Should You Start A Company

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief Dragon Slayer Campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Fundraising: What Are Accredited Investors And Why Should I Only Raise Money From Them For My StartUp Company?”

Question:

I’m getting ready to raise $2 million for my startup real estate company. I’ve finished my business plan but a friend of mine said I should only talk to accredited investors. I’m not exactly sure what an accredited investor is and I don’t understand why I can’t talk to anybody I want to about investing in my company? Please make this one of your questions for your teleseminar.

Thanks,

Mark

Answer:

Thank you for submitting your question at www.StartUpCompanyQuestions.com. There are several critically important implications and potential dragons I gathered from your question. Since I want to keep you from battling some very vicious dragons as a result of your upcoming actions, I am answering it now so you don’t have to wait until the next teleseminar.

The term, accredited investors, has to do with securities laws – both federal and state – and making sure you comply with the very onerous restrictions that go with the fundraising for your start up company. I’ll give you both the short and long answer to what an accredited investor is in a minute. But the first thing you need to know is that if you raising capital from angel (AKA private) investors, you will almost certainly need more than just a business plan. You need what’s known as a Reg D Private Placement Memorandum – PPM – in order to comply with federal and state securities laws. (more…)

(The following is an article in the upcoming March 1, 2008 edition of the RTIR – Radio TV Interview Report that goes out to 4,000 radio and TV producers in the USA and Canada each month. It is part of the promotion of my upcoming teleseminar series on “Funding Foreplay: What You Need To Know To Romance The Funding For Your Start Up Company.” Stay tuned for details!)

Will You Lose Your Job in the Recession of 2008?
Why More People Will Start Their Own Businesses This Year

Consumer confidence is plummeting as is the housing market. Companies from Citigroup to Sprint to Yahoo are announcing big layoffs. There were more than 15,000 mass layoffs nationwide in 2007; this year may be worse. It isn’t pretty in the business world and anyone who works for a big company knows they have zero job security.

While people always fantasize about starting and opening their own businesses, in times of turmoil those thoughts multiply. But should your audience be among those entrepreneurs to take the plunge?

The man to ask is internationally-renowned consultant Robert Lee Goodman, who has consulted with more than 2,000 entrepreneurs in more than 36 countries and has launched nearly four dozen of his own companies.

Invite him on-air to:

• Take calls from audience members who want to start their own businesses. Are their ideas viable?
• Talk about the questions individuals should ask themselves before they pull the trigger.
• Reveal what most would-be entrepreneurs get wrong about developing a business plan, finding backers and other important issues.
• Address why so many baby boomers are finally ready to be their own boss.
• Share some of the reasons why not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur.

CREDENTIALS: Robert Lee Goodman has an MBA and 30 years of CEO-level business and consulting experience with virtually every type of industry. He regularly gives workshops on starting a business and has a new blog, www.ShouldYouStartACompany.com. Other Web sites he operates include www.StartUpCompanyWorkshop.com and www.CeoResource.com. Audio clips on Web sites.

AVAILABILITY: Tampa, nationwide by arrangement and via telephone
CONTACT: Robert Lee Goodman, Ceo@CeoResource.com

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief Dragon Slayer Campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Sales: How Do You Forecast Revenues For A Start Up Company?”

Question:

I am working on a quickie Excel spreadsheet I developed for a business plan for my internet startup company and am clueless how to even start getting a handle on my guessing my revenues for the first year, let alone the second and third years of my new company. I obviously need to hire you for a lot of what I’m doing since I am also clueless about a lot of things and how to implement them – and it looks like you really have already done it all! But I want to at least have a guess on revenues before I take the next step and start spending money. Help!

Dennis

Answer:

I haven’t done it “all”…but in three decades, I have done a LOT when it comes to start up companies! Working with 2,000 start up companies can do that for you!

In answer to your question, projecting future sales for ANY company can be challenging – but it can be especially difficult for a start up company with no history for guidance.

Without spending time, effort and money with validated market research, it will be hard knowing the real size of both your addressed market and your target market. For most small, start-up companies, their target market is substantially larger than the amount that will be actually captured in the first few years. That having been said, you are still faced with the challenge most start up companies have: predicting a realistic sales forecast.

Your sales forecast numbers are probably one of the most important assumptions you make in developing a business model for your new company. Your sales numbers will have an interrelationship on many of the other numbers in your plan: start up costs, personnel needs, advertising and marketing, support costs, how much space you lease, etc.

An excellent way to forecast sales is to (more…)

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief Dragon Slayer Campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Personnel: How do you fire the indispensable person in your organization?”

Question:

We just moved and I have decided that even if you built an office across the street and moved in slowly, it is devastation to the routine. My staff all get their feathers ruffled despite the fact that their gain is significant in the work place. It just chaps me to no end to deal with WHINERS! Even though I am a woman CEO, I have to admit that I loathe women employees as a rule anyway – but whining women disturb me to my very core.

For the record, I employ 7 men to every woman – not by design but just the way it worked out. The women that I have (for the most part) think like men, behave like men and love men. However, I have one NAZI fem , the HR director, who is causing problems for the whole organization with her attitude and approach. Even though she is indispensable to my company, she is my biggest mistake. How do I rid myself of her since no one else knows what she knows in so many very critical areas?

Susan

Answer:

I remember all those hassles….during the 15 plus years I had my real estate companies and had hundreds of folks working for me, we moved the corporate offices (me, and about 50 other execs and corporate support people) about three or four times….into bigger and bigger…and nicer spaces….once into an elegant, brand new Class A, high rise next to the Galleria in Dallas with over 10,000 sq ft.

I got so tired of all the whining about space….who had the nicer office, who had more space for their division or subsidiary, who had nicer furniture, computers, view, ad nauseam…just like dealing with eight year old children….and those were my first reports – presidents and senior level VPs….not to mention the rank and file….all of which is just one of many reasons that I decided 14 years ago, it would just be me – and superstar contract labor!

With regard to Der Führer, my intuition is that you will fire her. That will be the probable bottom line. How much more time and energy (more…)

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If you are starting a company, are you REALLY ready to get started? Are you REALLY ready to develop a fully defined business plan? Are you REALLY ready to pull the trigger and start spending money, hiring people and REALLY invest your time, energy and emotion in your vision for the next several years of YOUR life?

Worried that you don’t have the diverse background to understand ALL the various critical components of forming, starting, funding and operating your new company? Concerned that you will be embarrassed by not knowing the answers to the questions that venture capitalists, angel investors and bankers may ask you when you pitch your deal?

Take a look at the 114 below questions that I cover with my Start Up Company Workshop clients. If you already know the answers to all or even most of these, then (more…)

(This post is intended for others taking Teleseminar Secrets by Alex Mandossian as a way for me to share with them some of my implementation steps. All others are invited to read and comment too.)

Jim Lovell: “All right, there’s a thousand things that have to happen in order. We are on number eight. You’re talking about number six hundred and ninety-two.”

One of my favorite quotes…from Apollo 13 (the movie that SHOULD have beaten out an outstanding Braveheart for Best Picture…but I digress.)

It’s been three weeks since I started Teleseminar Secrets by Alex Mandossian. And, I am on Step 8. Alex warns you that his full intention is to provide so much content and so many action items that the faint of heart may feel overwhelmed. Having run multiple companies for the past three decades, I am NOT faint of heart and I do not get overwhelmed easily.

However… (more…)