One of the ongoing challenges many founders will face at some point is the dreaded capital raise beyond friends and family. I have not met many entrepreneurs’ who actually enjoy the idea of going out to the market and asking for money. This year has been a typical year for us evaluating over 100 capital raise deals and most will never get funded for one specific reason – the PASSION is not directed to what matters most – EXECUTION.
September 15th is the time of the year that US corporate tax payers rush to get the final numbers to their accountants for the filing deadline (assuming they extended the returns with the automatic 6 month extension – IRS form 7004). It’s similar to the stress of April 15th individual tax filing deadlines. In many cases owners never fully analyze and disseminate the information from the corporate P&L and the corresponding tax return.
The Branding Pyramid and 21 Brand Monitoring Ideas
Guest blog post by Jim Harshaw.
In the fall of 2012, I pulled the plug on my business.
I labored at it for years but it was now clear that it would fail. It was a terrible feeling. Like years of time and money have been wasted.
I’ve felt that feeling before.
It was March 20, 1998. In front of 14,000 fans at the Convocation Center in Cleveland Ohio, I failed to reach my goal of becoming a Division I All American. Years of time and money that had been invested felt like they’d been wasted. I found myself in the locker room, my face buried in a towel in tears wondering why I can’t do this. “What’s wrong with me?,” I thought. “I couldn’t possibly have worked any harder. I couldn’t have run more miles or lifted more weights or watched more film. There weren’t enough hours in the day.”
In the past two weeks, three close colleagues in the “big” corporate world sent the dreaded email to me – “Wayne, I wanted to reach out to see how you might be able to help with my next job search and contacts as my job was just eliminated?” Their roles were Chief Financial Officer, Chief Marketing Officer and VP Sales (Pharma, Manufacturing and Banking industries). Downsizing, slow business growth and wage costs were the reasons for their new job searches.
With the changing marketplace that seems to move in multiple directions by the minute in our 24/7 consumer driven marketplace, considering career insurance just like any other insurance should be part of your life risk management plan. Career insurance comes down to having a contingency plan and specific additional income stream(s), (3-6 months of emergency cash on hand as well) to protect in the event of a loss of employment. Don’t get caught in a panic state, in the event of a job loss. Consider the pros and cons of a side business that “ you own”, compared to your employer owning you. Jack Welch’s famous quote states it perfectly, “Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will”.
Recently, I was speaking with a good friend who was considering leaving his long-term employer (financial services industry) and starting a business around his life passion of wine. He has become quite the expert in the space and has a unique idea centered on education and an online inventory platform. From a 10,000-foot viewpoint his concept appears to offer value to the market and he has a following of fans that love his content within this wide space of the wine industry.
“For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other […]
Outsourcing, the word so popular in the 1990’s and today everything is “disruption”. Two different things of course but have many crossovers to life and business.
“Storytelling is who we are”, Gallo