A popular new year’s resolution is not to make the same mistakes as we did in the past. Here are three blunders made by businesses and non-profits in our experience that will show you what not to do.

1. Can’t find Google

A man who is not too familiar with the ways of the web called us asking how people who did not know about his non-profit could find his website. When told to look on the website Google, he got to the website and asked, “It’s not here. All I see is this blank space and the words, ‘I’m feeling lucky.’ ”

2. Website — adios

A business owner in the Chicago area lost his website when a former employee, who built the site, refused to give the business access to the website. The former employee had registered the domain name in his own name rather than the company’s.

“Why don’t you prosecute him?” we asked the business owner.

“He went back to Mexico and we can’t reach him,” was the answer.

3. Missed the big time

Years ago a friend of mine asked me for a $300 loan to start up a computer company. “I’ll give you returns on your investment if the company takes off,” he pleaded. “I’m thinking of naming it something unique, like ‘Microsoft.’” I turned him down and the rest is history.

Well, OK, the last story is completely made up, but I got you to chuckle, didn’t I?