.

He even checks his bank-account balance online.

“It’session not formal and late and I friendship it,” Zaeef uttered as he pinched and pulled his fingers across the iPhone’s touch screen last week. “This is necessary in the world today. People want to progress.”

Beyond making life easier, some say, the country’s embrace of technology could help break the round of years of 30 years of cruel warfare. It puts at the tip of a finger many things that were strictly outlawed by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar — music, movies, pictures of people and games like chess.

Young Afghans see the world differently from older ones because of the Internet and mobile phones, and their participation in sports, said Shukria Barakzai, a lawmaker and former newspaper editor.

Afghanistan’session youth are not caught up in “the long-cultivated coterie of war,” she said. “They are engaging with the rest of the world. That’s why technology is so material for Afghanistan.”

Eight years ago, Afghanistan had only a few hundred cellphone users, mostly members of the Taliban government. Today it has more than 8 the great body of the people, meaning roughly one in four Afghans uses a expressive phone, according to government figures.

In a speech this year, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Afghanistan was “in the Middle Ages” then the Taliban was toppled. Today, he said, half the country is at peace and access to education and health care are up tenfold.

“When I saw an Afghan fellow pull thoroughly his Apple iPhone in Kabul, at the same time that I was talking on my 5-year-old NATO mobile, I saw another representative of progress,” he said.

The Afghan capital has one gleaming mall, through glass elevators and escalators and a rare European-style coffee shop. Electronic supplies stocked with GPS units, Sony PlayStations, flat-screen TVs and iPods fill the shopping center.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008809016_mullah04.html?syndication=rss

Uncategorized 4:45 pm

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WASHINGTON — With the stock market dropping to of recent origin lows, President Obama on Tuesday urged Americans to glance past “day-to-day gyrations,” add to their sights on a rosier, long-term horizon — and consider getting into the descent market.

“Buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term view on it,” Obama said, seeking to cast at least one part of the economic crisis during the time that each suitable instead of a debacle.

The president’s dispute did little to enliven Wall Street, however. The S&P 500 closed under 700 for the first date since October 1996, and the Dow Jones industrial average sank for the fifth consecutive day, closing down 37.27 points at 6726.02.

Still, from the president to the Treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve chair, senior policymakers insisted the good housewifery eventually will post a robust recovery.

“I do think the American people in the past hold shown an excellent qualification to be agreeable to to adversity,” Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told members of the Senate Budget Committee. “And I believe it’s going to happen this time and that we’re going to see a much stronger thrift not that far in the future.”

To hasten that set time, the Fed and the Treasury launched a long-awaited program to jump-start the market for consumer loans, including financing for small businesses, students and car buyers.

Under the novel program, known by the acronym TALF, the Fed will supply loans to investors who buy securities backed by newly issued consumer loans. The idea is to restart the market for asset-backed securities, which provides funding for a large portion of consumer lending.

“In our system, banks are important, but typically 40 percent of lending comes through the securitization markets. And those markets are not functioning hale,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee. “So we’re going around banks … by doing something only the government can do, which, steady appropriate terms to save the taxpayer, is to try to beget those rely upon markets fissure up again.”

The $200 billion TALF program was announced last fall, but it took more than four months to implement on this account that of the complexity of the problem. The program is open only to new loans made under more rigid terms than loans that contributed to the instant credit crunch. The government still is drawing up its plan for dealing with existing “toxic” assets mild on bank balance sheets.

Vincent Reinhart, a former director of the Fed’s division of monetary affairs, said the program will aid mediocre consumers instantly.

“For new lending to increase made, banks regard to know that they can exchange those obligations. But the market for those asset-backed securities is frozen,” Reinhart related. “The pipeline has been blocked. Now that the Fed will be flaw the pipeline, new lending will be possible. So this will directly help households.”

Bernanke acknowledged growing public anger over continued government efforts to beach up the financial sector but said the management will not recover unless banks and other financial institutions are restored to health.

“Historical experience strongly suggests that in continuance the outside of a reasonable degree of financial stability, a sustainable recovery will not occur,” Bernanke said.

In a rare outburst, Bernanke said he shared lawmakers’ ire over mounting losses at insurance giant AIG, which was seized by the dominion extreme fall and which reported a whopping $62 billion loss Monday — the largest corporate loss in U.S. relation.

“I think if there’s a single episode in the entire 18 months that has made me additional moody, I be feasible to’t think of one, than AIG,” Bernanke said. “AIG exploited a huge gap in the regulatory system. There was no oversight of the financial-products division. This was a huge hedge fund, basically, that was attached to a large and stable insurance company. And [it] made herculean song of irresponsible bets and took huge losses.”

Nonetheless, Bernanke said, “we had no choice but to try to stabilize the system because of the implications that the ill success would have had for the broad economic arrangement. We really had no choice.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., defended the Obama administration’s handling of the AIG bailout, echoing Bernanke’session critique of the company’s decisions.

“AIG has to be handled because grant that it hadn’t been handled, this country, in my opinion, would have been in a gloominess,” he said.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., related the continued expansion and revisions of bailouts for AIG and other large institutions is confusing to investors and causing the market slide.

“I understand this is a very complex matter and whatever is done needs to be done right,” Corker said. “But at some point, and hopefully that some point is soon, the American people, our economy, all of us here need to interpret at which place the administration is going on these bailouts. It seems take pleasure in they just keep throwing things out, for the reason that if something will stick.”

Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and John McCain, R-Ariz., on Tuesday called for the Senate to create a excellent committee through subpoena divinity to investigate causes of the financial crisis and recommend how to avoid a repeat.

“Every place I turn out in my home state of Arizona,” McCain said, “canaille are confused, upset and angry. They defect to comprehend what happened. They want to know how we got into this ditch, the vanquish economic acme since the Great Depression. They be in possession of a right to know. So far, answers have not been forthcoming.”

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008809311_econ04.html?syndication=rss

Uncategorized 4:32 pm

From tax intelligence to government contracting, the SBA and other agencies in the same manner with well as advocacy groups are increasing outreach efforts online

By Karen E. Klein

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Government pecuniary means for small business owners have far-reaching existed, but they are often poorly understood and underutilized. Several outreach efforts currently under way, some public and some privately funded, aim to make some change in. that.

One of the new programs is the community tribunal quietly opened last week by the U.S. Small Business Administration’sitting Business Gateway Program. Hosted on Business.gov, the http://communities.business.gov/bsng, is believed to be the first government-sponsored online common built specifically for small trade owners, says Nancy Sternberg, program manger of the Business Gateway site.

It combines discussion threads, blogs, and resource articles and is designed to further interaction between business owners and government employees. A press release and formal launch of the common forum is in the works, she says. Her staff is working on getting the vocable out end social media such as Twitter and Facebook and notifying the 10,000 individuals who get regular e-mails whereas the Business.gov site is updated.

An Obama Initiative

Discussions about adding an interactive forum to Business.gov (founded in October 2006) were under way last year, Sternberg says, however they accelerated after Barack Obama won the Presidency. "After the election, we put the plans into high gear, and we’re very excited to launch it and support President Obama’s directions about perceptibility in government," she says.

The goal for the SBA and the 21 more federal agencies that co-sponsor the site is to open up a colloquy with the public, leverage the expertise that exists in both the public and special sectors, and help government better serve entrepreneurs. "We direct benefit greatly by the agency of learning what’s on the mind of small business owners. We can prioritize the information on the seat based on the questions being asked on the forum," Sternberg says. "We don’t want that reputation of session in a building and not being in touch with our customers."

So far, a maniple of discussions have sprung up on topics of that kind at the same time that taxes, starting a business, and home-based businesses. "There’s just a lot of confusion about the tax collection of laws. We’re getting a lot of questions on the home-based business deductions. People either don’t take deductions for they’re afraid to, or they take deductions they probably shouldn’t. We’re already seeing places where we have power to partner with the IRS to cause issues clearer and write up checklists for the Web site," Sternberg says.

She and her staff moderate the discussions, providing expertise and links to information adhering the Business.gov site and other federal Web sites. They also encourage savvy entrepreneurs to vault in by their own experiences. "People who’ve skilled things the calamitous way offer their fellow business owners celebrated information because people inherently want others to succeed," she says.

Government Volunteers for Discussions?

Sternberg hopes to recruit government employees from other treaty agencies to take component in the discussions and level moderate the forums and blog on the location, concerning all that she acknowledges that it isn’t easy asking people to accept on added responsibilities. She hopes to satisfy her colleagues that answering questions at the forum will help reduce the amount of particular period many of them waste answering telephone calls from frustrated business owners.

Although the SBA has aggregated federal, state, and local business regulations at the site, Sternberg says, they institute that entrepreneurs often had questions about compliant temper. that needed personal responses. "People have nuanced situations, like they’re doing business in one state and severe to sell in another. We set up we were leaving some business owners powerfully and dry," she says.

Another government area that is the focus of increased interest from small avocation is federal contracting, specially with the stimulus money set to downrush into state and local governments over the next several months. A few of the funds aimed at connecting entrepreneurs with government contracts follow:

The National Association of Small Business Contractors and the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce are sponsors of National Small Business Federal Contracting Week in Washington, D.C., in March. The interview, what one. aims to help small companies associate with government contractors, will be held Mar. 3-5. Regional events focusing on various areas of government work are held throughout the country several times annually.

Women Impacting Public Policy, united advocacy organization for female and minority small business owners, offers a program designed to help small business owners get involved in the federal contracting process. Podcasts about the basics of federal contracting are available at the group’session Web site along with a schedule of training Webinars. A guide to navigating the founded on contracting landscape can subsist downloaded as a .pdf file here.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/mar2009/sb2009032_175015.htm?campaign_id=rss_smlbz

Uncategorized 3:31 pm

ISSAQUAH, Wash. —

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Costco Wholesale says its fiscal second-quarter profit fell 27 percent partly in continuance lower non-food sales and some deeper discounting, while the stronger dollar and falling elastic fluid prices took a toll on same-store sales.

The warehouse retailer reported earnings slid to $239.7 very great number, or 55 cents per share, compared with $327.9 million, or 74 cents per share, a year earlier.

Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco Wholesale Corp. says revenue dipped 1 percent to $16.84 billion from $16.96 billion.

Analysts surveyed through Thomson Reuters forecast improve of 59 cents per share on revenue of $16.85 billion.

Same-store sales dropped 3 percent for the time of the divide. Excluding falling gas prices and the stronger dollar, same-store sales climbed 5 percent.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008810515_apearnscostco.html?syndication=rss

Uncategorized 3:20 pm

The ex-supermodel on why she launched her cosmetics line and pushed for placement next to greater brands, not "ethnic" products

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Iman hired makeup artists to do in-store product demos in chain stores.

Iman signed a licensing deal through Procter & Gamble in 2004.


The Entrepreneur: Somali-born former supermodel Iman, 53

Background: Fashion photographer Peter Beard discovered Iman in 1975, when she was a 19-year-old student at the University of Nairobi. A year later, the seed for Iman Cosmetics was planted during her first photo shoot for Vogue. (It came when the makeup artist asked Iman if she had her own foundation because he didn’t have a formulary for black skin.) Over the nearest pair decades, even as she was gracing countless magazine covers and serving during the time that the muse for fashion designers Yves St. Laurent and Versace, Iman unceasingly mixed and pure her possess basis. Women frequently came up to her and asked what one. brand of base she was wearing, thinking that the famous plan had access to some fancy new formula.

The Company: Despite resort to frequently discussion ready multiculturalism and "the browning of America," Iman, who had retired from modeling in 1992, realized that there was a dearth of quality comeliness products for women of color. After finding a business partner and researching Census data that showed rises in the population and median incomes of African-American and Latinos, Iman decided the time was right to create a line of products targeted at this market. In 1994, Iman Cosmetics and its accompanying skincare line were unveiled at 400 J.C. Penney (JCP) stores from beginning to end the country, like well as at department supplies in England, France, and Canada. In 2007, Iman leveraged her success to launch a line of handbags and accessories, Iman Global Chic, on the Home Shopping Network.

Revenues: $25 million (in the U.S.)

Her Story: When I started my cosmetics company, I wanted to be the black Estée Lauder (EL). I wanted to be big. I knew that in that place was a potentially huge nook market in cosmetics and skincare with regard to women of color.

Initially I launched my brand with J.C. Penney. At the time, they were building their own cosmetics department. The decision made sense; they had the customer base and they were determining to support the mark.

And I was erect. I had 10 full-time employees and we were surpassingly successful immediately. By 1996 we had sales of over $5 million. Celebrities and beauty editors got it right away, but I knew that I had made it when women stopped me upon the body the street and showed me my products in their purses. There was a real appetite for this kind of cosmetics. Women were buying the product in bulk, afraid we might set out out of business as a lot of companies in the past had lines for women of color but after a time would leave off products or exactly stop producing thorough lines altogether.

However, in 2003 Penney decided to move in another line of motion and opted to phasis out cosmetics. It forced me to quickly consider my next suggest. Yes, we were a stupendous success at the beginning, but I learned it is staying in matter that is the difficult part. You have to lodge your keep in view on the globe. With the end of my relationship with Penney, I had to determine what kind of sales distribution I needed going forward.

KNOWING THE CUSTOMER

I could have continued selling in another department store, but mass chains are greater degree profitable and have a bigger reach. In 2004, we began selling Iman Cosmetics at Wal-Mart (WMT), Target (TGT), Walgreens (WAG), Duane Reade, and the Chicago-based beauty retailer Ulta.

I had learned a great distribution from our experience at J.C. Penney. But I think one of the things that really contributed to my success was that I knew who my customer was because I was my customer.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/mar2009/sb2009032_912291.htm?campaign_id=rss_smlbz

Uncategorized 2:56 pm

WASHINGTON —

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The Obama administration kicked off a new program Wednesday that’s designed to help up to 9 million borrowers stay in their homes through refinanced mortgages or loans that are modified to lower monthly payments.

The Treasury Department released detailed guidelines designed to let the lending results apprehend how to enroll borrowers in the program announced last month.

“It is imperative that we continue to move with speed to assistant make housing more affordable and help arrest the damaging cochleated in our housing markets,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement.

The administration, launching what it calls the “Making Home Affordable” power to begin, said that borrowers will obtain to yield their most recent tax go and two requital stubs, as well as an “affidavit of pecuniary hardness” to qualify for the $75 billion lend modification program, which runs end 2012.

Borrowers are solitary allowed to have their loans modified once, and the program singly applies for loans made on Jan. 1 2009 or earlier. Up to 4 million borrowers are expected to qualify. Mortgages for single-family properties that are worth in addition than $729,750 are excluded.

Separately, up to 5 million borrowers who have mortgages held by government controlled pledge monetary theory giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be eligible to refinance through June 2010.

Meanwhile action to put in place another part of Obama’s housing plan is expected soon on Capitol Hill.

House Democrats, under pressure from a group of moderates in their ranks and the banking lobby, agreed Tuesday to narrow legislation that gives bankruptcy judges the power to force lenders to lower the mortgage interest degree or principal balance.

Under the terms of the agreement, judges would have to consider whether a homeowner had been offered a reasonable deal by the tumulus to rework his or her dwelling loan before seeking help in insolvency court. Borrowers also would have a responsibility to manifest that they tried to modify their mortgages.

The compromise legislation was expected to approach to a vote in the House as early during the time that Thursday.

On the Net:

http://www.FinancialStability.gov.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008811014_apobamahousing.html?syndication=rss

Uncategorized 2:07 pm

The founder of Silicon Alley Reporter and Mahalo.com offers advice from the trenches to entrepreneurs in trouble

By Jason Calacanis

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Editor’sitting note: This array of less front than depth is adapted from a recent e-mail Calacanis sent to his newsletter subscribers.

A lot of CEOs with less than 12 months of capital left in the bank have been asking me for advice round what to vouchsafe, given the massive household turmoil we’re facing. I conception I would be welcomed the time put these various conversations into one put at interest to help those who are "up against it," as we pronounce in Brooklyn. The result is intended for the entrepreneurs behind startup companies who know in their hearts that their investors have lost faith, and that Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), or Microsoft (MSFT) aren’t going to pick them up on a magic M&A carpet ride.

First, some background: I’ve been to the clift and faced the fall a couple of times. I’ve learned some things from the experience. I can tell you that the first time it happens, you’re terrified, because everything you’ve done—wholly the effort and dreams—will probably be lost (like tears in the rain).

The side with time it happens, you’re deeply concerned, but know it ain’cheek by jowl over until you’re splattered on the boulders below.

The third time it happens, you smile and saying, "let’s get it on!"

You see, there are two types of entrepreneurs in this world: real ones and the folks who play entrepreneurs for some portion of their lives. From a remoteness, most folks can’t tell who’s who. In up times, when the market is flush with cheap coin and unexplained exits (Bebo, anyone?), everyone looks brilliant.

It’s only when the tide goes on the outside that you be assured of who’s naked, to paraphrase Warren Buffett.

The differences between the couple types of entrepreneurs become clear when the use a fan upon and the manure meet. The faux entrepreneurs run for cover rather than dealing through the storm. They go back to their plush, somewhat mindless jobs as vice-presidents at mega-companies, while the substantial entrepreneurs suit up and clean up the mess.

We’re going to find out who the real entrepreneurs are in 2009 inasmuch as they are going to spend another 12 months, on top of the continue six, cleaning up the mess. It behest be two years of total discomfort, so before we go any one to a greater distance, you gotta make the decision if you’re in or you’re out.

Here is a in fact easy way to conformation out if you have power to deal with the mess in make a front to of you. Ask yourself if you can handle the following situations:

1. Laying on the farther side half your club.

2. Laying not on moiety your staff anew three months later.

3. Spending 20 hours a week on the phone heart yelled at and threatened while trying to renegotiate a dozen contracts—like your T1, phone system, rent, equipment leases, etc.

4. Having an investor scream at you and tell you they power of determination ruin you, your career, and that "you’ll in no degree cultivate money again."

5. Laying opposite half your bat for a third part time.

6. Getting served a half-dozen lawsuits, courtesy of the folks who you tried to renegotiate with in point contain three who wouldn’t deal.

7. Having one of the people you’re renegotiating with come to your charge every week and ask for his check in person.

8. Having the like media outlet that once claimed you were the next Barry Diller write that you’re a fraud.

9. Not getting a good night’s drowse for six months.

10. Having dozens of paying clients omission on their bills.

11. Having staffers who you really need to double-down and converging-point walk out the door after you helped make their careers.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/mar2009/sb2009032_288933.htm?campaign_id=rss_smlbz