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The Resource Center has all the info you'll need From content to user feedback, the resource center has the information you need for every level of the entrepreneurial process.
With the market for early-stage capital beginning to bounce back, I'm once again fielding calls from entrepreneurs wanting to know how much of their company to give away to investors to raise the money they need to launch their businesses or take them to the next level.
Unfortunately, there's no easy answer to this question. An established business with sales, profits and cash flow may sell for five to 10 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. But it's a lot harder to put a price tag on an early-stage venture that consists of a business plan, a web site and the founder's hopes and dreams. As a result, negotiations between start-ups and prospective investors often turn into angry arm-wrestling matches that end with both sides walking away empty-handed.
You may find this hard to believe, but there's some evidence that venture capital is facing the same kinds of threats that the big music labels found themselves struggling with just a few years ago.
It seems that VC's, and the things they bring to entrepreneurs, just aren't as important as they once were. And there is new competition making it harder to build and run a successful VC firm.
Who's raising the alarm about the future of venture? Well, it seems, the venture capitalists themselves.
After nearly two decades in the trenches of Pets.com, Apple Computer, and the You Don't Know Jack game series at Berkeley Systems, Tom Conrad (Pandora CTO) shares his acquired wisdom on succeeding in the consumer internet space. He discusses agility, crisp decision making, and focus, and peppers his lessons with numerous entertaining anecdotes of dot-com days and corporate progress.
How should a government promote entrepreneurship? This column argues that providing support programs for targeted sectors or companies is akin to "picking winners ex ante." A far better approach is to encourage competition in the financial sector that facilitates experimentation in the real economy. Governments should forget about picking winners and focus on picking the right system.
Dave Waldman, CEO and Founder of Los Angeles-based Bccthis, a startup looking to add additional functionality and private messaging into both corporate emails and Twitter messages. Bccthis just announced a version of their product which plugs into Gmail. Dave discusses how and why he and his co-founders--both previously executives at Twistbox--decided to start their own startup, specifically outside of the mobile industry, and a bit about the product.
DURHAM, N.C. - Hardly a day goes by when I don’t have a rookie entrepreneur ask for advice on raising money from VCs.
They usually have a fancy-looking business plan with detailed spreadsheets showing how their company will be worth billions by capturing just 1 percent of a market. All they need is some financing, and they’ll take the world by storm.
My advice is always the same: ditch the business plan, and buy a lottery ticket. Your odds are better, and you’ll suffer less stress.
Don’t get Randal Charlton wrong. The executive director at the TechTown business incubator in Detroit is thankful for a recent announcement of $5 million coming his way to help graduates of his FastTrac business training program launch their companies. But, he says, look at it this way: The money, granted by the New Economy Initiative, a Detroit-area philanthropic partnership, is not being thrown at comfortable entrepreneurs. This is, essentially, aid to the unemployed. And, as such, $5 million barely scratches the surface.
Many of the entrepreneurs to be helped by the First Step Fund, the entity created by NEI’s $5 million investment, are not launching startups because it seems like a promising thing to do. They have nowhere else to go, Charlton says. Their former jobs in the auto industry are gone, never to return. Their choices are to leave the state or try to create their own jobs in Michigan.
Thinking of starting a business? Make sure to ask yourself these four important entrepreneur questions that will take your company from startup to innovation.
One important element for any new business venture is coming up with a name. But does having an original name really matter?...
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Lobbyists for startup investors say they are close to a deal with Senate staff and state regulators to remove curbs on angel investing from the Senate’s financial reform bill.
The possible compromise would require angel investors, who buy stakes in startups in private offerings, to have a net worth of $1 million, instead of $2.3 million as proposed by the Senate bill, said Marianne Hudson, executive director of the Angel Capital Association in Overland Park, Kansas. It would also scale back plans to let states regulate angel deals, she said.
“We’re close to amendments that are good for entrepreneurs,” said Hudson.
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