Thursday, January 11, 2018

Troy-Bilt TB200 Review



PROS / This affordable Troy-Bilt mower cuts grass evenly.

CONS / You do not get rear-wheel drive with this mower.

VERDICT / The TROY-BILT PARTS is relatively easy to start as well as maintain, but it works best on yards without too much of an incline.


The Troy-Bilt TB200 is a self-propelled gas lawn mower that can smoothly and easily maneuver around obstacles such as trees and flower beds, which makes yard work easier for you. This gas lawn mower employs a 150cc Brigs & Stratton 625ex, which is a reliable OHV engine that has plenty of power for most yards. You should only need to pull on the recoil starter once or twice to get the mower running. In our testing, it started for us on the first try every time.

If you need to stop the engine and the blades to remove toys or other objects, you can simply release the blade control handle, which is located right below the main handlebar. When you're done cutting the grass, you can hook up a hose to the wash port to keep it clean of the clippings and muck that tend to accumulate over time.

This is a lightweight, affordable lawn mower that, like many of its competitors, has a 21-inch steel cutting deck. As a front-wheel self-propelled mower, it works nicely over flat terrain. It is fine for hills without too much of an incline, but homeowners with hilly yards should consider some of the top-notch rear-wheel-drive lawn mower brands that will give you more of a push to get up difficult slopes. This mower is hard to push until you engage the automatic drive function. We found that this mower tended to spin until it found traction, and then the front-wheel drive would kick in and cut effectively.

The Troy-Bilt TB200 also has a tendency to vibrate more than others in our product lineup. Since the grip had no padding, we ended up with hand fatigue more quickly than with other mowers in our lawn mower reviews. This could be a problem for people with small or delicate hands.

On the plus side, you can adjust the height on this mower quickly using two levers that adjust the front and rear wheels together. There is a wash port, so you can clean out under the deck after each time you mow. This is a great feature that keeps grass clippings from building up underneath the deck. However, we found that grass had a tendency to build up around the rear discharge flap. It was hard to clean out all the grass in the nooks and crannies of that area.

The 1.9-bushel bag fills up rather quickly, which can be a problem if you have a big yard. For contrast, our top pick, the Honda HRX's bag can hold up to 2.5 bushels of clippings. However, the mower has a detachable side discharge chute that you can use in place of the bag if you want to mulch.

This mower does have nice mulching capacity and cuts fairly evenly.

You can reach customer service for this mower by phone or email if you have issues or questions when assembling or using your lawn mower. Troy-Bilt offers a two-year limited warranty for this mower.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

3 Ways Professional Organizations Can Benefit Any Startup



Making the decision to jump out of the corporate world and build your own business takes guts. Depending on your source, the attrition rate for start-ups is somewhere between 30 and 95 percent. Access to venture capital is, by many accounts, starting to dry up. Getting a loan from the bank requires proof that you don’t really need the loan in the first place.

It’s a rough and tumble world out there, and the path of an entrepreneur doesn’t come standard with safety nets. But, the good news is that you can make it in business if you’re willing to embrace sacrifice. In my own personal path, I know that the only reason I survived was that I put my fledgling startup before my own needs, on more than one occasion. Sacking out on a friend’s couch, selling my Mercedes and having my wife work a job gave me the time and resources I needed to grow my business into what it is today.

Monday, April 3, 2017

5 Things to Know If You're Starting a Business Under 30



So, you’ve decided to start a business, even though you’re young and don’t have much experience. That’s okay -- in fact, it’s better than okay. There are a ton of advantages to starting a business in your 20s and 30s, including higher long-term potential gains and (generally) a higher level of energy and enthusiasm.

However, before you get too deep into your entrepreneurial endeavor, there are a few important things to know about starting a business before you’re 30:

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

4 Steps From Startup to a Growth-Stage Company



You’ve taken the plunge and started a new business. You made it through the first year and turned a profit - congratulations. When an entrepreneur takes an idea and turns it into a profitable business, it’s a cause for celebration. But it’s not enough to just keep doing the same thing -- continued success is going to depend on different and evolving strategies. In order to scale up and grow in a big way, business owners have to prioritize a growth to-do list.

Mohan Sawhney, a professor at the Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, notes that “[while] it’s tempting to view business growth as a smooth, linear path, the reality is much more complicated.” Often, the talent and leadership that enable rapid expansion in a company’s early stages may not be enough to keep fueling high growth and this causes businesses to stagnate.

In order to properly make this pivotal transition, business owners have to understand all the elements at play, and accept that scalability is needed across all operations. Here are four fundamental steps growth-stage businesses must take:

Troy-Bilt TB200 Review

PROS / This affordable Troy-Bilt mower cuts grass evenly. CONS / You do not get rear-wheel drive with this mower. VERDICT / The  TROY-BILT ...