-
Search this blog
Archives
-
Recent Posts
- No surprises! Good advice for all of us.
- Take this test to predict your success:
- To directors and advisors: “Noses in; fingers OUT!”
- Are your board members as valuable as you?
- Should board members be elected “for life?”
- Fight for balance on your board!
- Your need for a board grows with complexity.
- Your board should protect you!
Categories
Category Archives: Raising money
Can you finance your company with grants?
First, here’s a link to my recent TEDx talk, “Smiling at success; laughing at failure.” I am chairman of a company that, as I write this, is twelve years old and has not yet taken a dollar of outside investment. … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Raising money
Leave a comment
And don’t forget creative fund raising.
Let me tell you the story of how I raised $100,000 to fill a gap needed to purchase a new home for my young family years ago. I had located a beautiful home that would be a stretch to finance, … Continue reading
Posted in Raising money
Leave a comment
Accelerators: a recent and positive trend
Often I see executive summaries from entrepreneurs who have never managed any form of business, or even managed employees in their past life, and who don’t know the first thing about business formation and managing for growth. I used to … Continue reading
Crowdfunding: a roar from a young lion
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?
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
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?
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
The “inciting incident:” Movie scripts tell us how and when to look for investment.
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
Could you answer these tough investor questions?
By: Arthur Lipper In the process of raising funds to create and develop a business, entrepreneurs make many statements to those they seek to attract as investors. In my years of investing, I’ve developed a set of tough questions that … Continue reading
Posted in Finding your ideal niche, Raising money
6 Comments
Accurate assumptions lead to defendable plans
The biggest error in planning may not be spreadsheet calculation error. Or cost estimation. It is most often missed assumptions about the market, the competition, the speed of adoption, or other critical metrics you’ve researched, or selected, or even just … Continue reading
