The kind folks at Intuit have posted this infographic on their blog this week that describes what a limited liability corporation is and how it stacks up to other kinds of corporate entities. It couldn't come at a better time for my family, as my wife is considering expanding her own business and wants to investigate her options. LLCs are great if you want to limit the amount of bookkeeping you have to do and if you don't mind paying self-employment taxes. A better choice for larger businesses is an S Corporation (which is what I have used over the past several decades) which has more books to keep but also more flexibility when it comes to how your income is taxed too.

I met with two 20-something budding entrepreneurs this week, just by chance. I love working with and mentoring these young people. There is so much energy and hope to better themselves and make the world a better place too. And so much they need to learn. I thought I would encapsulate some of my advice that I gave them, and perhaps motivate you to reach out to someone you know who is looking to start their own business and send this post their way too.

Although cities like Chicago, Austin, and North Carolina's Research Triangle have produced a number of Web-based businesses in recent years, the New York's startup scene is growing exponentially. The amount of capital and seed funding continues to rise as well as the success of local companies like foursquare, Gilt Groupe, and Tumblr.

There's no shortage of debates in the blogosphere as to whether one coast has the advantage over the other. Regardless of what side you're on, many would agree that there's no better time to be an entrepreneur. The MBA students at UNC prepared this interesting and interactive infographic that looks at some of the more important ventures to come from either coast, and offer some commentary from the leading venture capitalists.

Yesterday, I wrote a short review of a new mobile app from Webscorer that has a curious lineage. The startup came to be from a group of several ex-Microsoft developers and is led by Vesa Suomalainen. I have known Vesa for many years, and first met him when he ran Microsoft's mainframe communications business with a product called Host Integration server. This was back in the 3270 terminal emulation days and was quite the advanced product for its time. Vesa shared with me some lessons that he has learned with several botched startups since then and what he is trying to do with his latest venture.

In the late 90s, Tom Peters famously declared that we were all CEOs of our personal brands. In Fast Company he wrote:

"Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. It's that simple - and that hard. And that inescapable."

This is even more true for professionals today and no group more so than entrepreneurs. When you talk to investors, partners, customers and most potential new team members one of the first thing all of them are going to do is get a sense for who you are and what you've done. When you first start a company, the corporate brand hasn't yet developed a reputation or any customer momentum, so most early-stage companies leverage the brands of the individuals involved for credibility. If you don't believe me, think how many times have you described a startup to someone by first describing the background or people involved? Therefore, for those of you planning to be serial entrepreneurs your personal brand is an invaluable asset.

A new program that began earlier this year is looking for five IT-centric entrepreneurs to receive seed funds along with a series of services. Located in an underused mixed-use office building in downtown St. Louis, the program is run by two venture capitalists - Judy Sindecuse and Hal Gentry - who have formed a new entity called Capital Innovators. And yes, each of the five selected will receive $50k, along with free Internet hosting services, accounting and legal services, and intensive hands-on mentoring for 12 weeks.

I am not a lawyer, and I don't wish to ever become one (on TV or in real life), much to the disappointment of my mother who once wished that would become my chosen profession. I was reminded of this recently when I reviewed an article that Scott Fulton wrote last month for ReadWriteEnterprise here about the recent changes in our patent law system. It seems we are headed down the wrong path, making it harder for entrepreneurs to obtain and contest patents.

At today's roundtable, we had a chance to discuss a topic that continues to bother me endlessly - the Internet's obsession with FREE.

MyStream

Richard Zelson, from New York, New York, discussed MyStream, a music streaming app that allows multiple people to listen to the playlist of one individual, serving, roughly speaking, the function of a headphone splitter. Richard is currently offering the app for free but will begin charging $1.99 for it in November. He currently has 30,000 customers. He asked if waiting until November to start charging was a good idea. I think he should start charging now. Giving stuff for free is a dangerous game, and it is difficult to sustain operations that have large numbers of free users. You then become dependent on outside financing, and that is a slippery slope. It is much better to grow organically with revenue. So Richard, please move forward with your plan to charge money for the value you offer.

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. This is the first of two posts about Finland and entrepreneurship.

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford's Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. (Thanks to Kristo Ovaska and team for the fabulous logistics!) I presented to thousands of entrepreneurs, talked to 17 startups, gave 12 lectures, had nine interviews, chatted with eight VC's, sat on four panels, talked policy with two government ministers, two members of parliament, one head of a public pension fund and was in one TV documentary.

The folks at Heller Communications Design have this wonderful "About" page that has some pointers on when a potential client should hire them. The list spoke to me, not because I need a design firm or some other consultant, but because there is a lot there that any entrepreneur can use as warning signs that they need to restart their efforts, or perhaps rethink the direction that they are taking their business. So here is my own top ten list, somewhat modified from Heller's.