I enjoy riding my bike every chance I get.  It’s a great form of exercise; it also helps keep the roads less congested and sets a positive, active example for my children. They’ve even started tagging along on their bikes when I go for a run!

Wike Bicycle Trailers is looking to make our world healthier and more sustainable. With an end goal of getting more people cycling rather than driving, Wike introduces people to new uses for bicycles – from using their trailers to transport pets, groceries and equipment to helping disabled triathletes compete.

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When Denise Meissner’s son was diagnosed with Autism, she quickly became educated on the use of Visual Cues – single-image pictures that help those with language and communication challenges perform everyday tasks. Since people with Autism think in pictures, visual cues help them follow a schedule, manage behavior, tolerate new activities, and communicate with others. Denise’s son’s behavior and language skills improved dramatically with the use of visual cues, but the cues were often time-consuming to make and cumbersome to transport and manage. Denise wanted to share this communication method with other parents to experience the success her child had with visual cues. She realized that she needed to create visual cues that would be portable, fashionable and fun to use.

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I recently chatted with Bryan Silverman, co-founder of Star Toilet Paper and winner of Entrepreneur magazine’s College Entrepreneur of 2012, to learn more about his business. Star Toilet Paper is unique – they print advertisements and coupons on a wide range of environmentally friendly toilet paper. Then they supply venues with this printed toilet paper, free of charge, by using the revenue from the advertising side of the company.

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It’s no surprise that small towns and rural communities don’t have the same abundance of fast food restaurant choices, clothing stores, movie theaters and retail shopping as metropolitan areas in the United States. Although fewer resources are available in small towns, the needs are still very present. Just like any other person in the country, the residents of small towns and communities have responsibilities and tasks that need to get done, but for those small town residents it may be a bit more daunting to get errands done. The same can be said for small businesses in these rural areas; they often don’t have access to the resources needed to grow their businesses.

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Life’s greatest opportunities often rise from life’s greatest challenges (and even failures). That’s the story of so many small business owners, and that’s certainly the case with Mark Rivard, owner of Rivard Art LLC.

I first learned about Mark when I saw him tweet about packing and shipping some skateboard blanks at his local The UPS Store in Minneapolis. Shortly after, I spoke with Mark and learned more about his passion for art, how his business came to be, and, more importantly, what he’s doing to give back.

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You want to start your own business, now what? How do you run a successful, profitable company? I decided to be my own boss and open a The UPS Store over seven years ago.  As a small business owner, I’d like to share some tips that have helped me become successful.

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In business, we often THINK we are all about the customer, but many of us are really missing the mark.

Though I hope you don’t wait for a national holiday to know the ins and outs of your customers, I DO hope that you’ll take this opportunity to really get to know your customer.

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The best ideas are sometimes the ones you joke about with your best friend over Chinese food. About five years ago, Jason Lucash and Mike Syzmcak came up with OrigAudio while traveling the world for their jobs at the time, lugging around music stereos to listen to jams and eating take-out food on a regular basis. On a night like any other, the two came up with an idea: instead of lugging around giant boom boxes and stereos, make something small, portable and foldable, similar to their Chinese take-out box, that could play music and be easy to travel with.

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As all small business owners know, this is a critical time of year to try and dig up all the expenses we can from last year in order to drive down our tax bill as low as possible.

As you are sitting around your kitchen table organizing receipts and combing over bank and credit card statements, don’t be timid or shy when considering your expenses.  I truly believe that far too many business owners, CPAs and Tax Preparers are overly conservative and miss out on important expenses that we are entitled to.

Here are 5 tax deductions that should be maximized to the greatest extent possible and will have a major impact on your tax return:

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Today (3.14) is National Pi Day! It’s a day to celebrate and discuss the mathematical constant and for many (especially my husband) to make lots of food-related puns.

Some may love math, but I love pie. Sweet or savory, I eat them all.  Devouring a homemade chicken pot pie for dinner might be my definition of comfort food. UPS small business customer Good Hart General Store knows all about delivering quality pot pies.

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