This week in small business, we look at a lot of new things. New technology. New ways to run a non-profit. New ways to measure content ROI. We even have a new way to look at failure. To balance out all of the new-ness, we’re also going to review some solid ‘old school’ advice modern entrepreneurs can learn from. Also, April is Women in Tech month at Salesforce, so check out our conversation with DoSomething.org’s awesome Naomi Hirabayashi. Read on!

• Some business advice is timeless. Ron Burr, CEO of Callfire, has 20 years of experience in building and running successful companies. In his article he advises new millennial entrepreneurs on a few lessons that he’s learned over the course of his career that will apply to any startup today. Learn 13 tried and true ‘old school’ tips for running your next-gen business. [via Entrepreneur]

• This week, we spoke with DoSomething.org’s CMO, Naomi Hirabayashi about affecting change both in the world and at work. Amazingly, they operate on $0 marketing budget, so creativity, partnerships and relationships feature heavily into their day-to-day strategy. Learn more about how DoSomething.org inspires young people into action and why failure is a good thing.

• Speaking of the benefits of failing, this interesting article from Inc. shows us how failing can lead to more investment money. The key is to fail correctly, that is fail, but learn from it and propel yourself forward. Read on for more tips on how failures can create resilient and resourceful entrepreneurs. [via Inc.]

• If you haven’t already noticed, Apple Pay and other NFC-based payment devices are slowly popping up in stores all over the US. Increasingly, small businesses are finding that the new Apple Pay POS devices are a value add to their business due to two things: 1. the ‘cool factor’ and 2. retailers don’t want to prevent customers from buying things. It also helps that many merchants are receiving this technology for free! Find out how Apple pay will win with small merchants. [via VentureBeat]

• By now we’ve all heard the saying “content is king,” but any old content is not going to cut it for businesses, big or small. Contently’s marketing guru, Seth Grodin, emphasized that content should not only drive conversions, but aid in building trust for a business. Content ROI should be looked at in both short-term (lead generation, webpage traffic), and long-term (return visitors, community feedback) metrics. Click here to read more about tieing content metrics to revenue.

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