Want help to start or grow your business? Call 503-501-2444 for a free consultation. Ethos Cleantech

Posts Tagged ‘capital raising’

« Older Entries

How To Shop For Business Plan Writing And Small Business Consultants

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Small business consulting and business plan writing is a very personal endeavor between the entrepreneur and the company they are working with. It can quickly prove frustrating for an entrepreneur perusing the internet looking for a reputable company that will make a good fit. Hundreds, if not thousands, of small business service providers promote their experience, reputation and methodologies to make working with them as enticing as possible.

How do you know the company you choose is the right one? How do you know the company is going to deliver on their promises? How do you, as a small business entrepreneur, find peace of mind? While anyone can create a fancy website, receive an “A” rating with the Better Business Bureau (at least for a few months) and put up a couple of testimonials  only the BEST companies who consistently produce high quality deliverables, coupled with excellent customer service, survive and thrive long term. The “fly by night companies” quickly develop a bad reputation and exit the small business planning market segment.

We recommend checking out the prospective companies BBB record, how long have they been in business, are the testimonials on their site of “real” companies, and follow your instincts during the initial consultation. Does your first contact with a company get you an aggressive sales pitch or a consultant who listens to you, asks questions and addresses your specific needs? Does the person you’re speaking with have experience being in your shoes or working with entrepreneurs who have been in your situation? Or are they just trying to make a sale? Remember to follow your gut because you’ll be spending quite a bit of time with the employees of the company you choose. Make sure you do your research first and ask ALL your questions before committing.

Successfully working with a small business consultant and/or business planning company is an intimate process where expectations need to be addressed at the onset and the parties involved MUST be able to communicate effectively. Based upon our personal experience not every potential client is a good fit for us or vice versa. We have a corporate philosophy and process we adhere to. Potential clients must work within our process for the best possible outcome for us and them. We don’t attempt to put a round peg into a square hole. It just doesn’t work.

If a potential client isn’t a good fit for Ethos 360, we recommend other small business consulting and business planning service providers we know that have strong reputations within our industry and are well established along with having solid track records of delivering high quality services and products. We have nothing to gain from these referrals besides the peace of mind knowing that the entrepreneur will be in good hands as they continue their search for the company that’s the “right fit”. This ultimately saves the entrepreneur time and money along with avoiding the potentially business killing mistake of working with the wrong company.

Below is a list of companies we recommend to entrepreneurs who don’t fit into our wheelhouse. Some focus on one aspect, such as small business consulting or business planning, while others combine these services, along with additional complimentary ones like capital raising and investor relations. Some even offer investment banking and high level institutional investor introductions.

In no particular order:

Growthink- www.growthink.com

Butler Consultants LLC- www.financial-projections.com

Capital West Advisors- www.capitalwestadvisors.com

Cayenne Consulting- www.caycon.com

Venture Archetypes- www.venturearchetypes.com

The Best Business Plan Co.- www.thebestbusinessplan.com

International Business Partners- www.ibpconsultants.com

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in business start-up, entrepreneurism, entrepreneurs, small business consulting, tips and tricks | No Comments »

Lonny Magazine: Merging Innovation And Tradition

Friday, November 20th, 2009

We know that the print industry is suffering these days. Advertisers are pulling out of print and even with a devoted reader base, long-standing magazines like Blueprint, Domino, House & Garden and Vogue Living have folded.

In the December edition of Vanity Fair, former Domino magazine exec Patrick Cline and Michelle Adams combined their vision for a web based magazine that integrated ads into editorial content for Lonny Magazine, a word made from the fusion of London and New York.  Here, the web magazine mimics the reader experience of hard print, even the ability to flip pages. How many times have you jumped pages in a magazine to get to the editorial content?  Readers can mouse over articles or pictures of interest and can connect with a click to the retailer. See an idea you’d like to try in the editorial? Click on it to find out where you can get it.

Financing a new magazine was no easy feat given the status of the many big names that have folded. Lonny Magazine raised their money through the most traditional methods: their team worked for free, borrowed money from family, kept their day jobs and because they had no money for marketing, relied on the internet buzz generated by bloggers, facebook and twitter to spread the word of their launch.  Their first edition cost $11,000 to produce, 10K of photography, processing, and equipment was donated by friends and companies; 1K for various out of pocket expenses; even the car was borrowed from Adam’s parents. Now that’s what I call bootstrapping.

No calls or pleas for hundreds of thousands of dollars,  they got their noses to the grind stone and just ‘did it’, making their product, proving that it was feasible and profitable,  believe in their product, and paid their dues. Now they’re in Vanity Fair and in a much better position to receive financing than if they did nothing at all but brainstorm on a piece of paper.

Lonny’s next issue comes out in December, check them out at www.lonnymag.com.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in business start-up, entrepreneurism, entrepreneurs, raising capital, sales and selling, web design, women in business | No Comments »

Sprowtt.com Has Arrived To The Benefit Of Cleantech Entrepreneurs

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Every day, I keep hearing people asking, “where do I go next for funding?”  I’ve talked about how to seek funding, how to seek investors, how to get money, etc.  No matter how you slice it, trying to seek funding is almost like going door to door and asking people if they have five minutes to hear an idea.  Obviously, it’s more professional than that, but the feeling of apprehension is still there as you try to scale the metaphorical walls of potential investors.

With all of the innovations in social networking and business tools, how has a solution to this ordeal not been developed?  As soon as I asked this question to myself, a colleague showed me a website called, www.Sprowtt.com and then I considered wondering aloud if I could have a free Mercedes.

To put it simply, by using Sprowtt, anyone can participate in the funding of companies. Potential investors are able to log on to the site and create a profile with detailed financial and bank account information. Then they are given a list of companies they can invest in based on their financial capabilities.  The start-ups have their own information posted such as informational presentation videos, the amount of money the start-up has already raised, and their products and detailed business plans, on which the investors can share their comments.

So what happens if the investor likes the company?  Once they’re interested they can sign the stock subscription agreement and then enter the number of shares they wish to purchase.  At this point, the funds are held in escrow until the offering is complete (which happens when the minimum amount for an offering is accumulated). Sprowtt then helps to transfer the funds from an investor’s account to the start-up.

The entire process is done in a very comfortable and familiar format that is like almost any social networking set-up that we as a Web 2.0 familiar community are used to. Personally, I think that if this site can get its proper ducks in a row that this will make the investor process very accessible to the sudden influx of start-ups that are currently out there and ready to make the leap to capital raising.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in business, business start-up, raising capital, venture capital | No Comments »

How To Increase Your Chances For Getting An SBA Loan

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Many of our start up business clients at www.Ethos360.com come to us with basic questions on how to get financing from the SBA.  There are a few things to have in your back pocket (and on the tip of your tongue) before going to them in order to increase your chances of getting approved. 

1.        Know your business inside and out.

You will need a business plan that not only covers all of the details of your business idea, but is also devoid of unnecessary embellishment and hyper extended financial projections.  The SBA wants to know what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it.  Also, they want to see evidence that you are qualified and capable of executing the tasks outlined in your business plan.  The Management Summary of your business plan should detail your experience or at least the experience of the people you’ll have on hand to make up for any lack of qualifications you’ll have. 

2.       Show that you have invested in yourself and your business.

This seems like an obvious requirement, but a surprising number of people come up against a wall when faced with this.  The SBA is not a zero percent down financing solution. You will have to show that you have invested a good sum of your own money, time and effort into the business in order to get the SBA to put up the loan.  The SBA will not underwrite 100% of the venture so this means that you will have to not only have collateral for the loan, but will be providing evidence of having previously invested at least 25% to 50% of the asking amount in the business.

3.        Understand that the SBA will examine your asking amount and prepare.

The SBA is very concerned and interested to know where the money you’re requesting will be going.  Being prepared with a breakdown of future spending along with brief explanations as to what the money will be used for will help the SBA determine the level of your asking amount.  Approaching a loan officer and just saying, “I’ll be needing $100,000, please” will not work half as well as illustrating in detail what that $100,000 will do such as: “I’ll need $50,000 for a new truck, $20,000 tenant improvements on a new office space, $10,000 for working capital, and $30,000 on upfront rent on an office space.”  Keep in mind that a business that has been in existence for more than a year has a better chance of getting an SBA loan than a start-up. 

There are many more tips and tricks to help increase your chances at getting funding from the SBA.  It may seem a little daunting for a first timer to gather their ducks in a row, but there are many low cost ways to prepare you.  Small business coaches and mentors can help a great deal with putting together what you need to help your business get financing. Don’t be afraid of approaching the SBA, they’re there to help.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in business loans, business start-up, raising capital | 1 Comment »

How to Raise Capital In Today’s Economic Climate

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Many people ask me if it’s possible to raise capital in the traditional sense these days.  Everyone knows and understands that lending practices have tightened and many VC firms have gently (and occasionally not so gently) refused to accept any more submissions.  But is it impossible to raise capital? Of course not, it’s just even harder now.  That’s not to say that raising capital has ever been easy, it has always been a challenging process.  If it was an easy process, there wouldn’t be companies charging money to hunt down investors and business coaches priming you for your journey ahead.  www.Ethos360.com will do both of these things.  Keep this in mind, no one can ever guarantee that you will get funding.  It’s an impossible to guarantee, and illegal to make any such claims.

What do investors want to see from you?  It’s certainly not 30 pages of a long winded business plan, especially if it’s a poorly written one.  It’s not an unsolicited phone call from you to take 45 minutes of their time while you wax poetic about your business or idea.  The same logic that says to keep your resume short is the same logic you should take to approach investors with your business.  There are a number of questions that investors need answered, and any entrepreneur answering them must now be in even more concise, with verified details supporting your business claims.  Some of these questions might surprise you, particularly if you’re not well prepared to face investors. 

1.       What is your business pitch? In one sentence.

This sounds easy enough, but too many capital seekers wind up grasping for an answer to this.  What is it that you do exactly? Why is it exceptional?

2.        What is your competitive advantage?

So you built a mouse-trap.  How is it better than other mouse-traps? How do you intend to overtake the current mouse-trap on the market right now?

3.        Define your market.

Who are you selling to? This basically asks you who your customers are, who they will be in the future, how big this pool of customers is, and whether or not this pool will grow in the future.  You will need to be able to elaborate on your answer.

This is list not exhaustive, there are many more questions regarding your marketing and sales strategy that need to be answered, preferably in less than a few sentences. 

In order to better position yourself to get funding, you need to take your feet and put them in the shoes of your audience.  Many entrepreneurs wind up deeply entrenched in the details of their business, they forget that the audience isn’t psychic, or willing to fill in the blanks themselves. Don’t make it hard for them to get these answers.  Investors generally are not willing to pull answers out of you; the onus is on you to give them what they want and need to hear, preferably quickly and in a straight forward manner. 

These questions are just a small tip of the basic questions that investors need answers to.  Consider taking the time to answer these types of questions as the better you know your own business, the easier it becomes to explain it to someone that you’d like as a funding source.  We can open the door for you, but you need to take the initiative to step through prepared and ready to take on the tough questions.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in business start-up, raising capital | No Comments »

« Older Entries