What are some of your favorite websites to find information about businesses, companies, certain markets, trends ect. which also gives graphs and charts? I'm writing a business plan and need lots of information on a certain type of business.
Capital IQ, Hoovers and SEC's Edgar database for 10K/Annual Reports for public companies. You could also go to finance.yahoo.com or marketwatch.com and then look up a public company and get their 10k, then look at Management's Discussion and Analysis sections to see if they describe the industry at all. I interned at a business valuation firm when I was in college and had to write or update these industry reports for any appraisals they did, and I was always able to find stuff in either Lexis-Nexis or with S&P industry analyses: both of those resources should be available at your biggest local public library or university library. I imagine the Small Business Administration or Department of Commerce websites have some stuff too.
Use your local library card on their website and you get access to tons of business databases. Hoovers D&B million dollar database Reference USA Onesource
Harvard Case Studies are great, here are some restaurant ones: http://hbr.org/search/%25252520restaurant/ For more general information, entrepreneur.com isn't bad. I also read Tim Ferriss's blog, although it's a little more tech oriented: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ Also, there's some instructional videos on raising capital and other business-related subjects on Kahn Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/
