entrepreneur

Page history last edited by Brian D Butler 7 mos ago

 

 

KookyPlan guide for Entrepreneurs

KookyPlan presents entrepreneurs with a guide for launching early-stage technology companies.   We focus on how to deal with Venture Capitalists, How to give a great pitch, Building revenue and customers, Building your Management Team, Setting Valuation, Preparing your Finances, Meeting with Investors, Negotiating Term Sheets, Exit Strategies, and more... 

 

 

Table of Contents:   

  1. Why are entrepreneurs important?
  2. Get inspired, share ideas
  3. Mission / vision statement
  4. Business Plan
  5. Market / Competition Research
    1. Tech trends to watch: 
    2. Business Model Analysis: 
    3. Trend watching : 
    4. Industry Analysis
      1. Clean-tech and environmentally conscious investing: 
      2. Investing in socially good projects: 
      3. making technology affordable: 
      4. internet: 
      5. travel: 
  6. Management Team
    1. human resources for startups
    2. stock options
    3. non-disclosure agreement
  7. International Entrepreneurship
    1. Opportunities for entrepreneurs in emerging markets
    2. Entrepreurship as the key to economic development
  8. Funding
    1. Getting noticed:
    2. Raising money:  Funding Entrepreneurs
    3. Raising Money links from KookyPlan
  9. Strategy 
  10. Financial Management
    1. How to save money on a startup
    2. Money links from KookyPlan
  11. Management Issues - how to run your company 
    1. Accounting
    2. Advertising
    3. Human Resources
    4. Marketing
    5. Negotiations
    6. Operations management
    7. Outsourcing
    8. Technology
  12. Finding Real estate for entrepreneurs & startups
  13. Web Development
  14. Legal Issues for Startups
  15. Picking the right location
  16. Finding Help:  Business Consultants for Startups
  17. Social Entrepreneurship
  18. Get a job with a Startup
  19. Resources, Tips & Guides
    1. Online guide from YCombinator:
  20. Flops:  learn from others mistakes
  21. About Entrepreneurship
    1. What it means to be an "entrepreneur"?
    2. Risk
    3. Culture
    4. Two types of entrepreneurs
    5. Characteristics of typical Entrepreneurs
  22. Links
    1. from KookyPlan (for Entrepreneurs):
  23. Other stuff (favorite external links)
  24. Books on Entrepreneurship

 

 

 

 

Why are entrepreneurs important?

 

Small companies represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms, Commerce Department data show. They pay nearly 45 percent of U.S. private payroll and have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the past decade.

Startups in a Recession:

 

Consider a few start-ups from the past century: Microsoft, MTV, CNN, FedEx, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Burger King. Each opened during a period of economic downturn. Today, these brands employ hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.  read more from Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn)

 

 

 

Get inspired, share ideas

The first key to any new innovation or new business model is to get inspired.  We ask all member of this wiki to kindly share with our community any business model that you find inspiring, or may be helpful to others in the idea-generation phase of business...

 

Mission / vision statement

what is your service concept?  What is your unique competitive advantage?  Is it sustainable?

 

Business Plan

see our guide to creating a compelling business plan

 

Market / Competition Research

 

  • Tech trends to watch: 

    • in this guide we, discuss various technologies that are changing, and have the potential to offer new opportunities, and to threaten disruption to other existing business models.  

 

  • Business Model Analysis: 

    • One of the original goals of KookyPlan was to establish a free forum where MBA students could openly discuss business models, using this discussion to  help them as they launched their own ventures.   This analysis was to serve as a form of free consulting for startups.  Since that time, we have expanded to cover much more, but we still have the forum open for any one that wants to contribute.  The goal is to outline the various business models such as:  Internet-based business models , and more....

 

  • Trend watching : 

    • There are new opportuntities for investing (and for starting up businesses) based on shifting underlying trends that are shaping our world today.  These are the important global trends that every business person should be aware of.   These are fundamental underlying trends, which means that they are important, but might not be obvious.   Many trends are interconnected, and have global implications.   Not paying attention to the development of global trends in can come back to haunt any business person, and so... we have dedicated ourselves to summarizing these events in simple language, and we are trying to show how these events might be important to different regions, and to different industries.   We are also watching tech trends to watch , telecom trends ,venture capital trends and more trends...

 

 

  • Industry Analysis

    • examples:

      • Clean-tech and environmentally conscious investing: 

        • Investments in clean technologies are alternatives to coal and the oil industry.  Within the energy industry, there are many business models being explored as there are a confluence of factors that are combining to make this a very interesting sector.  To begin with, the high price of oil, and the US fear of dependence on foreign sources of energy are resulting in much renewed emphasis on exploring new methods of powering our cars, homes, airplanes, and so on.  Also, as the fear of global warming reaches a critical mass, we are seeing an increased consumer demand for clean tech products. 

      • Investing in socially good projects: 

        • Im particularly interested in using technology and innovation to bring new services and products to less developed areas in Latin America.  Some of the projects that Ive explored recently, and find particularly interesting are the OLPC project which aims to bring one laptop to each child (at a cost of $100+).   Other projects that we are highlighting are the municipal wi-fi, and the potentials that WiFi in general have to bring broadband internet connections to poorer regions.   In addition, we are looking at projects involving peer-to-peer lending, or microfinance, with such companies as Kiva leading the way in innovative business models that should help lift millions out of poverty.  If you have any other projects that you think we should highlight, please feel free to add them here....

      • making technology affordable: 

        • One of the most interesting developments in the past 10 years is that technology is no longer developed first for corporations (who were the only ones that could afford it), and then later adapted to be marketed to consumers.   Nowadays, most of the best innovations are marketed directly to consumers, and later, if its is first successful with consumers...then it is later marketed to corporations.  This is what we see happing with social networking sites such as Facebook, as well as blogging, wikis, collaborative web tools, and so on.   But, beyond the world of the internet we are also starting to see massive price drops, to the point where technology is starting to be developed not just for the rich world, but also for the less developed nations as well.  The historical international product cycle is being inverted as products are being first developed to be marketed to Latin America and Asia.  We see this happening with such companies as Quanta Computer, and Asustek who are marketing a flash based laptop that retails for under $200 and is geared to compete vs the OLPC project.  There are many other examples of technology developments that are being marketed globally, and skipping the traditional product life cycle.  If you have any insights you want to add, please feel free to add them here ...

      • internet: 

        • We are keeping an eye on Silicon Valley and watching for developments in internet technologies that might be transferable to Latin America.  We are keeping a list of tech trends to watch  in order to help non-techies understand some of the developments that are occurring in the world of high-tech.   We are doing this because we believe that it is important for business leaders (in any industry) to keep abreast with the latest developments in technology so that they can see both the threats, and the opportunities that occur in global business.  But mostly we are doing it because we believe that it is important to do so.  We hope you enjoy, and that you might help us keep this list up to date...

      • travel: 

        • The global travel industry is vitally important to many countries in the Caribbean and Latin America (as it is to cities such as Miami, Orlando, and many others in the USA).  Surprisingly, the number two industry in terms of dollars spent is "Tourism", following just behind Aircraft, but ahead of the Oil industry, and the arms trade. People around the world spend at least one trillion dollars on travel each year. Travel and tourism comprise the world's largest industrial sector and employ over 300 million people, nearly one-tenth of the global work force. However you count it, there is a massive amount of money to be spent each year on travel, hotels, cruises, and so on.  Because of the importance of travel industry to so many places in the Americas, we felt it only appropriate to highlight travel on our site.   Please feel free to add any comments about the industry, or about how it is important (or not) to your place. 

 

 

Management Team

 

 

 

International Entrepreneurship

 

Opportunities for entrepreneurs in emerging markets

 

 

Entrepreurship as the key to economic development

see Economic Development

 

 

 

 

 

Funding

 

 

Getting noticed:

 

 

Raising money:  Funding Entrepreneurs

 

See our discussion on:  raising money - ideas for the entrepreneur

 

  • Many "high-profile" entrepreneurial ventures seek venture capital or Angel investor funding in order to raise capital to build the business. Many kinds of organizations now exist to support would-be entrepreneurs, including specialized government agencies, business incubators, science parks, and some NGOs.

 

Raising Money links from KookyPlan

 

 

 

 

Strategy 

 

Strategy is the key to long term competitive advantage.  Getting the right global business strategy is not an easy process, nor is it a static one.  It is a process that requires constant attention to global trends, and changes in the competitive landscape.   Some of the key issues are pricing, as well as branding, and how to properly position your product so that you have a compelling value proposition in relation to your competitors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Financial Management

 

Finance: For entrepreneurs looking to raise money, see our section on How to deal with VC's.   In our Finance section, we have built a collection of information that should be useful such as how to value a firm and issues such as hedging currency risk, managing interest rates, and selecting the best FDI investments.  We also have an entire section dedicated to International Finance markets.  In addition we offer suggestons on how to set your pricing strategy.   Managerial Finance decisions include the capital budgeting decision (which projects should I invest in?), the capital structure decision (how much debt should I take on), and the net working capital decision (how much cash do I need to finance ongoing Operations).  Another key issue is how much to invest in customers (credit management), and in employees (Human Resources).

 

 

How to save money on a startup

 

Here is a list of very practical advice for startups, and how to save money.  Its an outside link, but is full of very useful tips.  Please read them before wasting your money on things you dont need: link here

 

Money links from KookyPlan

 

 

Management Issues - how to run your company 

 

 

Finding Real estate for entrepreneurs & startups

 

 

 

 

Web Development

 

 

Uploading content

 

Trends to watch

Types of websites

Making money on the internet

Programming Languages

Content

  • wiki - user generated content

Getting noticed - building your community

more...

 

 

Legal Issues for Startups

 

 

 

 

Picking the right location

 

 

Finding Help:  Business Consultants for Startups

 

BLD Solutions                       www.bldsolutions.com      Nigel Brooks             602-291-4595        nigelabrooks@etailia.com

Dahne & Associates             www.dahne.com          Scott Dahne             480-502-2595         scott@dahne.com

Mercom Capital                     www.mercomcapital.com     Wendy Appleyard    480-905-8850        wendy@mercomcapital.com

Myriad Capital                       www.myriadcapitalpartners.com George Stroh     602-284-2890 gstroh@myriadcapitalpartners.com

Nest Ventures                       www.nestventures.com Glenn Williamson 602-778-9400 glenn@nestventures.com

Odyssey Partners                 www.theodysseypartners.com Terry Weber 480-921-1307 tpatterson@theodysseypartners.com

Tim Gay & Associates            www.tgapc.com Brendan Kennedy 602-264-0522 bkennedy@tgapc.com

 

 

 

Social Entrepreneurship

 

We define a social entrepreneur as someone that seeks to startup a company to do good (in the community, or around the world). 

 

 

 

Get a job with a Startup

 

 

 

 

Resources, Tips & Guides

 

 Resource_guide.pdf

 

Online guide from YCombinator:

 

 

How to Start a Startup.  Build something users love, and spend less than you make.

Hiring is Obsolete. The market is a lot more discerning than any employer.

How to Make Wealth.  To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage.

Why to Not Not Start a Startup.  All the reasons you aren't doing it, and why most (but not all) should be ignored.

A Student's Guide to Startups.  Starting a startup could well become as popular as grad school.

Ideas for Startups.  The initial idea is not a blueprint, but a question.

Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas.  A hacker who has learned what to make, and not just how to make, is extraordinarily powerful.

The 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups.  If you avoid every cause of failure, you succeed.

The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn  Some things about startups are kind of counterintuitive.

How to Fund a Startup. Venture funding works like gears.

The Hacker's Guide to Investors. Hackers don't know how little they know about this strange world.

How to Present to Investors. Explain what you're doing and why users will want it.

The Equity Equation. You should always feel richer after trading equity.

The Venture Capital Squeeze.  Why not let the founders have that first million, or at least half million?

The Other Road Ahead.  You may not believe it, but I promise you, Microsoft is scared of you.

What Business Can Learn from Open Source.  There may be more pain in your own company, but it won't hurt as much.

What the Bubble Got Right.  Even a small increase in the rate at which good ideas win would be a momentous change.

A Unified Theory of VC Suckage.   If you're not one of the very top funds, you're condemned to be the bad guys.

By Others

What Carly Will be Missing.  VCs are sitting on a boatload of uninvested cash that they simply must spend.

The New Boom.  Today companies are starting small and lean and staying that way.

For Start-Ups, Web Success on the Cheap.  Many of the current crop of Internet start-ups have gone from zero to 60 on a shoestring.

ArsDigita: From Start-Up to Bust-Up.  Within a few weeks of Allen's arrival, I found people telling me that I had no power at all.

Journey to the Center of Google.  Larry and Sergey plainly hold all the cards at Google.

A Couple of Yahoos.  Really, we'd do anything to keep from working on our theses.

The Cult of the NDA.  Cases where trade secrets and/or patents are both protectable and essential are rare.

Fixing Venture Capital.  VCs do not have goals that are aligned with the goals of the company founders.

Why VC Will Get Uglier.  Much of the $200 billion that was raised between 1999 and 2001 has yet to be invested.

For entrepreneurs, paranoia might be wise. How much do you reveal about your business plan, and to whom?

The Long Tail.  Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want.

It's a Great Time to Be an Entrepreneur.  More people can and will be entrepreneurs than ever before.

Net start-ups face odd problem: more VC cash than they need.  Many Internet entrepreneurs don't need the cash, because they're building products cheaply.

An Engineer's View of Venture Capital.  Answering to their investors contributes to a sheep mentality.

Breaking the Rules with Open Source.  Open source is just a more efficient, effective software business model.

Ten Rules for Web Startups.  Great products almost always come from someone scratching their own itch.

Valuation.  I think it is much better to think of a venture capital deal as a loan plus an option.

Who Will Google Buy Next?  Google's past conquests have all been smallish Internet companies that are doing cool stuff.

Buy It Now.  Companies purchase their ideas one startup at a time.

How to Negotiate a Term Sheet with a VC.  Pick your battles.

Start-Ups Are Telling Venture Capitalists: 'We Don't Need You'.  Some entrepreneurs believe the balance of power in Silicon Valley is shifting.

A Lesson on Elementary Worldly Wisdom.  How does a guy in Bentonville, Arkansas with no money blow right by Sears, Roebuck?

If You Want to be Rich, First Stop Being So Frightened.  Fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment.

 

Books

Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Edward Tufte: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Paul Graham: Hackers and Painters

Jessica Livingston: Founders at Work

 

Individuals

Chris Anderson

John Battelle

David Cowan

Paul Graham

David Hornik (et al)

Guy Kawasaki

Paul Kedrosky

Tim O'Reilly

Joel Spolsky

Fred Wilson

 

Resources and Tools

Startup News

Startup School

TechCrunch

Mashable

GigaOm

O'Reilly Radar

Domain Name Search

Red Herring

Startupping

HBS Working Knowledge

STVP Educators Corner

Reddit: Startup

del.icio.us: Business, Startup, Web 2.0

Technorati: Startup

Digg: Startup

Alarm:Clock

 

 

 

 

Flops:  learn from others mistakes

 

 

 

 

 

About Entrepreneurship

 

What it means to be an "entrepreneur"?

is someone with big ideas, and a strong belief that they can make it happen. An entrepreneur is a risk taker, someone that is willing to lay it all on the line for the opportunity of big returns. If this sounds at all like you, then you have come to the right place. In this site, we are going to look back in history at some of the more successful (and some of the unsuccessful) entrepreneurs, in order to learn what they did well (and not so well). This site is a learning resource, please use it, and as a wiki, please feel free to add to it.

 

 

Risk

Entrepreneurship is about taking risk. The behavior of the entrepreneur reflects a kind of person willing to put his or her career and financial security on the line and take risks in the name of an idea, spending much time as well as capital on an uncertain venture. 

 

Culture

What are the cultural links between risk aversion and entrepreneurship?  Are some cultures more likely to produce more risk takers (and hence entrepreneurs)?  Join our discussion on the important link between culture and entrepreneurship.

 

 

Two types of entrepreneurs

 

There are really two types of entrepreneurs:

 

1.  Those that start up a business in a niche, making a living on their own, and satisfying the needs of a small group of clients that a bigger chain can not, or does not want to (yet). These entrepreneurs accept the rules of the game the way they are, and seek to exploit opportunities as the see them.  This group of entrepreneurs should NOT seek Venture capital funding, and instead should look to self-fund, or look for a rich uncle (or a bank loan).

 

2.  Those that launch a business with grande aspirations, that seek to "go national", or "go global".  These entrepreneurs will find stiff competition from existing firms, and will succeed only if they find a way to change the rules of the game.  They seek to create their own opportunities and to disrupt others business plans. These are the ones that often get venture capital funding. 

 

Make sure you know which category your business fall into before you go seeking funding. 

 

 

 

 

Characteristics of typical Entrepreneurs

 

John G. Burch (Business Horizons, September 1986) lists traits typical of entrepreneurs:

 

  • A desire to achieve: The push to conquer problems, and give birth to a successful venture.
  • Hard work: It is often suggested that many entrepreneurs are workaholics.
  • Desire to work for themselves: Entrepreneurs like to work for themselves rather than working for an organization or any other individual. They may work for someone to gain the knowledge of the product or service that they may want to produce.
  • Nurturing quality: Willing to take charge of, and watch over a venture until it can stand alone.
  • Acceptance of responsibility: Are morally, legally, and mentally accountable for their ventures. Some entrepreneurs may be driven more by altruism than by self-interest.
  • Reward orientation: Desire to achieve, work hard, and take responsibility, but also with a commensurate desire to be rewarded handsomely for their efforts; rewards can be in forms other than money, such as recognition and respect.
  • Optimism: Live by the philosophy that this is the best of times, and that anything is possible.
  • Orientation to excellence: Often desire to achieve something outstanding that they can be proud of.
  • Organization: Are good at bringing together the components (including people) of a venture.
  • Profit orientation: Want to make a profit; but the profit serves primarily as a meter to gauge their success and achievement.

 

 

Put another way, a successful entrepreneur should have as many of these traits as possible:

1. Vision

2. Passion

3. Purpose

4. Adaptability

5. Leadership Skills

6. Networking Savvy

7. Determination

8. Positive attitude

 

 

 

 

Links

from KookyPlan (for Entrepreneurs):

 

 

 

External Links

 

 

Other stuff (favorite external links)

 

 

  1. Great list of links for entrepreneurs:  see link: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/fd0n/articles.htm
  2. Importance of Experience? see article:  

Entrepreneur 2.0

 

 

 

 

 

 

Books on Entrepreneurship

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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