New Website offers a step-by-step Approach to Starting a Business Especially during Times of High Unemployment SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Tom Koppel today announced the official launch of www.how-to-start-a-business-guide.com. The website was developed to teach an alternative paradigm to that of being an employee. It is designed to be not only a source of assistance for those entrepreneurs who use this site but also for the larger recessionary economy, which will be re-energized by their entrepreneurial efforts. The website is designed to be used in two ways. First, it serves as a guide to teach people a step-by-step approach to starting a business. Visitors can start at the home page and go through a sixteen step process which will guide them through the steps they need to take to start their businesses successfully. Second, the website serves as an ‘a la carte’ resource for start-up or established business owners. During this recession when our economy is shedding half a million jobs per month, many of which will never appear again, very capable people, through no fault of their own, find themselves out of work. Koppel started this website to give those people the ability to have an alternative framework from that of being an employee. In addition to helping these individuals, Koppel is convinced that the American economy thrives on small business entrepreneurship and hopes that his efforts will encourage people to use their creative resources to spur the economy out of the recession. Through a series of interactive exercises the website will guide tomorrow’s leading business owners through the process of development and implementation of their business idea. The website employs numerous educational tools including videos, goal setting forms, and brainstorming exercises. Among other content, entrepreneurs will learn basic accounting techniques, crucial goal setting processes, recession proof business principles, and time management techniques. In addition they will find a list of small business ideas chosen especially for their success potential even in the current recessionary climate and resources for finding and evaluating tax, accounting, payroll, and law professionals specializing in their small business needs. In his remarks Tom Koppel, website developer, said, “We’ve all heard the dire proclamations from newscasters and politicians that this is the worst recession since the Great Depression. With each headline sounding worse than the last, it can all sound very scary. I don’t want to downplay our challenges but I don’t want to be blinded by them either. If you know what you are looking for you can find amazing opportunities in times like these. I want people to find the true wealth and financial freedom of entrepreneurs. “There are two doors in life—the one marked “security” and the one marked “freedom”. If you choose the one marked “security” you often lose both. If you decide on the door marked “freedom” you decide to be the boss of your financial destiny. Once you make that decision you look at the world through different eyes, the eyes of an entrepreneur. My website is dedicated to those people who want to take their financial destinies into their own hands. It is dedicated to the budding entrepreneurs who don’t want to work for somebody else or can’t find a job working for somebody else. They can succeed and this website can help them.” Koppel believes it is his experience, education, and passion that allow him to help budding entrepreneurs. The passion for owning his own business has always been in his blood. He grew up in a family of business people—his parents, uncles, and grandparents all had their own businesses. And that’s what he’s done for thirty years. Koppel graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara and then entered the MBA program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While there he was president of the MBA Entrepreneurial Club and started and owned his own business in the graduate school building. After receiving his MBA he went to work for Arthur Andersen & Co. in their Small Business Consulting and Auditing Dept. He received his CPA certificate while spending two and a half years at what was then one of the eight giant international CPA firms. Since then, over the last thirty years Koppel has owned and operated three very successful businesses. His combination of theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge developed over that period of time combined with his passion for helping people spurred him to develop this website. Koppel said, “I decided a long time ago that I wanted to use my businesses and my business knowledge as vehicles for helping other people in addition to providing for my own family. “In my second business I shared my profits with a homeless shelter, St. Vincent de Paul Villages in San Diego, where I grew up and still live. In my current business, I mentor people by introducing them to a business they can start and run and then I help them to become successful according to their own goals. “This website combines my twin passions of entrepreneurship and helping people. It is my sincere hope that this website teaches people and gives them the confidence through that knowledge to start their own businesses so they can feed themselves and their families for a lifetime.” ### If you'd like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Tom Koppel, please call Tom Koppel at 619-460-4910 or e-mail Tom at pr@how-to-start-a-business-guide.com.