Archive for the ‘For & About Entrepreneurs’ Category
Impact Your Business
Saturday, June 11th, 2011Many entrepreneurs are “allergic to the numbers side of the business”. Part of the high failure rate of small businesses is due to avoiding and ignoring basic financial principals.
Ken Kaufman’s book explains the essentials of small business finance and how to easily apply them through the use of allegory. In other words, he uses “good ol’ fashioned story-telling” to make even the most finance-phobic business owner learn and appreciate the need for quantitative, financial management.
This is not just a story about Steve, a man struggling as a small business owner, a husband and a dad. It is a guide penned in a way we can all identify with. It goes beyond merely being clever about teaching financials.
For example, in Chapter 23, the protagonist (Steve) starts to see, from his own experiences, how anxiety and clarity are negatively correlated. This is a non-financial lesson we all must learn and respect. This book is full of well-articulated insights that we all face as business owners.
The first time you read it, Kaufman’s book is an enjoyable story that “hits home”. Then, it becomes a very useful reference guide for the next hundred times you’ll take it off your bookshelf.
You can get your copy of “Impact Your Business” here.
Where to Go to Test and Improve Your Elevator Pitch
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011Inside Pitch for Entrepreneurs and Angels:
Crowd-Based Feedback for Startup Elevator Pitches
Our new LinkedIn group is a collaborative area for “perfecting the quick pitch”.
You typically get 45 seconds or 45 words – your “inside pitch” – to articulate your business model to customers, angels, VC and other investors. Join ActSeed’s LinkedIn group to test your message on fellow group members for constructive feedback, and help other entrepreneurs scrub their pitch, too.
How to participate:
Join ActSeed’s LinkedIn Group called “Inside Pitch” – it’s free!
Post your “inside pitch” as a new LinkedIn discussion in this group.
Invite others to provide constructive feedback.
Use the comment thread to refine the pitch and interact with those who are helping you.
Who should participate:
Entrepreneurs, small business owners, angels, investors, venture capitalists, founders of startups, students, executives, business coaches. Essentially, anybody who needs help or wants help in perfecting elevator pitches.
What happens when your pitch is ready?
Go find customers and/or investors and share your message!
Of course, ActSeed.com is a good venue to find “well-informed investors” who want to engage “well-prepared entrepreneurs”.
RULES:
1. Keep it constructive and civil. Rude or arrogant comments are not welcomed. We want to cultivate a forum where we help each other improve what we say or write when we pitch our business so when we do it “live” in front of a customer or investor , it resonates.
2. This is not a forum for you present your entire business plan or executive summary. This is where you try to say “more with less”. Here, we want to refine how we open the discussion so our targeted audience asks us to share more. This forum is for each of us to metaphorically “sharpen the hook that we’ll use to catch our fish”.
3. This is NOT a venue to solicit for funding. Please do not indiscriminately broadcast a need for funding. If an investor likes your pitch or your concept, they will likely contact you. Please keep the focus on perfecting the message. We will aggressively moderate against misuse of this group.
Inside Pitch is sponsored and managed by ActSeed, an online community for startups and small businesses – a community dedicated to providing the best resources to help entrepreneurs properly plan, establish a solid operational foundation, attract investment and become highly competitive in the marketplace.
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The Realities of Being an Entrepreneur in One Book
Friday, May 6th, 2011“Most people start businesses simply because they just don’t like working for someone else.”
If this quote resonates with you, or even if you have another motive for becoming an entrepreneur, you should read this book.
Scott Shane packs this book with statistics and information that really helps you understand the realities of building a business. If you are a true entrepreneur, this book should sober your expectations and then bolster your resolve. If you aren’t quite there yet as an entrepreneur, this book will properly discourage you from burning too much of your own time and money (not to mention the time and money of others) until you are truly ready to “do it the right way.”
In this book, Shane shares statistics and data about where funding comes from for new business creation, what impact VC and angels have on new business creation, which industries receive most of their funds and who may likely be the best source of funds for your own business. He shares data about how long it usually takes to “turn the corner” with a new business and the demographics of entrepreneurship, too.
The Illusions of Entrepreneurship pulls data from a multitude of resources, including the Federal Reserve Survey of Small business Finance and the Center for Venture Research in New Hampshire. Essentially, Scott Shane has condensed thousands of pages of research into a single, coherent book.
This book is one of the first ones you should read if you are contemplating the plunge into the world of entrepreneurship.
You can purchase this book from ActSeed’s Amazon store here.
Enjoy!
Make the First Pitch Count
Friday, April 22nd, 2011Thoughts for your first pitch:
Relax and enjoy the experience.
Let your passion come through, but keep it simple and concise, and don’t get defensive if you “cross nerves” with your audience.
Make sure you can quickly and clearly explain: what customer “pain” you’re solving, why your solution will sell, how you make money (and when), and how your investor can expect to realize their return on investment.
It’s ok to not have answers for everything. If you don’t have an answer, offer that you will get back to them with the answer. You might even acknowledge that their question is a good one and ask them if they have any insights to share toward converging on an answer.
Things we suggest not saying:
- “We have no competition.”
- “Our revenue projections are conservative.”
1. Investors may only listen when you tell them about a good idea.
however…
2. Investors may “open their checkbook” if you (A) have a good idea and (B) can demonstrate that you have a plan to implement that good idea and turn it into a profitable one.
We champion all of this and more within our ActSeed.com community.
This note was originally a reply to a young entrepreneur on LinkedIn who was about to make his first investor pitch and was looking for advice about pitching.
In addition to our quick response to “making the first pitch count”, we also recommend buying the book, “Pitching Hacks“.
Now, go out there and make every pitch count!
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Plus Factory: The Difference Between Doers and Dreamers
Monday, April 4th, 2011“The difference in this world between the doers and dreamers is execution.”
– Warren Park, President of Plus Factory
Just before one of our country’s greatest economic meltdowns occurred, two seasoned industry professionals, Warren Park and Simon Tsai, launched their own digital agency. Park and Tsai are creative managers who have spent years in the world’s leading media, advertising and marketing companies. Plus Factory survived and is becoming a global digital development and production powerhouse with offices in New York City, China, and Vietnam. 
We spent a few minutes with the founders to learn their story, get their perspective on entrepreneurship and learn what it takes to start and build a business.
Q. Describe your “Eureka Moment”. What was the market opportunity that drove your decision to form a company around this product/service?
A. When working at another agency, we were working on a budget internally to send to the client and even I thought it was super expensive for what the client wanted. I worked with the project managers for days to cut down the budget. We ended up showing the client the budget and they just laughed at us, saying it was too much. We knew we could do it as well and for less.
Q. How did you fund the company to its current state?
A. Bootstrapping. My partner and I both put in $2,000 from our savings and got the company up and running. We were lucky. We landed some work right away, so we started to generate revenue from the get-go.
Q. ActSeed champions the need for solid planning and preparation from the very beginning. How important is planning and prep to your company’s success? Can you share an example or two?
A. Very important to plan and prepare. 1 is to be very realistic. 2 is to be very prudent on your finances. You need to know what you are going to spend and what you are going to bring in. We did a lot of forecasting of new business and what we were spending.
Q. How long did it take to get your idea into the market from initial concept to first customer?
A. 1 month. We literally got incorporated and started getting business and clients. We were lucky.
Q. What influence have the internet and new media had on the way you are marketing, selling and supporting your services?
A. Well our business would not exist without the internet. That’s multi-layered. Our core service/products are for brands/advertisers going on the internet, so that’s one thing. The other thing was we were able to use many tools that only existed on the web. All communication tools are now web based including voice (Skype), office tools (Google Docs) and accounting (bill.com). Basically our whole infrastructure is on the web.
Q. Describe the challenges you faced as you built your customer base, including defining the customer target, establishing the right price and pricing strategy and of course, closing the first few deals.
A. You need to play with your business model and pricing on a consistent basis till you hit the right ‘combination’. It’s an organic process and if you believe you have the right pricing/target market/model out of the gate is a big assumption.
Q. What techniques have you used to establish credibility in the eyes of customers, investors, partners, personnel and the general public?
A. It’s all about visual appearance. Every communication touch point you provide to your client represents you – good or bad. So first off, your website needs to look good (it’s a good thing we build websites for a living). Second is your phone line and your office environment. I don’t think its bad per say to have a home office, but if you’re on a client call and the dog or kids are in the background, it gives an unprofessional vibe to your clients. And then it’s you as a person. You are a brand, an avatar. You always want to control how your clients will perceive you on any given interaction (i.e. on the phone, in person at a meeting, etc)
Q. What is the most important thing people never tell you about joining or founding an early-stage company?
A. There is no stopping once you get going. It’s our fifth year of operations in 2011, and we feel we are on a train. Once you get your own business going, there is no stopping or brakes. That’s the difference between your own business and working for a business.
Q. Is there anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t already ask you?
A. Just try to fund it yourself and don’t count on outside money. If you are lucky and really hit your target, you can generate sales right away to get your company going. People who have an idea and just want to get funding for it without any leg-work or creation done is following “fool’s gold”. The difference in this world between the doers and dreamers is execution. Everyone can come up with an idea, but the question is, can you execute and make it come to a reality.
Learn more about Plus Factory at www.plusfactory.com.
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Finding Cost-Effective Talent Without Looking Overseas
Monday, March 14th, 2011A new trend has been emerging in the labor markets, but is it really new? They call it “onshoring” – term that plays off of the “offshoring” concept.
For the past 15 years, large US corporations have looked to developing countries for trained, educated workers with particular skills at a fraction of the cost of a US worker’s salary and the overhead costs associated with employing someone locally, including health care, payroll taxes, worker’s comp and more. This has been particularly prevalent in the information technology sector and in recent years, startups have embraced the offshoring approach to bring new technology ideas to market.
Outsourcing work to non-citizens outside of one’s country is the common definition of “offshoring”. Conversely, “onshoring” is outsourcing work to citizens within one’s country.
…but isn’t this just a fancy new name for recruiting?
Yes and no. Onshoring tries to take advantage of cost savings within a country, with work being performed in states and regions that have a lower cost of operation for companies that are located in areas with higher overhead costs. In a weak job market, this type of “worker arbitrage” may be possible for at least awhile.
From an entrepreneur’s standpoint, it’s a trend to watch, and there are good articles being penned about this, including one in The Harvard Business Review. A startup in a high cost urban area may be able to find an IT consulting firm with some needed skills in a lower cost, rural area. From this perspective, “onshoring” is a great equalizer for the economy and for the environment – creating jobs domestically and leveraging telecommunications to minimize wasted time and money on commuting and relocations.
Now let’s add another layer of variation through an actual job-creating scenario: how about an technical recruiter firm from another country being engaged by a US company to help hire US workers?
We’ll let someone else figure out what to name this concept (“off-onshoring”? “on-offshoring”?) and we’ll focus on the live example.
TechSoft InfoSolutions (“TSIS”) is a member of the ActSeed Community and a small, entrepreneurial information technology company in Bangalore, India. They specialize in AutoCAD, Visio, GIS, web development and ecommerce technologies. They have almost two decades of experience working with US companies both in the US and from India. They have parlayed this experience into a new role: technical recruiter. The “wrinkle” is that they are using their technical expertise to help US companies find and evaluate candidates for hire IN the US.
Right now, TSIS is helping a company in Texas find software engineers who have expertise in an ecommerce software called Ariba. They are looking for functional business analysts for software modules like Ariba Buyer, ACM, Ariba Sourcing and Ariba Contracts. By the way, if you have these skills, send TSIS your resume at resumes@techsoftinfosolutions.net.
While TSIS is one interesting example, there are many more. From a small business owner’s perspective, onshoring is definitely a concept worth exploring and one that ActSeed will be following closely as it represents the opportunity to create jobs and commerce in the US.
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A Conversation with Fellow 'Trep Community, GrowVC
Thursday, February 17th, 2011Recently, we were invited to talk with Markus Lampinen of GrowVC. The resulting podcast covers a range of topics that are of interest to entrepreneurs and even angel or seed stage investors. We constantly highlighted how “preparation matters” and why those who take a focused, committed approach to establishing their business can leverage services like ActSeed and GrowVC to increase their chances for success.
In the interview, we talked about how ActSeed and GrowVC complement each other and how our focus is on providing resources to entrepreneurs who understand the importance of fundamental planning and preparation, including providing avenues to investors and other sources of capital that are needed to build a durable, competitive business.
GrowVC is based in the UK, Finland and Hong Kong, but has a budding presence in the US, too. With ActSeed’s growing international presence, our combined geographic reach enables our entrepreneur members in every locale to have a global reach almost instantly.
ActSeed is looking forward to expanding its collaboration with GrowVC’s crowd-funding platform and other resources for its Entrepreneur Group Members. We are also excited about integrating ActSeed’s Scored Evaluation Profile into GrowVC’s community of entrepreneurs.
We hope you enjoy the podcast. Click on the microphone below to listen. You can also read the post on the GrowVC web site here.
Again, we thank Markus and also Jouko Ahvenainen, Founder & Chairman of GrowVC, for the opportunity to participate in the GrowVC podcast series.
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The Future of Entrepreneurship is in Good Hands
Monday, January 17th, 2011Entrepreneurship is a state of mind that can be embraced by young and old alike. Successful entrepreneurship almost always starts with a plan – maybe not a 60-page tome that looks like a doctoral thesis, but something in writing that expresses how a person or a team will take an idea and turn it into a viable business.
Last week, I served as one of the judges for the Young Entrepreneurs Project (YEP) Business Plan Competition in San Diego at MiraCosta College. Thank you, Joe Molina, for inviting me to participate with such a thoughtful peer group of judges, and congratulations to all 
of the high school and college participants for such a rich experience. …and thanks for the opportunity to enable ActSeed to continue supporting entrepreneurship within the community college environment and Small Business Develoment Centers like the North San Diego County SBDC.
Congratulations to the winners. First and second place in both high school and college received a cash prize to pursue their business goals. Third prize winners received a lifetime Entrepreneur Group membership to ActSeed to help them prepare their idea for the rigors of the marketplace.
While this contest showcased a small sliver of the population of entrepreneurs in the world, the opportunities these aspiring entrepreneurs were developing were diverse and creative. I’d like to share a few personal “takeaways” from my experience – thoughts that should be shared beyond the contest with all young entrepreneurs:
- Make sure you can tell your story in one good visual slide. Just one. One contestant presented the perfect slide in his pitch, but didn’t include the same slide in his business plan. Ideally, the perfect visual is either the cover page or at least on the first page.
- Make sure you can tell your story in numbers. Most young entrepreneurs likely don’t have a lot of background in applied business math. This isn’t trig or calculus, but simply being able to model your revenues and expenditures in a way that shows how and when you will make money – and how much money you’ll need to get to that point. Don’t just blindly fill in a template or formula that someone gives you. Rather, I’d recommend building your own rudimentary formula so you can really understand “what goes in, and what comes out (and when!)”. Don’t hesitate to get outside help to get this piece right.
- Yes, you have competition. There is no such thing as a business with no competitors. Competition can be anything that makes someone in your target market decide not to open their wallet for your product or service. Make sure you are very clear how you will differentiate your product or service – in other words, uniquely why someone is buying or will buy from you rather than choose not to.
- It will take longer than you think. Yes, some businesses make $100k in their first month of operation. Just don’t think it will be yours. Whatever you strongly believe about your revenue potential, delay it by 6-12 months (depending upon the type of business) and you’ll likely be closer to what will really happen. Remember that many companies are operational (i.e. fully open for business) for about 2 years before making meaningful revenues. There’s a strong correlation between surviving for two years and being successful, suggesting that you should expect the first two years to be an intense (but ultimately gratifying) struggle.
In summary, I’m grateful to be blessed with the insights that judging the YEP Business Plan Competition offered. I was encouraged by the potential I saw in what I believe are some of the future leaders of our economy.
Maintain focus and tenacity. Balance a healthy dose of dreaming with pragmatism. …and let us know if ActSeed can help you and your startup survive and thrive!
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How to Write an Effective Business Plan in the 21st Century
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010David Ronick has penned a winner.
If you’ve never drafted a business plan (and need to), “Hit the Deck” is a great investment.
The title of Chapter 1 is “You Need a Business Plan. (Yes, This Means You)”. We absolutely agree, so we read further.
We’re glad we did. Ronick really “cuts to the chase” about what a business plan of the 21st century should look like and why it’s important not only for pursuing investors, but even more for the entrepreneur to set a solid foundation to enter the marketplace and complete.
Lots of step-by-step guidance and examples.
If you’re new to investing, it’s a great book for you to read as well; here, you can learn what you should be understanding and what you should be seeing from the entrepreneur pitching you an idea.
The days of a business plan looking like a 48 page master’s thesis are gone. David shows you how to craft a solid plan quickly and with both internal and external impact. Again, it’s a book you should add to your library, a quick read, and won’t set you back more than $15 or so.
You can buy “Hit the Deck” by clicking here.
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Derby! Entertainment and Exercise Drives Empowerment at OC Roller Girls
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010Roller derby leagues are resurging around the world, with the growth coming from the grassroots, entrepreneurial spirit of enthusiasts that view the sport as more than entertainment and exercise. ActSeed is proud to count one of the up-and-coming roller derby leagues as a member (member link) of the ActSeed Entrepreneur Community: the Orange County Roller Girls (“OCRG”), based in Huntington Beach, California.
The mission of OCRG is to make a positive difference in the lives of women. They are transforming roller derby into a catalyst for profound change and enrichment, promoting the value of the individual, the strength of the team, and the power of the female spirit. This is a far cry from the raw, entertainment-focused heritage of roller derby from the 1970’s, but retains some of the fun aspects of this legacy, like having each team and player skate under creative aliases using clever word-play.
History of OCRG
OC Roller Girls was founded in 2006 by Heather Shelton (aka “Disco Dervish”) to provide women with an envir
onment that enhances personal growth and development through sport, and draws upon a diverse team of multi-talented women to compete and share dreams and victories on and off the track.
OCRG is a true bootstrapping entrepreneur success story. For Heather, OCRG has evolved from a hobby into a full time job, and now she is proudly employing others. OC Roller Girls now offers roller derby for adult women, juniors (age 10-17), a co-ed team, roller fitness classes, a brand new skate shop, and fantastic entertainment for spectators.
As Heather likes to say, “Roller derby is cool way to exercise and network: more interesting than kickboxing, more competitive than running for PTA president, more team building and networking opportunities than the local playground. Far from the typical “Newport Beach housewife” perception of Orange County, “The Wheel Housewives of OC” team provides an outlet to workout, network and is part hockey, part primal rage, and entirely entertaining.”
What’s next for the Orange County Roller Girls?
Banked Track!
While there are over 400 roller derby leagues across the US, most of them use a flat track, which sits flat on the ground. A few of the more successful leagues are able to afford installing a banked track which provides more action and entertainment. The careful management of Heather and her leadership team (including her business partner “Dirty Deborah Harry”) has enabled OCRG to operate profitably this year and start the process of installing a banked track.
Creative and Innovative: Raising Capital in Non-Traditional Channels
Heather started her fund-raising only a few months ago and instead of chasing institutional investors or wealthy, accredited investors, she leveraged the loyal skaters in her league to help raise $10,000. They “pounded the pavement” to pull in donations and set up a crowd funding presence on IndieGoGo. Through these two initiatives, OCRG has already met their goal, although you too can still participate and receive some cool “swag” by contributing on IndieGoGo through December 20. Please visit ORCG’s crowdfunding page, send them a few bucks and get a cool perk like a t-shirt, sticker, signed calendar or tickets to a bout.
Below are highlights from a recent question and answer session with Heather where she talks about her experience as an entrepreneur and founder of OCRG.
Q. Describe your “Eureka Moment” that turned into a roller derby league.
A. I was watching it in Tucson and when I moved here, I didn’t know anyone, my day job at the Opera was boring, and I am restless if I am not working on projects. The closest league was in LA. I drove one time up there from OC and on the way back decided I had to do this in OC as I couldn’t commute up there to live the dream.
Q. How did you fund the company to its current state?
A. The company was funded by personal credit cards and loans, borrowing supplies and my working every lunch break, every weekend and every opportunity (not at regular job) to pass out fliers and faking it until we made it. I cut back on my personal expenses, my grandma gave me $25 for my roller skating club, I liened my car and maxed out my credit cards.
Q. ActSeed champions the need for solid planning and preparation from the very beginning. How important is planning and prep to your company’s success?
A. I have started or managed many companies and each provided insight or lessons that helped prepare me for this one. I spent the first two years of running OCRG, struggling on day to day finances and projects and only being able to plan a few months in advance. It is only now in the 5th season that I can start planning years in advance because we now have a solid support team in place, I am no longer personally funding it and we have a large group of dynamic women running it.
Q. How long did it take to get your idea into the market from initial concept to first customer?
A. I thought up the plan on June 27, I went home and put up a DIY website, put together the applications, fliers, handouts, wrote the craigslist ad, sent out press releases & filed paperwork. By July 23 we made the cover of a local magazine, had a coach and 10 skaters, the logo, and practice space. We didn’t know how to skate then.. but we faked it. Our first game was on November 11 and was attended by 800 people that had not seen roller derby in OC.
Q. What influence have the internet and new media had on the way you are marketing, selling and supporting your products/services?
A. We rely almost 95% on internet marketing with very little budget spent on what could be called traditional marketing.
Q. Describe the challenges you faced as you built your customer base, including defining the customer target, establishing the right price and pricing strategy and of course, closing the first few deals. Any wisdom to share with other entrepreneurs on this subject?
A. I was injured before the first game and had to fight to keep our league growing strong with integrity. The market and pricing structure was benchmarked against similar leagues in other markets and other entertainment and sports options in OC. When we had the first recruits show up, I had the polices and vision in place. I did most of the work myself until the group grew leaders. The biggest obstacle was earning respect.
Q. What techniques have you used to establish credibility in the eyes of customers, investors, partners, personnel and the general public?
A. The biggest obstacle was getting strong willed women to believe (and trust) in the fact that we were going to be a success. Even though they had never seen a game, we hadn’t yet shared victories, they didn’t know my management style, many didn’t have leadership opportunities until we empowered them – all the while I was trying to be both a peer and a leader.
Q. Have government, University, or other community / economic development programs been useful? If so, how?
A. No. Unless you consider that getting laid off from a failed opera company in 2008- moved the league from a hobby to a fulltime obsession. I was frustrated working for others that refused to get up to date on current marketing and media trends. I was anxious to help grow audiences and produce something creative – so guess I had to do it for myself.
Q. What is the most important thing people never tell you about joining or founding an early-stage company?
A. Be willing to do every job, take responsibility for everything and every decision made and then find people smarter than you to step up.
Believe in yourself and treat others with integrity. Be willing to fight for the dream because sometimes you might be the only one who shares your vision.
[Borrowed from "The Gambler"]
You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em
Know when to fold ‘em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done
Q. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
A. Roller Derby Girls are tough on & off the track: Take the hit- get back up! Work as a team. Win or lose- it is how you play the game.
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