Posts Tagged ‘Business’

Secured Vs. Unsecured Business Line of Credit

Business

The primary difference between a secured and an unsecured business LOC is that a secured credit artefact has underlying collateral of which a bank or finance company can claim if you default on your credit line. As we have seen in previous articles, the collateral that can be used to secure a line of credit can vary greatly. Collateral can include but is not limited to:

 

Property owned by your business or personally
Equipment owned by the business
Accounts receivables
The general cash flow of your company (although this is semi-secured).

 

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With an unsecured line of credit, there is no collateral involved. Again, this type of business LOC is highly akin to a credit card. Your income and your personal/business credit are the factors considered when applying for this type of credit line.

 

The primary benefit of using a secured line of credit is that the interest rate is typically far lower than that of an unsecured credit facility. Again, in the event of default, a secured line provides the bank/finance company with a great deal of security as you have pledged a tangible (and saleable) quality that the bank can use to recoup their debt investment. With an unsecured business line of credit, the granting financial institution has far less flexibility when attempting to require the funds that they originally lent to you.

 

As such, and if it is possible, you should try to obtain a secured business LOC. This will ensure that should something go wrong with your business – you have spelled out exactly what you stand to lose to the bank. However, it should be noted that if the collateral that you have pledged depreciates in value during the duration of the revolving credit artefact then you will still owe the equilibrise of what was recouped versus what was borrowed.

 

It should be noted that while obtaining an unsecured credit line is certainly possible, the current lending environment has caused nearly all banks to now require substantial collateral for obtaining a business line of credit.

What is an SBA Backed Business Line of Credit?

Business

There is a very huge misconception about the purpose of the SBA (Small Business Administration). Many new entrepreneurs think that the SBA acts as an arm of the government to wage loans for start and small businesses. This is not true. The SBA acts as a guarantor of business LOC and loans provided by banks enrolled in the SBA program. In the event that you default on a credit facility, the US Federal Government will reimburse an enrolled bank or financial institution. Essentially, Uncle Sam acts as your cosigner on a business line of credit or business loan.

 

As of 2010, in the event of default, the Federal Government will wage a bank with a reimbursement of up to 85% of the loaned amount depending on the SBA program that you enrolled in when you applied for a credit facility. The stipulations for applying for an SBA Business LOC are pretty straightforward. Foremost, you must be a US citizen of good moral character (you can't be a convicted felon and apply for a SBA program). The second important characteristic of an SBA backed business line of credit or business loan is that you must have the appropriate collateral and credit to support the debt obligation that you are undertaking. If you do not possess these stipulations then you might want to seek substitute methods of financing discussed in our previous business articles.

 

Once you have been accepted into your specified SBA program, you can go to a number of banks to determine which financial institution will give you the ideal terms for a business LOC. When evaluating proposals from a bank or finance company, you should look at the interest rates, loan covenants, and repayment that is required of the specific company offering you the loan. Again, your CPA will be an invaluable resource during this time as they can assist you in determining which line of credit is most appropriate for you while concurrently assisting you in the negotiation process.

Internet Marketing Agency Make Money Online Business Course – Work Online and Make Money

marketing

Internet product marketing can be a very great industry, but it takes a lot of knowledge and skill. There are thousands and thousands of resources acquirable to world wide web marketers that supposedly help you to work online and make money. These are my reviews for the ideal world wide web marketing training course that will actually work. These world wide web product marketing training guides will give you a greater knowledge of world wide web marketing, whether just starting out or think you know the industry. You will immediately begin making more money online with an world wide web marketing training course.

#1: Wealthy Affiliate University

WOW. Where to start? Wealthy Affiliate University was created by the “Wealthy Affiliates,” Kyle and Carson. After making their millions online, Kyle and Carson started this world wide web product marketing community to help others do the same. This is a month-to-month or annual membership website, but it is more than worth it.

At Wealthy Affiliate, you will find countless resources and training tutorials with more being added constantly, a private member forum, and your own “Space” where you can find buddies, blog, and speak with and learn from fellow world wide web marketers. WA also includes free web hosting and website design system. There is also a keyword tool, ClickBank product research tool, a linking cloaker tool that tracks your click-throughs, a NicheQ which gives you all kinds of information on a selected niche, keywords, articles, and much, much more. Here you will learn about free and paid world wide web marketing techniques. There are acquirable resources about search engine optimization, article marketing, email marketing, website development, web hosting, pay per click marketing, conducting research, keyword optimization, and more.

#2: One Week Marketing by PotPieGirl

PotPieGirl is also a very successful world wide web marketer. She has used her previous experience to come up with strategies for world wide web marketing that work ideal and created an ebook from them. One Week Marketing by PotPieGirl will take you from newbie or intermediate world wide web marketing and place your success in overdrive within one week. You will learn all free techniques to work online and make money with world wide web marketing.

There are many bonuses included with the One Week Marketing by PotPieGirl world wide web marketing training course. You will receive step by step checklists so you know you are doing everything you are supposed to before moving forward. There is also a special bonus called A Conversation With Nick that will answer each question you might have about world wide web product marketing and the techniques you will learn. You’ll also get One Week Marketing by PotPieGirl Mind Maps which show you how everything you do fits together to benefit your career as an world wide web marketer.

If you are still learning about the world wide web marketing industry the One Week Marketing by PotPieGirl world wide web marketing training course is for you. It is a fail-proof system that will instruct you everything you need to know about world wide web product marketing and take you along the right path so you will be healthy to work online and make money while doing it.

Tips for Getting a Small Business Loan

Business

Tips for Getting a Small Business Loan

A few tips designed to help brand new small businesses. This should help you to submit the strongest application doable and improve your chances for an approval.

The bank will be looking at all or your information to determine how likely it is that the loan will be repaid. Risk is the primary bourgeois that will determine if you will get the loan. The following information is designed to help you reduce the appearance of risk in order to obtain a favorable decision from your application.

Your Personal Finances

Personal Credit

Regardless if you are a Sole Proprietor, Corporation, LLC, etc, the bank will want to look at your individualized credit. Pull your credit report and order your credit scores as well. If your credit scores are 650 or under, then it might be ideal to do some clean-up of your individualized credit before continuing. Or, you might include a letter explaining why these occurrences happened and why it won’t happen again.

Personal Income

The lenders will want to know where your individualized income will come from while you’re operating your business. Will your sole income come from the new business or will you work full or part-time while starting your business? The lenders will also want to know how you plan to transition from working for someone else to being self-employed, if that is your plan.

Personal Assets

The assets you own are very important as they might be looked at as potential collateral for the loan. Some companies can wage a business equity line of credit, which will use equity in your home as collateral, while establishing credit in the business name. The lenders also see assets as potential sources of cash to cover you in rough times.

Personal Liabilities

This is how much debt you owe, including mortgages, credit cards, loans, etc. Get your debt level down. In regards to credit card debt, a good rule of thumb is to have no more than one-third of your acquirable credit outstanding.

The Business Plan

This is the time to really sell yourself and your business. Your plan must be complete and presented very professionally. The executive summary should comprise the first few pages and should be very professional. Recruit someone to help you if you need to. The Small Business Administration (SBA) has some sample business plans that are very helpful.

Be sure to detail what product or service the business will wage and what sets your business apart from competing businesses, how will the business make a profit and how much profit is expected per transaction, how many transactions do you anticipate per month. Show any demographic information you might have about the area you’ll be providing services to. (How much traffic will pass by your location? How much demand is there for your product/service? What is your target audience and what percentage of the population will your business serve?)

When projecting the revenue, profits and costs for the company, you’ll want to think at least 24 to 36 months ahead and break everything down on a monthly basis. Include your payment schedules for your lease, utility costs, loan repayment, etc. Also include a contingency plan detailing how you will handle any shortfalls that might occur for a month or longer.

Experience

Another piece of your business plan should include your experience level. How familiar are you with the industry you’ve chosen? Do you have previous ownership or management experience? Your chances are superior if you have some experience working the industry you’ve chosen. If you have no related experience, add working skills that you have gained that apply to the business.

SBA Myths

The SBA provides loans to small businesses: False.

The SBA works as a guarantor of loans prefabricated by other banking institutions. If you contact their offices, they will simply offer advice on finding a lender.

Here is an example of one way they will help a small business: If you go to a bank requesting ,000, the bank will see if they can approve the full loan amount for you. If not, they will seek to remember you for SBA backing. One doable scenario is that the bank will cover 50% of the loan, while the SBA acts as guarantor on 40% of the loan, and you will be responsible for coming up with 10%.

The SBA will help if you have bad credit: False.

The credit stipulations for SBA eligibility are the same as most banking institutions. The SBA is simply there to assist with new businesses or young businesses with very tiny time established.

Other Loan Options

If you are unable to obtain a business loan, be sure to ask why they declined you. Their response might wage hints to changes that can be prefabricated to your business plan. Take a step back and see what adjustments you can make, and then try another lender. Try applying at massive banks and at small community banks.

If you are unable to get approved for a business loan after several attempts, you might wish to think about other loan options. Using a individualized loan, such as a home equity line or loan might be helpful to get you started. Once your business is more established, then return to the lenders and show them what your business is doing.

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The importance of sound accounting system to business

Business

What is a sound record-keeping system?

Businesses are stated to adopt sound record-keeping systems if their record-keeping and record-keeping systems are reliable, healthy to produce accurate and updated financial information. Such systems also include efficient and effective filling and documentation systems. In addition, the organisation involved in the preparation of the financial information are eligible to do the job. Last but not least, the financial statements and reports are drawn based on the outlined record-keeping concepts and standards.

Why sound record-keeping systems important for business?
Financial information is important to accounts related organisation as well as non-accounts related personnel. For example, heads of non-accounting departments too need to know information about budgeting so that they can wisely plan their activities. In the other article, we analogize record-keeping system as a heart to human. It is so important that its unfortunate will eventually let other systems to malfunctions. The diagram below summarised the importance of sound record-keeping system to business:

a) Simple references
Data about prices, suppliers, customers and inventory are important in trading businesses. Price of apiece bought product must be known in order to determine the income price. Mistake in setting up the income price can give a negative effect to the business such as losing customers to competitors and incur a business loss. Proper records and filling system will help entrepreneurs in term of getting the required information promptly and the information is acquirable when needed. Some business owners wasted hours of their valuable times looking for information from their improper and unsystematic filling system. Records of stock movements must be maintained and updated in order to ensure that there are no stock outs. In addition, proper stock record also helps entrepreneurs to know promptly which items should be bought and when to order.

b) Effective planning
Financial data and analysis are important for management to make effective decision-making. However, the data must be reliable, accurate and updated. Without a proper records system, entrepreneurs might ask for debts, which have been settled by debtors. Entrepreneurs might also continue to give credit to suppose to be black listed customers or non trustworthy customers, or ‘rich but stingy’ debtors.

c) Right decision at the right time
Ability to make right decision at the right time is an important ingredient for a business to be successful. This requires the availability of accurate and complete information. Management might issue bounce cheque because the cash book is not updated. Normal “wrong but tolerable” practice by SMEs is to call their bank each time they want to issue a cheque. Entrepreneurs also might have to follow suppliers’ suggestion blindly because of no proper stock records. Furthermore, they might continue to spend on unnecessary expenses because their data is not reliable or the data is simply not available.

d) To obtain suppliers’ trust and confidence
Credit artefact is only given to trustworthy customers. It is important to get the supplier’s confidence in term of the business financial position and capability to pay debt on time. A proper record keeping and filling system will give confidence to suppliers to do business with. It shows that the business owner knows what is going on with his or her business and it is under control. Some business owners do not know the updated debtors balances. There are also cases where entrepreneurs contacted their debtors to know about the debts instead of them reminding their debtors.

e) To assist loan approval process
Many entrepreneurs apply loan from banks, government agencies and funds provided by the government. However, there are complaints that it is not an simple process and also a time consuming process. One of the main reason for this is entrepreneurs change to show their financial reports as required. Many entrepreneurs do not give their accounts managements a priority even though they concurred that it is important for their businesses. There are entrepreneurs who managed to get their business loan but later change because of no proper accounts management system. Before approving any loan, loaners normally want to see, among other things:

• The financial statements for the past 3 years
• Present and forecasted future cash flows
• Active business bank accounts

With a sound record-keeping system, entrepreneurs could supply all those required information immediately.

f) Early detection of problems and enhance business competitiveness
Accurate and updated records of profit and loss, cash flows, sales, buys and expenses enable entrepreneurs to know the actual position of their businesses. Many business owners think that they are doing fine but the fact is that they are not. They merely measure their businesses based on the regular sales. Some business owners think income are profits. They are happy because they have money in their pockets, and as a result, spending lavishly. Business is not only about having income but also expenditures and other obligations. Those aspects have to be considered and that is why proper recording of transactions are important. Proper records will signal entrepreneurs and help them to wisely plan for their business developments. Efforts are prefabricated to maintain and strengthen their business strength while weaknesses are identified at primeval stage and rectify. This will make business to stay competitive even during its turbulence and hard time.

g) Effective internal control
Sound record-keeping system also serves as an effective internal control. Here are few examples of how proper record keeping and record-keeping system help to prevent and detect irregularities in business.
Psychologically, good record keeping and filing system warns staffs that fraudulence activities will be easily detected. Businesses dealing with cash are exposed to risks related to insincere staffs.
Monthly bank reconciliation statement helps business to detect if there is any unauthorized issuance of cheque. One of our clients was healthy to detect the omission of RM2000 from their bank statement through the preparation of a monthly bank reconciliation statement.
Proper maintenance of creditor ledgers could prevent double payments prefabricated to suppliers and refrain unnecessary dispute between both parties

h) Smoothing the auditing process (for company)
Auditing process normally is a nightmare to record-keeping staffs. During auditors visit, sometimes record-keeping staffs have to work long hours and under pressure, answering all sort of auditors’ questions. Staffs taking emergency leave and sick leave are normal during this period of time. Difficulty during auditing process occurred because supporting documentations for the prepared financial statements are not acquirable and auditors’ required information not readily prepared. Having a proper record keeping and filling system can help to smoothing the auditing process. Improper records and documentations can lead to additional costs being incurred by the management. The company might need to incur “accounting-fix” cost on top of the audit fee. Other costs that can be very “costly” to the management are the delay in the issuance of auditor’s report and the eligible audit report instead of unqualified audit report.

Related Business Articles

Get Your Business Plan Funded or ?don?t Make The Following Mistakes?

Business

Your business plan is very often the first impression potential investors get about your venture. But even if you have a great product, team, and customers, it could also be the last impression the investor gets if you make any of these avoidable mistakes.

Investors see thousands of business plans apiece year, even in this down market.

Apart from a referral from a trusted source, the business plan is the only basis they have for deciding whether or not to invite an entrepreneur to their offices for an initial meeting.

With so many opportunities, most investors simply focus on finding reasons to state no. They reason that entrepreneurs who know what they are doing will not make fundamental mistakes. Each mistake counts against you.

This article shows you how to refrain the most common errors found in business plans.

Content Mistakes

Failing to relate to a true pain

Pain comes in many flavours: my personal network keeps crashing; my accounts receivable cycle is too long; existing treatments for a medical condition are ineffective; my tax returns are too hard to prepare. Businesses and consumers pay good money to make pain go away.

You are in business to get paid for making pain go away.

Pain, in this setting, is synonymous with market opportunity. The greater the pain, the more widespread the pain, and the superior your product is at alleviating the pain, the greater your market potential.

A well written business plan places the solution firmly in the context of the problem being solved.

Value inflation

Phrases like “unparalleled in the industry;” “unique and limited opportunity;” or “superb returns with limited capital investment”—taken from actual documents—are nothing but assertions and hype.

Investors will judge these factors for themselves. Lay out the facts—the problem, your solution, the market size, how you will sell it, and how you will stay ahead of competitors—and lay off the hype.

Trying to be all things to all people

Many early-stage companies believe that more is better. They explain how their product can be applied to multiple, diverse markets, or they devise a complex suite of products to bring to a market.

Most investors like to see a more focused strategy, especially for primeval stage companies: a single, superior product that solves a troublesome problem in a single, massive market that will be sold through a single, proven distribution strategy.

That is not to state that additional products, applications, markets, and distribution channels should be discarded—instead, they should be used to enrich and support the highly focused core strategy.

You need to hold the story together with a strong, compelling core thread. Identify that, and let the rest be supporting characters.

No go-to-market strategy

Business plans that change to explain the sales, marketing, and distribution strategy are doomed.

The key questions that must be answered are: who will purchase it, why, and most importantly, how will you get it to them?

You must explain how you have already generated customer interest, obtained pre-orders, or superior yet, prefabricated actual sales—and describe how you will leverage this experience through a cost-effective go-to-market strategy.

“We have no competition”

No matter what you might think, you have competitors. Maybe not a direct competitor—in the sense of a company offering an same solution—but at least a substitute. Fingers are a alternative for a spoon. First class mail is a alternative for e-mail. A coronary bypass is a alternative for an angioplasty.

Competitors, simply stated, consist of everybody pursuing the same customer dollars.

To state that you have no competition is a fast way to get your plan tossed—investors will conclude that you do not have a full understanding of your market.

The “Competition” section of your business plan is your opportunity to showcase your relative strengths against direct competitors, indirect competitors, and substitutes.

Besides, having competitors is a good thing. It shows investors that a real market exists.

Too long

Investors are very busy, and do not have the time to read long business plans. They also favor entrepreneurs who demonstrate the capability to convey the most important elements of a complex intent with an economy of words.

An saint executive summary is no more than 1-2 pages.

An saint business plan is 20-30 pages (and most investors like the lower end of this range).

Remember, the primary purpose of a fund-raising business plan is to motivate the investor to pick up the phone and invite you to an in-person meeting. It is not intended to describe each last detail.

Document the details elsewhere: in your operating plan, R&D plan, marketing plan, white papers, etc.

Too technical

Business plans—especially those authored by people with scientific backgrounds—are often packed with too many technical details and scientific jargon.

Initially, investors are interested in your technology only in terms of how it:

solves a really huge problem that people will pay for;

is significantly superior than competing solutions;

can be fortified through patents or other means; and

can be implemented on a reason-able budget.

All of these questions can be answered without a highly technical discussion of how your product works. The details will be reviewed by experts during the due diligence process.

Keep the business plan simple. Document the technical details in separate white papers.

No risk analysis

Investors are in the business of balancing risks versus rewards. Some of the first things they want to know are what are the risks inherent in your business, and what has been done to mitigate these risks.

The key risks of entrepreneurial ventures include:

Market risks: Will people actually purchase what you have to sell? Will you need to create a major change in consumer activity ?

Technology risks: Can you actually deliver what you state you can? On budget and on time?

Operational risks: What can go wrong in the day-to-day operations of the company? What can go wrong with manufacturing and customer support?

Management risks: Can you attract and retain the right team? Can your team actually pull this off? Are you prepared to step aside and let somebody else take over if necessary?

Legal risks: Is your intellectual property truly protected? Are you infringing on another company’s patents? If your solution does not work, can you limit your liability?

This is, of course, just a partial list of risks.

Even though you might feel that the risks are negligible, potential investors will feel otherwise unless you demonstrate that you have given a lot of thought to what can go wrong and have taken prudent steps to mitigate these risks.

Poorly organized

Your intent should flow in a nice, organized fashion. Each section should build logically on the previous section, without requiring the reader to know something that is presented later in the plan.

Even though there is no single “correct” business plan structure, one successful structure is as follows:

Executive Summary: This is a brief, 1 to 3 page summary of everything that follows in the plan.

It should be a stand-alone document, as many readers will make their initial decision based on the executive summary alone. This should usually be written last; otherwise, you have nothing to summarize!

Background: If you are in a highly specialized field, you should wage some background in layman terms since most investors will not have advanced degrees in your field.

Market Opportunity: Describe how businesses and consumers are suffering, and how much they are willing to pay for a solution.

Products or Services: Describe what you do, and how your solution fits into the market opportunity.

Market Traction: Describe how you have succeeded in attracting customers, marketing and distribution partnerships, and other alliances that demonstrate that experts in your market are betting on your solution.

Competitive Analysis: Identify your direct and indirect competitors, and describe how your solution is better.

Distribution and Marketing Strategy: Describe how you will go to market, how you will price your products, etc.

Risk Analysis: Identify major sources of risks, and describe how you are mitigating them.

Milestones: Showcase a strong past track record, and describe key checkpoints for the future.

Company and Management: Provide the basic facts about your company—where and when you incorporated, where you are located, and brief biographies of your core team.

Financials: Provide summaries of your P&L and cash flows, and the assumptions used to come up with these. Also describe your funding needs, how you will use the proceeds, and doable exit strategies for investors.

As said earlier, there is no “right” structure—you will need to experiment to find the one that ideal suits your business.

Financial Model Mistakes

Forgetting Cash

Revenues are not cash. Gross margins are not cash. Profits are not cash. Only cash is cash.

For example, suppose you sell something this month for 100 Euro that cost you 60 Euro to make. But you have to pay your suppliers in 30 days, while the buyer probably won’t pay you for at least 60 days.

Your revenue for the month was 100 Euro, your profit was 40 Euro, and your cash flow was zero.

Your cash flow for the transaction will be negative 60 Euro next month when you pay your suppliers.

Even though this might seem trivial, very slight changes in the timing difference between cash receipt and disbursement—just a couple of weeks—can bankrupt your business.

When you build your financial model, make sure that your assumptions are realistic so that you raise adequate capital.

Lack of Detail

Construct your financials from the bottom-up, and then validate them from the top-down.

A bottom-up model starts with details such as when you anticipate to make certain income or hire specific employees.

Top-down validation means that you analyze your overall market potential and compare that to the bottom-up revenue projections.

Round numbers—like one million in R&D expenses in Year 2, and two million in Year 3—are a sure sign that you do not have a bottom-up model.

Unrealistic financials

Only a small handfull of companies achieve 100 million Euro or more in income only five years after founding.

Projecting much more than that will not be credible, and will get your business plan canned faster than nearly anything else.

On the other hand, a business with only 25 million Euro in revenues after five years will be too small to interest serious investors.

Financial forecasts are a litmus test of your understanding of how venture capitalists think.

If you have a realistic basis for projecting 50-100 million Euro in Year 5, you are probably a good candidate for venture financing. Otherwise, you should probably look elsewhere.

Insufficient financial projections

Basic financial projections consist of three elements: Income Statements, Balance Sheets, and Cash Flow Statements. All of these must conform to Generally Accepted Bookkeeping Principles.

Investors generally anticipate to see five years of projections. Of course, nobody can see five years into the future, but they want to see the thought process you employ to create long-term projections.

A good financial model will also include sensitivity analyses, showing how your projected results will change if your assumptions turn out to be incorrect. This grants both you and the investor to refer the assumptions that can affect your future performance, so that you can focus your energies on validating them.

They should also include benchmark comparisons to other companies in your industry – things like revenues per employee, gross margin per employee, gross margin as a percentage of revenues, and various expense ratios (general and administrative, income and marketing, research and development, and operations as a percentage of total operating expenses).

Conservative assumptions

Nobody ever believes that assumptions are conservative, even if they truly are.

Develop realistic assumptions you can support, refrain from using the words “conservative” or “aggressive” in your plan, and leave it at that.

Offering a valuation

Many business plans err by stating that their company is worth a certain amount. How do you know? The value of a company is determined by the market—by what others are willing to pay—and unless you are in the business of buying, selling, or investing in companies, you probably don’t have an acute sense of what the market will bear.

If you study a price, one of two things can happen: (a) your price is too high, and investors will toss your plan; or (b) your price is too low, and investors will take advantage of you. Both are bad.

The purpose of the business plan is to tell your story in the most compelling manner doable so that investors will want to go to the next step. You can always negotiate the price later.

Stylistic Mistakes

Poor spelling and grammar

If you make silly mistakes in your business plan, what does that state about how you run your business?

Use your spelling and grammar checkers, get other people to edit the plan, do whatever it takes to purge humiliating errors.

Too repetitive

All too often, a plan covers the same points over and over.

A well-written plan should cover key points only twice: once, briefly, in the executive summary, and again, in greater detail, in the body of the plan.

Appearance matters

At any point in time, an investor has dozens if not hundreds of plans inactivity to be read. Get to the top of the pile by making sure that the cover is attractive, the binding is professional, the pages are well ordered out, and the fonts are massive enough to be easily read.

On the other hand, don’t go too far—you don’t want to give the impression that you are all style and no substance.

Execution Mistakes

Waiting until too late

The capital formation process takes a long time. In general, count on 6 months to a year from the time you start writing the plan until the time the money is in the bank.

Don’t place it off. Your management team should be prepared to invest about 500 hours into the plan. If you are too busy building your product, company, or customers (which is arguably a superior use of your time), think about outsourcing the development of the business plan.

Failing to seek outside review

Make sure that you have at least a few people review your plan before you send it out—preferably people who comprehend your market, income and distribution strategies, the VC market, etc.

Your plan might look perfect to you and your team, but that’s probably because you’ve been staring at it for months.

Good, neutral reviews from outsiders with a fresh appearance can save you from myopia.

Overtweaking

You could spend countless hours tweaking your plan in the motion of perfection.

A lot of this time would be superior spent working on your product, company, and customers.

At some point, you need to pull the trigger and get the plan out in front of a few investors.

If the reaction is positive, and they want to move forward, great.

If the reaction is negative (assuming that the investor was a good fit to start with), then you might have been heading down the wrong path. Get feedback from a couple of investors, and if a general consensus emerges, go back and refine your plan.

Conclusion

It’s a tough investment climate, but good ideas backed by good teams and good business plans are still getting funded.

Give yourself the ideal doable chance by avoiding these easy mistakes.

Dipl. ir. Freddy M.E. Jacobs

PBS Worldwide

frjacobs@telenet.be

0032-478/331-799

0040-766/622-873

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