In the early stages of a new business, entrepreneurs do not pay much attention to budgets. Financial forecasts that estimate revenues and expenses are part of the business planning process. But these are really just estimates, since so much is unknown about what will actually happen as the business begins to grow. Because of this, [...]
The post When to Implement Budgeting appeared first on Dr Jeff Cornwall.
Looks like I have a new example to use in class for legal changes that create new business opportunities. There are several new entities popping up due to the the growing interest in crowdfunding and the passage of the JOBS Act that will allow crowdfunding to be used for equity investments rather than just donations [...]
The post The Wild West of Crowdfunding appeared first on Dr. Jeff Cornwall.
The late, legendary Silicon Valley attorney Craig Johnson used to say, “The leading cause of failure of start-ups is death, and death happens when you run out of money.” And the leading cause of running out of money in a start-up is poor financial forecasting. At the core of unrealistic forecasts is the undying optimism [...]
Lee Schafer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune called me the other day to see if I had any information on the effectiveness of angel investment tax credits for a story he was writing. I told him that all that the tax credit programs do is speed up or slow down investments (to take advantage of [...]
Crowdfunding, which uses the Internet to generate small contributions of funding from a large number of people, has been getting a lot of attention lately among entrepreneurs. Crowdfunding primarily has been used to help raise money to support social causes and to help fund struggling artists. The money received from crowdfunding has to be considered [...]
Making a pitch for investment is one of the most important steps that many new business owners can make. It can also be one of the most intimidating. First impressions matter with investors, so the pressure is on to make your pitch to them a winner. For many years the rule of thumb was to [...]
“There is a bank on every corner. If you don’t like the answer you get from one, go to the one across the street.” That is the advice my late father gave me a long time ago about finding a small business friendly bank. Now there is a new tool to help make this process [...]
