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I run a small company with 18 employees on its payroll.

Learning how to keep track of inventory and cash flow and creating an income statement and a balance sheet are great skills to learn for managing existing businesses.

Though it is very easy to do valuations, eyeballs and brand prominence surveys, you should never allow any of them to influence the balance sheet.

We don't want to bank all our risk on a small collection of big companies. We don't want to lose 20 percent of our business if one big account goes away.

Give your employees a shot at showing the company a new way, and provide the room for them to chalk up a few small victories. Once they've proved that their idea can work on a limited basis, they can begin to scale it up.

Our balance sheet provides us with the ability to act on investment opportunities in appropriate areas that diversify and broaden our portfolio, including the gas and energy sector.

Don't organize for any other purpose than mutual benefit to the employer and the employee.

Don't ever let your business get ahead of the financial side of your business. Accounting, accounting, accounting. Know your numbers.

Overhead will eat you alive if not constantly viewed as a parasite to be exterminated. Never mind the bleating of those you employ. Hold out until mutiny is imminent before employing even a single additional member of staff. More startups are wrecked by overstaffing than by any other cause, bar failure to monitor cash flow.

Employees are your most valuable assets. They are the heart and guts of a company. This doesn't mean that from time to time, you aren't going to do what is good for the company.