Archive for the ‘Featured’ Category
Compatibility Counts
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011What is compatibility in the context of small business investing and why is it important?
Private direct investment is very different than buying a publicly traded security. Investors do not have the same regulatory support or liquidity as a publicly traded stock. While we have witnessed a number of publicly traded companies mislead the public with incorrect or incomplete information in the past, at least there is a formal structure with a set of reporting regulations and consequences for failing to adhere to those regs and provide certain information to investors. With startups and small businesses, there is much less information available and very little regulation on what must be shared with investors.
Because of this, there is a greater element of compatibility required between the small business investor and the small business.
Trust and Alignment of Purpose
Understanding this need for compatibility is one of the key topics in the ActSeed Investor Workshop (“How to Evaluate Deals Like a Professional Angel Investor”). Simply stated, we strongly recommend that seed stage investors and startup entrepreneurs are fully aligned in purpose and culture as well as around expected return on investment and “exit strategies”. At the early stages of a business, investors should be viewed as a partner, not as a transaction – a co-pilot and navigation assistance, not merely gas in the tank. The business risk is extremely high in the early stages of a new company and the investor should play an active role in helping the entrepreneur steer clear of pitfalls.
Last year, we created a fun vignette about how ActSeed was like an “eHarmony for startups and investors” – how we help match investor-entrepreneur compatibilities. Recently, we had an inquiry from an entrepreneur who didn’t quite understand our analogy, and interestingly, was persistent in trying to understand how we were an “eHarmony to investors”. So, we drafted a candid reply:
“Simply put, most early/seed stage investors look for strategic and long term compatibility, not “quick hits”. The days of throwing money into something based upon a whim or basic concept are gone.
eHarmony markets their community as one where “people are brought together based on the things that really matter” (the current front page quote on eHarmony.com). ActSeed does the same for investors and entrepreneurs.
To further apply the personal relationship / eHarmony metaphor: investors aren’t interested in “one night stands” and “casual encounters.” Investors are no longer being seduced by what sounds good without verifying what IS good. ActSeed provides a mechanism to help the investor verify and accelerate the due diligence process by 60-90 days.
The common theme from our growing Investor Group members is that they don’t have time to see millions of interesting ideas, but they want to quickly find a few good ones that match their interests AND that provide evidence of preparedness in the core areas of business …PLUS a demonstrated ability to execute a sound plan.”
We know ActSeed isn’t for every entrepreneur, but we pledge to our growing group of Investors that the companies and entrepreneurs they will find within ActSeed’s Entrepreneur Group are ready to “extend trust” through an early presentation of the due diligence issues that will eventually need to be addressed anyway. The sooner this information is “on the table”, the faster a deal can be done or the parties can move on. If you can use the ActSeed process to cut 60-90 days out of the due diligence process, why not?
Within ActSeed, in order for a successful investment to occur:
- ActSeed presents the questions to be answered
- The Entrepreneur must provide the answers
- The Investor must trust the answers
Are you an ActSeed Investor?
If you are someone who wants to invest an amount between $5,000 and $5 million in early stage, seed stage, startup or small businesses, please join ActSeed’s Investor Group. It’s free to join, takes 15 minutes to set up, and allows you to interact on a username basis and allows you to reveal your real identity when and if you choose (to avoid the possibility of “overly ambitious” entrepreneurs).
Learn more about ActSeed’s Investor Group through the resources below:
Click here to download a 1-page PDF about ActSeed’s Investor Group
Watch a two-minute video about ActSeed’s Investor Group:
Join ActSeed (no cost).
Then join ActSeed’s Investor Group.
Let us know how we can help you get set up.
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Resolutions and Realities: Happy 2011!
Friday, December 31st, 2010Resolutions are like business planning. Making them once every year and quickly abandoning them renders them largely useless.
Reassessing and recommitting on a constant basis makes them both invaluable towards growth and improvement for us and our businesses.
ActSeed launched and learned in 2010. We won’t forget what we learned and we won’t stop learning in 2011.
Our commitment to entrepreneurs, investors, work-seekers and all others who contribute to building successful businesses remains the same:
- Provide valuable tools and resources to help you better prepare and avoid the pitfalls and potholes that lead to business failure, and
- Connect you to those who matter and can help you build your vision into a durable, competitive company
ActSeed’s wish for 2011 is that every entrepreneur reap what they sow, and that they carefully cultivate their business to ensure the greatest chance for success.
Here’s to a great coming year!
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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Fear: It's Part of the Process. Don't Pretend It's Not.
Thursday, December 9th, 2010“I would wake up in the middle of the night literally like clutching my chest, like, ‘What have I done?”
This quote could likely come from most of us entrepreneurs at one time or another. However, most of us may be surprised that it very recently came from one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time: Oprah Winfrey*.
We should be encouraged that even Oprah shares common entrepreneurial fears when launching a new venture. Fear is often part of the equation, but like risk, you shouldn’t try to ignore it or pretend it’s not there. You should be willing to manage both fear and risk and be able to absorb a higher dose of each, or seriously consider not taking the plunge into a new venture until you’re ready for this reality.
Again, you are not alone with this emotion, and there are many resources like ActSeed and local organizations in your own neighborhood that can help you confront the issues that “keep you up at night”.
Below are two video testimonials on how a couple of ActSeed Entrepreneurs deal with their professional fears:
*This quote comes from Oprah’s upcoming interview on ABC television with Barbara Walters tonight (December 9). Click here to learn more.
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Are You Part of the 50% that Survives?
Friday, June 25th, 2010Do you want to be a statistic or a success?
Don’t become one of the 50% of companies that fail. Join other focused, dedicated professionals who use ActSeed’s cost-effective resources to help avoid wrong turns, poor decisions and bad investments.”
Business planning is more than helpful. It is necessary.
Investors will listen to a good idea but will only invest if they believe you have a solid plan and are prepared to execute that plan toward a profitable return on their invested dollars.
What does 50% mean?
A very good batting average.
A very bad mortality rate.
If you are building a young business, less than 50% is approximately how many will survive at least five years, and more than 50% is how many will fail.
ActSeed exists to make sure YOU are on the right side of this statistic.
So how do you start leveraging ActSeed toward your success? Click the “Join Now” button at the top of the page or just click here.
Questions? Send us a note or click the “help” link on the registration page.
What We Do
Monday, March 8th, 2010Have an idea or a new company?
Find investment funding & expertise here.
Looking for the next company to invest in?
Discreetly search for qualified deals here.
Want to work for / with / mentor a young company?
Find one that needs your skills here.
The Seven Most Frequent Questions People Ask Us
(in no particular order)
1. What is ActSeed?
ActSeed is an online business service and professional community dedicated to helping seed (early) stage companies. The mission of ActSeed is to:
- Bring together a dynamic community of people and resources dedicated to new business creation and seed stage growth,
- Provide a profiling process to help people articulate their needs and value, and
- Help everyone efficiently connect and interact
2. Who should join?
ActSeed is for everyone who participates in or derives a livelihood from new business creation and building businesses at the seed stage through their investments of time, expertise, capital and entrepreneurship. We emphasize our intent to provide a valuable service to everyone, everywhere - not just hi-tech companies in Silicon Valley. ActSeed is committed to helping create and build businesses in all 50 states and around the world in every market – from manufacturing to retailing; from hard goods to services.
Entrepreneurs are at the center of the ActSeed community. Experienced entrepreneurs will find value in the efficiencies we create within business-building. First time entrepreneurs will also benefit from the structure and guidance. The rest of us should join because we each have some value to contribute to seed stage growth, including labor, capital, services and mentorship.
ActSeed: An "Entrepreneur-Centric Value Exchange"
3. How do I use it?
ActSeed is simple in concept and in application:
- Register
- Join one or more of ActSeed’s five Groups
- Complete profiles for Groups you’ve joined
- Review your ActSeed Scores for insight on your state of preparation and core value proposition. Your scores indicate the completeness of your profiles, not a measure of your value
- Anonymously search for other ActSeed members who can help you with your defined needs and goals
- Communicate with them using your ActSeed username; reveal your real identity only when you believe there’s a fit for professional interaction
- Constantly utilize the other professional resources: library, forum, events calendar, blog…
4. What problems does ActSeed solve?
Strategically, ActSeed addresses the 2 greatest challenges that seed stage companies face:
- Proper planning and preparation: making sure you’re addressing all the right issues
- Finding the right resources: labor, capital, services, mentorship, etc.
This strategic focus includes helping everyone in the “seed stage ecosystem” (see image in FAQ #2) find and engage startups and emerging companies that best fit their interests and capabilities.
Tactically, ActSeed confronts these challenges by:
- Providing an online template that enables every member to articulate their value, identify strategic gaps and evaluate the completeness of their preparation through a proprietary scoring process and
- Maintaining a growing, comprehensive community of seed stage resources that can efficiently search for and connect with each other based upon profile information, scores and other preferences.
5. How much does it cost?
It costs nothing to join ActSeed’s membership.
Members can join ActSeed’s Investor Group, Available to Work Group and access the Events Calendar – all without paying any fees.
If you are building a business or have a business idea, the ActSeed Entrepreneur Group gives you unlimited access to all of our planning tools and resources - including the ability to search for Investors and people in other Groups - for only $39 per month and no long term commitment. A year’s worth Entrepreneur Group access is benchmarked to roughly one billable hour from an attorney and costs less than a registration fee for a typical entrepreneur seminar. If $39 is unaffordable, email us at GroupAdmin.Entrepreneur@ActSeed.com; we have “charter member” programs that allow some entrepreneurs to have fees waived.
If you provide professional services or products to small businesses (e.g. legal, accounting, insurance, office supplies, etc.), the Service Provider Group enables you to profile your business and search for entrepreneurs who may need your services. The fee for this Group is $30 per month with no long term commitment.
Six select sponsors per US region help support the costs of our operation. We don’t push advertising, nor will we ever sell or barter your profile details (see privacy policy). Running a sustainable business ensures our ability to evolve and serve you.
6. Why should I join before the community has thousands or millions of members?
There is significant value right now with the tools that are immediately available, including profiling, scoring and other informational resources. This value will grow as others join. During our first few months, we will be able to provide a much more hands-on approach with each member, including the possibility of some 1-1 strategic coaching and personally connecting prepared entrepreneurs with our personal networks of investors, service providers and professional talent.
7. Where do I sign up?
CLICK HERE
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Results-Oriented. Entrepreneur (You) in Control.
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
- Prepare for the investor gauntlet.
- Find and land investors.
- Find talented workers, services.
- Find local pro-small business programs.
- Prepare for the market.
- Prepare for competition and rapid growth.
Below we share how ActSeed is committed to helping you succeed with your business.
40+ Years of Small Businesses Experience Reflected in Our Technology
Our goal is to deliver unparalleled value to seed (early) stage entrepreneurs at a fraction of what this value would cost in a conventional consulting / professional services model. ActSeed couples informational resources and a profiling/scoring system with a dynamic community application that helps entrepreneurs locate people who can help them build their business, including investors, workers, mentors/consultants and professional service providers.
The “What We Do” article is a good overview of how ActSeed works. Let’s now take a more focused look at the specific value we deliver to entrepreneurs and their companies.
Dual, Integrated Value Propositions for the Entrepreneur
Value Proposition #1: Preparatory Framework and Business Profiling
The first value proposition for entrepreneurs is providing a framework for business planning and preparation. This is not a canned solution or a “business-in-a-box” service. Our goal is to help guide both novice and seasoned entrepreneurs through a structured and systematically scored business planning and preparation process.
Investor Prep. ActSeed’s Entrepreneur Group is designed to help you understand what most investors expect, then help prepare and position your company to attract seed investment. Almost every seed stage entrepreneur includes raising capital as a high priority. About 2% of all startup companies secure funding; 98% of all companies fail to secure investor funds. We want to dramatically improve this success rate.
ActSeed’s founders have a combined 40+ years of early stage business experience. We have founded venture-backed, corporate-backed and fully-bootstrapped startups. ActSeed reflects lessons learned from pitching to over 60 venture capital firms and angels as well as preparing detailed financial projections and business plans/presentations for over 30 companies across many different industries.
Investor Access. ActSeed is a new community. The value to Entrepreneurs will grow as more and more investors join. As we build our Investor Group membership during our first few months, we will help our “charter member” Entrepreneurs identify prospective investors through our own professional networks and by highlighting our Entrepreneur Group companies in our Investor seminars, workshops and other recruiting activities. In other words, early adopters will receive a much more hands-on approach to helping with their capital raising efforts.
Preparing and Profiling Your Company. ActSeed helps you address the question, “Am I prepared?” ActSeed segments preparatory activity into two profile templates. The first template is called the “Company Public Profile” and is viewable by the ActSeed community. The second template is called “Company Private Profile” and is only available to those who the entrepreneur explicitly grants viewing permission. Profile templates can be printed for offline review.
Entrepreneur Company Scores. ActSeed generates a numeric score between 0-100 for each preparatory topic (see “Framework” image). These scores help identify where your business needs attention and can be used by others, including investors, as a benchmark to qualify deal interest.
Entrepreneur-Exclusive Resources. Members of the Entrepreneur Group have exclusive access to (1) a digital library of content and links and (2) a forum for peer collaboration.
Value Proposition #2: Dynamic Community of People with Capital, Labor, Services
The second value proposition for entrepreneurs is the community portion of our application we refer to as the “entrepreneur-centric value exchange”.
Entrepreneur Centric. As an Entrepreneur Group member, you can search for and engage people in all other core groups and all other groups can search for your company. ActSeed places the entrepreneur in control at the center of the community.
Advanced Search. To find and interact with others in the ActSeed community, we provide an advanced search screen that allows you to use a comprehensive set of search parameters. You can have results sent to your email inbox on a daily or weekly basis. Imagine having a service that addresses, “I am looking for an investor within a __ radius of my location who is looking to invest in a __ stage company within the __ industry and is looking to invest $__ into a deal within the next __ days.”
Messaging & Member Interaction. When you identify prospects, you can send them messages within the system without revealing your actual identity until you are ready. Recipients of your message can view your public profile and reply back to you. If you both decide to escalate talks, you can then share identifying information (phone/email).
Professional Contact Designation. You can designate other members as ActSeed Professional Contacts, which enables them to review your company’s private profile information. This is similar to the social media action commonly called “friending”. It’s not designed to help you accumulate thousands of connections, but enable you to selectively share private profile data to help move a possible deal toward successful closure. Professional Contacts are meant to be constantly activated and terminated, not accumulated.
Membership Details
If you are building a business or have a business idea, the ActSeed Entrepreneur Group gives you unlimited access to all of our planning tools and resources – including the ability to search for Investors and people in other Groups – for only $39 per month and no long term commitment. Payment information is completely handled within PayPal’s secure transaction system.
One Year = One Hour. A year’s worth Entrepreneur Group access is benchmarked to roughly one hour from an attorney and costs less than a registration fee for a typical entrepreneur seminar. We do not intend to displace startup consultants or attorneys, but ActSeed’s resources may help you avoid thousands of dollars of startup planning costs that can otherwise be applied to areas your ActSeed profile identifies as needing attention.
If $39 is unaffordable, email us at GroupAdmin.Entrepreneur@ActSeed.com; we have “charter member” programs that allow some entrepreneurs to have fees waived.
Conclusion
The essence of entrepreneurship is identifying and filling a need that has sufficient demand to establish a sustainable business. Beyond this concept is an enormously complex and challenging path that derails many great ideas for lack of proper planning and execution. ActSeed wasn’t designed to be a networking alternative to LinkedIn or similar sites. We are big supporters of other professional networking sites, but we provide a different value proposition to the Entrepreneur: organizing critical resources and processes that a seed/early stage company needs to survive and thrive, which means helping you connect with the few people who really matter at the moment, not connecting you to thousands to may matter one day in the future.
If the value we can provide to you and your burgeoning company is still not evident, please send us an email to GroupAdmin.Entrepreneur@ActSeed.com and let us know how we can earn your business.
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You Are a Valuable Part of New Business Creation & We Need You
Friday, March 5th, 2010Summary:
- Find well-prepared seed stage investment opportunities.
- 15 minutes to set up your ActSeed membership.
- No fees.
- Spam controlled.
- Register here.
- No reason not to. You are a valuable part of new business creation and this community needs you.
People, plan, execution and intensity. Good ideas and large addressable markets alone don’t get funded. Those of us with capital don’t invest or lend or grant until we know if the idea has the right combination of talent and preparation. ActSeed helps you quickly sift through deal flow in an efficient, methodical manner and even track entire industry segments of emerging business activity.
What types of “capital providers” should join ActSeed?
- Angels, angel groups, accredited investors
- Non-accredited investors, too
- Seed stage VC firms
- Later stage VCs tracking early stage deal activity
- Small business / commercial lending banks
- Venture leasing firms
- Corporate investment / M&A departments looking for early stage strategic investments or acquisitions
What kind of seed-stage company does ActSeed recruit?
- All industries (not just high-tech/biotech)
- Focusing on US companies, but we’re beneficial and available to startups worldwide
- Growth stages segmented as follows:
- Conception (“I have an idea.”)
- Development (“We’re getting ready for market.”)
- Birth (“We’re entering the market.”)
- Infancy (“We’re focused on achieving profitability.”)
- Growth (“We’re profitable and focused on market share.”)
Do I have to be actively seeking investment opportunities?
No. Even if you are currently “on the sidelines”, being part of ActSeed now gives you a chance to monitor entrepreneurial activity and trending. With one quick edit to profile Question #9 (“looking to invest within…”), you can change your investment appetite from “Beyond 90 days” to “Immediately”.
Do I have to pay anything?
No. Beyond connecting needs and resources, we stay completely out of deals. No cash or equity or other form of success fee. Investor Group membership is free. Entrepreneurs pay a small monthly fee for access to the tools and resources we have developed to help them prepare their company for investment, market entry and sustainable corporate discipline – enough we believe to build and maintain this community without need for subsidy.
As an investor, I see lots of inbound, unsolicited deal flow that doesn’t intersect with my investment priorities or needs some preparatory work before they are ready to pursue funding. Can I refer these entrepreneurs to you?
Absolutely. Going through ActSeed’s “Preparatory Framework” will help them identify gaps and articulate value. You can keep an eye on them and their ActSeed scores; maybe they become a viable investment in the future. As you know, entrepreneurs appreciate when a “pass” or “no” is followed by a constructive referral, and ActSeed’s mission is to prep more deals to be “funding-worthy”.
How does ActSeed prevent me from getting spammed with unsolicited communication from those who might attempt to misuse the system?
ActSeed is designed to keep your investor identity completely anonymous. Your Investor profile only outlines your investor preferences (industry, typical funding amount, company stage, etc.) and what kind of investor you are (angel, accredited, VC, etc.) unless you decide to share specifics.
Entrepreneurs search for you based upon general profile criteria and can send you messages only within ActSeed (you can choose to have a copy pushed to your email if you want). If you like the profile of a given company, you can ask the entrepreneur to share more info. You are in complete control of whether you share your actual information (name, email, phone, etc). ActSeed doesn’t allow users to randomly browse other users, thereby mitigating screen-scraping your info and sending you an unsolicited message. There is no mass-messaging. Search results are limited (results per screen and total returned) to prevent generic searching and encourage users to adhere to the intent of ActSeed: for members to find “the few who matter”, not “the masses who may matter one day.”
To terminate contact with any user, simply use the “Block User” link next to the user’s profile image and they won’t be able to see your profile or send you further messages. If you believe a user is overly abusive of ActSeed’s community, please report the user to us using our “Report Abuse” link that’s available at the bottom of every screen.
Our goal is to offer to Investors discretion without compromising accessibility, and hopefully our FAQ answer here gives you comfort that we will meet this goal.
Specifically how does ActSeed help me find deals?
A search screen with advanced search features as further described below.
What search parameters are included in your search tool?
- Location (mileage radius from your location zip, by state, nationally and internationally)
- Business stages
- Specialty designations (green, minority owned, woman owned, veteran owned, etc.)
- Industry sectors (25 choices)
- Amount of funding sought
- ActSeed Entrepreneur Scores
- Other parameters like “business plan complete”, “financial plan complete”, etc.)
Can I save my search parameters so I don’t have to create the search every time?
Yes. You can create up to five saved searches.
Can I get results pushed to my email inbox?
Yes. Daily or weekly.
Is ActSeed easy to use? How much time to set up?
- Register and add basic info: <3 minutes.
- Join the Investor Group: 20 seconds
- Set up your investor profile: <4 minutes.
- Set up your search preferences; name and save them: <10 minutes.
- Review the profile of an interesting company and send an inquiry: 30 seconds
If you like visuals, the screen shot below shows the four key areas to use as an Investor:
- Home: Click here from any screen to return to your “Main Dashboard”
- Join: Click here to join the Investor group
- Edit Profile: Click here to find the brown Investor Profile tab where you can set up your profile
- Search: Click here to access all of the search functionality
What if I need help getting my account set up or have questions?
Email us: GroupAdmin.Investor@ActSeed.com. If you want us to call you back, include your phone number. We’re glad to help optimize your ActSeed experience. Your capital is vital to new business creation and future generations of successful companies. Hopefully ActSeed can help cultivate the most promising ideas and bring them to your attention as a well-prepared funding opportunity.
Ready?
REGISTER HERE
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ActSeed: What We Give You Now & What Follows
Sunday, November 15th, 2009Smell the Sizzle now. Taste the Steak soon.
First, welcome to ActSeed! By reading this, you’re already participating in an innovative “community of common interest” that is dedicated to helping prepare great business ideas and connect the founders of those ideas with other people who will be necessary to turn the great idea into a successful business through preparation, execution and intensity. This part of ActSeed will always be open to everyone to read and contribute. This is ActSeed’s “SIZZLE”.
We hear all kinds of idioms related to steak and sizzle, such as “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” and “You can’t sell the steak without the sizzle”. From my understanding, we can thank the late sales guru and pioneer of persuasion from the mid 20th Century, Elmer Wheeler, for the original phrase. Simply put, the sizzle is the communication of the value proposition (sales & marketing) and the steak is the desired business value.
ActSeed’s sizzle isn’t a means to an end with a sole intent of getting you to join the coming business community. Our sizzle should stand independently as a valuable resource. We want every word and every recommendation on our home page to have value and meaning to you.
The Steak is coming.
To keep true to the sizzle-steak metaphor, if you like the aroma coming from our kitchen, just wait until dinner is served! [For our vegetarian readers, we did our homework, and there is such a thing as a tofu steak. Recipes here: http://bit.ly/3eUuBy See? We were thinking of you too when using a steak metaphor!].
Behind our online magazine content, a new “marketplace for the idea economy” is about to be launched. You can join the Community for free. Within the Community, we have five primary groups that have specific needs to address and resources to offer:
- Entrepreneurs – business owners who are building and growing a business
- Investors – people and institutions looking to put their cash to work by funding small, growing businesses
- Work seekers – people who are available to work and want to work with or for a small business. This includes people who want to spend a few hours a week advising a company that needs their core expertise and wisdom. This includes people looking for full time jobs and those looking to pick up additional hours (part time). This includes freelancers and contractors. This includes, essentially, all of us.
- Education and Outreach Programs – public and private organizations that are focused on facilitating and mentoring small businesses. Groups that carry a mission of new business creation and job creation. Universities, community colleges, SBA, chambers of commerce, economic development organizations, private incubators and even news organizations - they’re all included here.
- Service Providers – for-profit firms that provide needed services to small business, such as accounting, legal, management consulting, marketing, etc.
Some of the groups within the community are free and some have a membership. All have a very specific value to you depending upon your current professional situation and near term business goals. You’ll quickly figure out how to navigate through this community. It’s based upon contemporary social media / social network functionality. If you understand Facebook and LinkedIn, then you’ll easily follow. If you only understand web browsing and email, you’ll still figure out how to use our community with ease. Oh, and you can join more than one or ALL groups at once. Most of us hold more than one of these roles already, such as an entrepreneur starting a new business while looking for another 20 hours of work to supplement his/her income, or an investor looking for a company needing working capital and simultaneously looking for advisory roles.
Unlike most of the popular social media sites, ActSeed isn’t another venue to amass as many contacts as you can. We’re not another potential steady stream of information that you have to worry about digesting. Instead, ActSeed has a premise that you need to interact with the people who matter to you NOW as quickly and efficiently as possible, and those people may not be in your “six degrees of separation” network, but if you have defined your needs well, and everyone else in the community defines their skills and availability well, then you’ll be doing business much faster. And if you’re reading this, you likely already know from experience how a small business person has little margin for error in getting to the right people and remaining as prepared as possible. You also know that your needs are constantly changing, so it’s easy to appreciate that someone you might want to engage today is engaged by someone else tomorrow – thus they may be a good fit for your needs, but no longer available.
Whether you’re talking about an investor who has a pocket full of cash today and finds an entrepreneur tomorrow or an advisor with expertise and wisdom who’s available today but starts helping someone besides you tomorrow, a big part of small business building is timing. You want to be that person who finds the investor, service provider, mentor or worker when they matter to you and when they are available to you. Most social networks are designed for you to spend an unlimited amount of time achieving a never ending goal of expanding your network. ActSeed is designed for you to spend as little time as possible to engage only those who matter to you at any given moment.
We break ActSeed’s Community Application (our “Steak”) into two value propositions:
Value Proposition #1 = “Framework”: Structured Business Planning & Preparation
ActSeed has a self-profiling process that helps you focus on your preparatory progress in seven key areas. We don’t try to evaluate the efficacy of your idea or business plan or your professional skills or capital resources. We’ll make sure to include individuals, companies and outreach / mentoring programs that do that very well. We will help you score your “completeness of preparation” with an introspective look at what issues you’re confronting and which you have yet to confront. We’ll even give you a scoring report so you can track progress as your business evolves. We’ll also use this scoring methodology to help you “reach those who matter” in our community, which we’ll describe in our second value proposition for you, but first we recap our first value proposition:
- Immediate value delivered to each member, even before interacting with other members, through a comprehensive media library for entrepreneurs and a thorough profile process for everyone
- Methodical format for disciplined business planning, preparation and presentation
- Easy-to-use self-profiling tool; inputs converge on a valuable introspection: “Are you prepared?”
- Unique scoring of the entrepreneur’s completeness of preparation
Value Proposition #2 = “Dynamic Community”: Social Media Applied to Structured Business Interaction, Not Unstructured Networking
Preparation needs an outlet, right? All dressed up and no place to go doesn’t cut it. And if you’ve invested some preparatory time before stepping out, you expect others to do the same. ActSeed’s business “community of common interest” is designed to bring us all together to efficiently do business. ActSeed is designed to help you find others who matter to you at the moment when you need them and when they are available. ActSeed protects your privacy until you choose to reveal more information. A summary of the value we deliver within our second value proposition includes:
- Provide entrepreneur-centric environment for interaction among key resources
- Private messaging & workspace for collaboration & negotiation
- Advanced search / matching capabilities that include profile scoring on each role
- Build valuable knowledge base of user activity & community behavior
What's Behind the Curtain at ActSeed?
Thursday, October 29th, 2009What’s behind the curtain? Well, that depends on which side of the curtain you’re standing.
ActSeed’s forthcoming application sits at one of the most innovative intersections of social media and business. Our home page will continue to drive content that reflects leading thinking on new business creation from within and beyond the ActSeed team, but in a few short weeks, ActSeed will offer much more.
Business applications of social media aren’t new. LinkedIn is a shining example of how professionals are leveraging a social media model to expand and enrich their networks. Never has a professional “six degrees of separation” been as handy. Our first meetings can be much more productive when we know a bit about the person we’re meeting. We are avid users of social media, from Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter and beyond and we definitely appreciate the value these venues provide.
ActSeed is establishing a new intersection of social media and business where online community behavior is focused on new business creation, small businesses and the core processes around building durable and successful companies. Instead of giving you another platform to network almost endlessly among 50 million or 300 million others, we are building an application that gives you an opportunity to find the few key individuals who matter to you right now to help you with the critical needs that need your attention.
For a couple of decades now, we’ve been living the life of The Entrepreneur. We intimately and personally understand the world of business creation at the most nascent stages. We all have lots of needs. We’re always short on time and have limited resources at our disposal. We understand the high level of chaos. Actually, we thrive on most of the chaos; it’s a large part of what makes us entrepreneurs. We are very aware of the almost endless number of networks, clubs, lists, newsletters, books, directories and other forms of assistance designed to help us be successful, but we sometimes wonder if the saturation and noise doesn’t bog us down instead of fueling us forward.
Thus, on the top of our wish list is to find a way to condense these possibities into a “dashboard of opportunity” – a tool that allows us to prepare our companies within a methodical preparatory framework and identify / engage the folks who matter to what we need right now, whether that’s investor capital, advisory wisdom, inexpensive and youthful labor, mentoring or some sort of professional services.
We couldn’t find the “dashboard” that we wanted, so we’re building it. Stay tuned. It’s almost “curtain time”, and we hope you’ll allow us to be part of your command performance.
