Business Plan reading

Writing a good business plan is important because it works as a sanity check. It shows you if your business proposition makes sense... and if it doesn't make sense then there is very little way that you will receive funding. The executive summary is a summary of all the major points in the business plan. The business plan talks about all the essentials when talking about building a business. You have to take into account the market size, realistically.. if you have an unrealistic goal in mind, investors won't want to invest.. because they want to receive big returns. When you describe the technology that you will be selling/producing it is vital to explain the market opportunity. It is important to be aware of your competitors and not take them for granted, or else you can end up like govWorks.com. Their competitors started to innovate new ways to gain leverage over govWorks, and took them down.

Congressman Adam Smith

The congressman explained how the United States economy is steadily declining while the rest of the worlds economy is going up. We dominated economically in the past, but now other countries are becoming heavily dominant. Congressman Adam Smith believes in technology and the impact it will have on the future. He seemed to have showed some displeasure in the thought that the U.S. could lose the Tanker contract, which would give anther plane manufacturer access to a contract that could have lots of job opportunities attached to it for the people of U.S. He was very optimistic about energy and life sciences and sees the potential that these fields have.

Congressman Adam Smith is very well spoken, and it was definitely a pleasure to hear him speak.

Startup.com

Startup.com was a movie about an online company that was designed to help make paying for parking tickets easier and more efficient. I really enjoyed Startup.com, mainly because in a short span of one year, the co-owners of the company govWorks.com went from studs to duds. Personalities didn't mesh and the long time friends had quickly turned on each other. The movie was a documentary. It showed us the reality of a business starting up, gaining speed, and than getting torn down by competitors and life itself.

I can relate this to situations now, because the clashing of personalities can always happen. There will always be people that do not mesh well together, and writing my business plan I realized that if I co-owned a business... even with my own brothers.. then it could have some negative impacts outside of the workplace because some people will have more will and determination than the other and feel they are doing more work, or the other isn't doing enough work.. and so forth.

John Dimmers

John Dimmers lecture in class was very interesting, mainly because what he was saying was backed up by his successes. He is a proud owner of pizza restaurants, a car dealership, etc.

He discussed his father and cousin going into business together to create a business that was sold for multi-millions. The main point of his lecture to us was to give us information about Angel investors, and their significance in role for entrepreneurs trying to get their business ideas started. Dimmers had explained to us that going from interview to interview to earn money for your idea was not an efficient way to get funding, because the chances of the investor saying no was a lot higher than them saying yes. There are organizations that are called Angel Networks, where investors go to listen to business ideas, and if interested, invest money into the projects. Vector capitals strive to gain control of your business by throwing you money that you do not necessarily need, but are drawn to take. Giving away a massive amount of your equity to a vector capital (or anyone else) is not a grand idea, rather gaining numerous angel investors is the right way to go.

Business Funding

I want my business to be family owned, and i want to make a business that i can co-own with a friend. Since its family and friend owned, gaining funds from my parents and relatives would be my first target. My brother had previously gotten a good sum of money from my mom in order to start his business, and I would hope she'd do the same for me. I live in a family full of small business owners, so trying to start my own business is nothing new to them. To help me get together a functioning website and all other logistics, I would employ some friends that I know can get the job done and that know I would pay them back.. since they know where i live.

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Guest Speaker - Brian

Brian had started off as a 3rd grade teacher, before becoming an entrepreneur. He had told us that while he was growing up, he was always "problem solving". With this mentality, he now owns his own business Sitecrafting.com. This business gives him the chance to problem solve every day he goes in for work. There is the challenge of knowing what design certain people want, how you can implement it properly, how to grow the business, etc. He had told us about PEMCO and how the lack of communication between his business, PEMCO, and the third party design team almost sunk his business. That event alone is the definition of entrepreneurship... taking risks. Brian treats his employees like family members, which leads to more trust and loyalty in the workplace. He had fired only one employee since starting his company, which shows how much the workers enjoy working for him. The article we read at the beginning of the quarter told us that becoming an entrepreneur was suicide, but Brian is a perfect example of a successful entrepreneur.

Ron Kornfeld - Guest Speaker

Ron Kornfeld had given us a lecture about the steps to creating a perfect business plan. He had told us that the actual process is rarely ever changed, and it is used pretty globally. Business plans fall into two categories, operational plans and plans designed to attract investors. Operational plans are plans that detail the logistics for development. While other business plans are made in a way to attract investors to support your business by showing them through the plan. When starting your business, marketing cost and operating capital is vastly overlooked. It is like building up a business, without considering costs for advertising.. because without marketing, the business has no room to grow. When you're business is suffering financially, and business is slow, people tend to overlook the need for operating capital, which is money that you store away that you can use in dire situations. You are not supposed to write the executive summary until the business plan is complete. You must spell check, spell check, spell check. Having spelling and grammatical errors in your business plans can be detrimental to your investors interest. Mr. Kornfeld had shared with us the Five Step Program to creating the business plan.

1. Identify the audience (Who are you aiming this towards? investors, potential employees, partners, management team, etc.)
2. Outline the Business Plan (How is it going to be structured?)
   
3. Write the Business Plan (Complete info, relevant research in hand, proformas. Make sure to spell check!)
   
4. Review the Business Plan (Get feedback not ideas on CHANGE.)
   
5. Update the Business Plan (commit to regular updating, business plans are always a draft)