I just saw a reference to upstarta.biz on Arjen Lentz's LinkedIn profile. They are a mentoring organisation to support small businesses who want to run according to certain principles. I like their principles very much and thought I'd share.

This is the home of a group of people who run, or are interested in running, their business according to a set of Principles that make them more people friendly (both clients and self), resilient to recessions, better for the environment, and more.

While being particularly suited to on-line and Open Source related endeavours, we are by no means limited to that. In addition, the guidelines also apply well to non-profits and other organisations.

1. Neither a borrower nor a lender be (ref: Polonius): no credit or external funding.
2. Work on the basis of a 0 budget.
3. Have a flexible business plan designed to explore, learn and adapt.
4. Pragmatic on Intellectual Property (IP): speed-to-market over protection. Share information. No software patents.
5. Put profitability before growth.
6. Set sensible and reasonable prices, not try to extract maximum $ per customer.
7. Be different, disruptive, extraordinary: it makes no sense to sell the same as everyone else.
8. Eliminate/minimise impact to environment.
9. Focus on people (internal and external), prevent stress.
10. No spam. Not if you call it "email blast" either. Newsletter for clients is fine.