Written for the leaders, owners and professionals of the 11 million businesses with between $50,000 and $50 million in revenue.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives advanced legislation that would force TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell the app within a year for it to remain on Americans’ mobile phones. The Senate is now considering the bill, which President Biden has promised to sign.

National security experts and parents of teenagers might breathe a sigh of relief, but a nationwide ban (if ByeDance refuses to divest) would have major business ramifications. Brands spent a reported $2.7 billion on TikTok ads in 2023, with a 43% jump between Q1 and Q4 alone. About 7 million businesses in the U.S. use TikTok to reach 170 million American users.

For TikTok influencers and small businesses that solely rely on the app, a ban might be doomsday. However, other brands will likely just shift their ad budgets back to Instagram and YouTube; Netflix, Amazon and Disney could also benefit if audiences have more time for streaming. Or maybe we should all go outside and look at trees and flowers and grass again?

Clean energy tax credits: Get green by going green

Flip: Shopping app puts a price on your contact list

That’s so metal: An unexpected yet effective logo

(Source: Shutterstock)

A lot of small business owners think that clean energy tax credits are only for very big companies or for those in the energy sector. Not true. The Inflation Reduction Act added an opportunity for businesses of all kinds to save — and even earn — money.

With 2023’s tax season (and Earth Day) behind us, it’s always worth a look ahead. Here are a couple strategies you can consider implementing today.

Switch to EVs

Businesses that buy a commercial clean vehicle may qualify for a clean vehicle tax credit of up to $40,000. (Consumers buying passenger EVs can only max out a claim at $7,500.)

There is no limit on the number of credits a business can claim. For a small delivery company with just a handful of vans or trucks in its fleet, these savings can add up. (The credits are nonrefundable, meaning that “you can’t get back more on the credit than you owe in taxes,” notes the IRS.)

Go even greener: consider installing an EV charging station on your property. Doing so may qualify you for the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit up to $100,000 if your charging location meets certain requirements.

You can also incorporate this move into marketing efforts. For example, adding an EV charging station could get your business listed on apps like EVgo, PlugShare, or ChargeHub, drawing more customers.

Switch to Solar

Equal to 30% of the cost of a solar panel system, the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for businesses provides a significant benefit for commercial property owners. It is not simply a reduction of taxable earnings; instead, the ITC is a direct credit on the taxes you owe.

While the ITC for solar energy systems is locked in for 2024, whether it continues beyond 2025 will depend on a Treasury Department assessment of reduced emission levels. For now, though, business owners who leverage clean energy tax incentives can have it all: aligning values while reducing a tax burden.

“I re­call the day our solar panels finally went active­,” says Sophia Tang, founder of Nako Cosmetics. “Seeing our mete­rs spin backwards for the first time was a moment of discove­ry. It wasn’t just about saving on bills; it was seeing a clear sign of our commitme­nt to sustainability.”

Your business’s financial health is like its heartbeat, but the accounting required to maintain it can be a hassle, and hiring an accountant can be costly. To better manage your money and get a holistic view of your finances, you need accounting software that makes things easy.

That’s where QuickBooks Online comes in. Its seamless accounting software makes tracking receipts, income, and bank transactions simple. Manage your bills, expenses, inventory, invoices, and tax deductions with intuitive tools that won’t take you ages to learn. QuickBooks Online even integrates with your payroll and time tracking systems, so you won’t need to switch between apps and enter the same data multiple times.

Get your accounting done quickly, easily, and correctly. With pricing plans suitable for every budget, QuickBooks Online works for any business, from small to enterprise. 

(Source: Flip)

We shouldn’t value our friends and family based on how many followers they have on social media … right?

Enter Flip. The social shopping app incentivizes participation by paying users money to leave reviews, comment on existing ones, and even just scroll through the TikTok-style feed. But the biggest bounty comes from inviting friends to use the app. If they choose to accept, they’ll have a dollar amount attached to their name — up to $130 — based on a secret formula, which appears to factor in how many contacts they already have on Flip.

“I had one friend who was only worth, like, $25,” a Gen Z user told the Los Angeles Times. “It was really so sad.”

The goal of the app is to restore trust to online reviews by putting faces you know to them. With over 2 million estimated downloads, a lot of people seem to prefer this to bot-generated reviews and paid-off influencers. After all, why shouldn’t everybody be paid off?

(Source: Bay Area Deathfest)

As far back as Slayer’s 1983 logo, metal band iconography has been pretty standardized — white graphics on black, extremely angular or spiky fonts, and overlapping letters that suggest confrontation. As metal merch designer Tim Butler says, “The point of these logos is like, unless you’re in the know already, it’s not for you.” 

And that’s exactly what makes the logo of Scottish death metal band Party Cannon so brilliant.

With a colorful burst of bubble letters befitting a Party City sign, the logo includes rather than excludes; it invites all of us to the party. The subversion isn’t just a gimmick; it communicates the band’s ethos. And how it stands out in a field of pointy, colorless contemporaries is nothing short of genius.   

When marketing trends cross the line into homogeneity, bucking them is a powerful tool — like, um, a cannon — and makes you impossible to ignore.

Written by Jake Wengroff, Lauren Vino, and Dan Ketchum.