Raising Equity and Venture Capital on Main Street

Do you ever make business decisions affecting your customers without asking them what they think first?
I belong to a franchise system and have been very successful in my business for eight years. Last night, the corporate office sent an email to its 400 or so franchisees announcing that an important product was being discontinued because of high manufacturing costs. My BlackBerry began buzzing incessantly almost immediately with commentary from other franchisees that is mostly unprintable on this family-friendly blog. Ah, I thought, a teachable moment for entrepreneurs on how to make decisions when your customers are involved.
If you have a product whose raw material cost had risen, what would your options be? You could:

Discontinue the product without prior research on how this would affect your customers and your relationship with them.

Raise prices to your customers to cover your raw materials price increase.

Ask your customers (or a subset of […]

I first met Emily Sunderman when we both worked at CMP Media, a publishing company on Long Island, in the 1990s. She was a business analyst and a great person. We both moved on and I hadn't heard of her again until I stumbled upon her online.  Wouldn't you know it, she and her husband, Michael Lee, are entrepreneurs. Their cheese-making business, Twig Farm, is based in Cornwall, Vermont. We reconnected and she and Michael were gracious enough to take time away from the goats to answer some questions about their entrepreneurial journey. I told Emily before she answered these questions that, looking at her website, I wanted to be a cheese farmer in Vermont just like her! After our interview, that fantasy hasn't changed. Thanks Emily and Michael, and continued success!

Aliza Sherman is one of the true pioneers of Web marketing and journalism. She launched one of the very first Internet services companies, Cybergrrl, Inc., in the 1990s, and founded Webgrrls International, the first women's Internet networking group that grew to over 100 chapters worldwide in its first year. Since then she has launched products and communities, written books, been a prolific public speaker and adviser in the worlds of politics, media, health care and more.  She graciously took the time to answer my questions about entrepreneurship.
My blog is about successful business executives who are switching from corporate to entrepreneurial life. What do you see as the biggest opportunities out there for people who are looking to go out on their own?
I think consulting is a big opportunity, particularly for self-motivated people who can take the skills they've gained and experience they've had in the corporate world and package them […]

John Warrillow's book, Built To Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell ( Flip Jet Media, 2010) has me thinking hard about my small business — and if you own a small business (under 100 employees) it will get you thinking, too. Most entrepreneurs are great at doing all the jobs associated with their companies.  Knock yourself out. Hey, it's your company. But if you want to sell your business someday, it's not great. It's dangerous.  Listen to my interview with John and in less than 20 minutes you'll get the essentials of what you'll need to know if you ever want to sell successfully. Read my review of the book here. And visit the book website for other good info.
In 17 Minutes Your Business Will be More Saleable originally appeared on About.com Entrepreneurs on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 20:21:15.
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One of the biggest headaches for small businesses is hiring good people. Some people are great in interviews but perform miserably. Others are nervous in the interview process but have all the skills to do a great job. Big companies have HR departments that are equipped to sort through the hiring quagmire, but what about smaller firms that don't have human resources people to run interference?
A Canadian firm, ClearFit, has created a software product to help small businesses solve the problem of limited resources and the need to hire the right people. As an employer, you create an account at ClearFit and then answer a series of questions about the job you need to fill and the attributes candidates must have to be successful in it.
Once the job is in the system, job seekers can apply by completing a behavioral questionnaire. After that, the employer sees a report showing the […]

If you're lucky enough to own a business and not have to "work for the Man," you nevertheless have this problem: Do you have an exit strategy to enable you to sell your business at some point in the future?
The vast majority of small business owners, when they're done doing whatever it is they do, lock the door behind them and walk away. The reason for this "no sale" outcome — which some experts say is the result for 99 percent of businesses — is often that their owners didn't build their businesses to be attractive to potential buyers.
Fortunately for every small business owner who dreams of selling one day, there is a new book that outlines exactly what you have to do to get your business into shape for an eventual successful sale. In Built To Sell: Turn Your Business into One You Can Sell (Flip Jet Media, 2010), […]

 
I've always been intrigued by public speakers, good and bad. I always learn something.  Recently, I was at a college and happened to drop in on a presentation. The speaker was a social worker who was at the college to give a talk on Alcohol Awareness.  The room had about 100 mostly teenage kids seated at round tables of about eight each. The room had about 15 tables. There was a distance of perhaps 100 feet from the front of the room to the back, where I was.
The speaker lectured the kids on the dangers of alcohol. For the most part, I could not hear what she was saying because the kids were having their own conversations at their tables. Since the tables were round, half the kids had no field of vision of the speaker unless they turned their seats around, and kids being kids, they didn't bother.  If […]

Not unexpectedly, the recession led to a big increase in startup businesses in 2009. According to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, start-up activity among jobless managers and executives reached a four-year high in 2009. The percentage of unemployed workers starting their own business rose to an average of 8.6 percent in 2009, according to the latest Challenger Job Market Index.The 2009 average is up 69 percent from 2008, when the start-up rate was 5.1 percent, the lowest annual average in the history of the Index.
The biggest surge in entrepreneurial activity occurred in the third quarter, when 11.8 percent of job seekers started their own firms. That was the highest quarterly figure since the second quarter of 2005. The start-up rate fell to 7.3 percent in the final quarter of the year, but CGH says this is not unusual.
The news isn't all good: The percentage of small and independent […]

I came across this brief video by Gary Vaynerchuk today. Gary, you may know, is the web's first and foremost expert on wine and the host of WineLibraryTV. He's also the author of New York Times business bestseller Crush It! The reason I am sharing this with you is that in less than 60 seconds you'll have the underlying secret to success as an entrepreneur. Watch it and leave a comment.

Linchpin: GaryVee from Seth Godin on Vimeo.
The Secret of Entrepreneurial Success in 60 Seconds originally appeared on About.com Entrepreneurs on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 09:55:00.
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A business school professor once suggested his students look for the best small business ideas and opportunities in "the space between the elephant's toes." He meant that the best, most profitable businesses are often ones that few people have ever heard of and that are hard to imitate. Start those kinds of ventures, the professor said, and you have a higher probability of charging aggressive prices and achieving robust profit margins — provided, of course, that you have a legitimate niche with enough customers. So, what's your space between the elephant's toes? And how's it working out? Visit this About.com "Show & Tell" feature, tell your story, and if we select it for inclusion you'll be world famous!
Unique Entrepreneurial Businesses & What Makes Them Successful originally appeared on About.com Entrepreneurs on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 18:23:07.
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