Author Archives: Dave Berkus

Crowdfunding: a roar from a young lion

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Dave Berkus

With help from JJ Richa Can you imagine having 300 shareholders?  With recent legislation and new portals on the Web, it’s entirely possible, perhaps for the first time for small businesses. Simply stated crowd funding or crowdfunding is the raising … Continue reading →

Posted in Raising money | Leave a comment

Is asset-based lending for you?

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Dave Berkus

With help from JJ Richa The next logical step in our analysis of financing tools is to analyze asset-based lending, in which you pledge or assign your short term assets, such as accounts receivable or inventory, to the lender.  Often, … Continue reading →

Posted in Protecting the business, Raising money | Leave a comment

Equity financing: great for rapid growth startups

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Dave Berkus

We’ve spoken of financing a young company through friends and family, known as “inside angels.”  There are three classes of equity investors for early stage businesses that we have not yet considered.  Often grouped into formal organizations, these investors are … Continue reading →

Posted in Raising money | Leave a comment

Can you borrow your way to success?

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Dave Berkus

With help from JJ Richa There are so many ways to finance a small business.  Most of them rely upon some form of debt, often personally guaranteed by the founder(s).  So we investigate the most simple of these methods of … Continue reading →

Posted in Growth!, Raising money | Leave a comment

Three things you need to have when raising money.

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Dave Berkus

Here’s more advice from professional investors for aspiring entrepreneurs.  Each of us has a list of things we look for early on when identifying whether we want to go to the next step in analyzing a plan.   Come to think … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 6 Comments

The “inciting incident:” Movie scripts tell us how and when to look for investment.

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Dave Berkus

By David Steakley If you are a screenplay writer, you are familiar with the dogma of the inciting incident.  In a movie, the inciting incident is the event at the beginning of the story which causes the hero’s life to … Continue reading →

Posted in Growth!, Raising money | 2 Comments

How many innovations are carefully planned?

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Dave Berkus

Most innovations come from responding to a customer’s needs, or finding a niche where products need improvement or extension.  It is rare to innovate using a blank sheet of paper in a room with bare walls and no other contributors. … Continue reading →

Posted in Growth!, Ignition! Starting up | 1 Comment

Burn the bridges behind.

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Dave Berkus

By Frank Peters I became an entrepreneur because I had to. My life in Corporate America wasn’t going so well.  I never got fired, but I did quit one job the day before I was to be let go. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Ignition! Starting up | 4 Comments

It’s mostly in the execution.

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Dave Berkus

“Everybody’s got a plan – until they are punched in the face,” stated boxer Mike Tyson.  My experience personally reviewing over three hundred executive summaries each year, all sent to me unsolicited, seems to bear out the truth in Tyson’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Growth!, Ignition! Starting up | 1 Comment

Eyeballs aren’t everything.

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Dave Berkus

Back when we were all trying to figure out the real value of traffic on the web, we investors – and acquiring companies – got a bit crazy with metrics used to value acquisitions and investments.  Since in most cases, … Continue reading →

Posted in Finding your ideal niche, Positioning | 4 Comments