Many entrepreneurs were excited last year when Congress legalized the use of crowdfunding for equity investments. This law, passed as part of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS), would allow a business owner to raise up to $2 million over the Internet from individuals who invest a maximum of $10,000 per person. Too good to be true? Continue reading “Crowdfunding Update”
Most business plans appear on paper or on a pdf, but a growing number are on video, or include a video component. Often that’s done in the form of a YouTube video, which you can use to promote your new business in ways that are not possible via paper or email. And even if your plan shows up as a more traditional hard copy document, be sure to include in its marketing section information on how you’ll use video to promote your business and attract customers. Continue reading “Video Business Plans”
From dozens of suggestions in the npEnterprise Forum, our social enterprise social media site, here is our:
Social enterprises are businesses that:
Hope this is helpful in your work.
Good luck!
Every business has to attract revenues from selling products and services, and every business plan has to describe how that will happen. Trying to figure out how to do that for your business idea?
One way to approach that problem is to look at common models other companies have used, and see which ones fit best. It’s all too common for a business to get latched on too strongly on one revenue model, too early, so take a look at a bunch of them before you decide. And be ready to go back to this list and make some changes if after your first few months or a year you discover things didn’t quite turn out as had planned. Continue reading “Typical Revenue Models”
The notion of “scale” gets a great deal of attention in the social enterprise world. It seems to suggest fast growth from taking a successful model to expanded size, locations and social impact, all at warp speed. Social capital, business competitions, even funders often talk about scale as if it were the ultimate goal for every social enterprise, and those that aren’t ready “to go to scale” need to find a way to get there. Continue reading “Scale Isn’t Everything…”
It’s been widely reported that the company co-founded by Michael Porter, the famous Harvard Business School professor who wrote The Book on business strategy, was forced into bankruptcy protection.
We’ve written several blogs about Michael Porter’s insights. How could a business started by the guru of five-force analysis, possibly one of the most widely-adopted competitive strategy in the world, possibly fail? Continue reading “Lessons from Michael Porter’s Monitor failure”
Seems obvious: of course prior business experience is a big advantage when starting a social enterprise.
But now there’s evidence that this might not be correct. Research suggests that LESS experienced social entrepreneurs were MORE successful (in terms of revenue and social media network) compared to their MORE experienced colleagues. And the WORST performance came from social venture managers with BOTH entrepreneurial and nonprofit startup experience. Go figure.
Want to start a small business, but missing some skills? Here’s one option: take some online classes, where you might learn what you need, for a fraction of the time and cost. Improve your business plan AND your business.
There are 100s of web-based business classes, many of them free (open source) or for a small fee. Many are taught through world-class universities, and offer more interactivity than you would get if you attended classes there.
Check out a few of them in “What’s Available Online?” Might just be one there for you.
Good luck!
When considering whether to invest in a company, bankers and venture capitalists look first at the entrepreneur, then at the plan. They invest in people, not plans. It’s not the content of the plan that matters, but rather what it says about the entrepreneur — how she thinks, how she collects confirming and disconfirming data, how she uses it to build a strategy for success, how she builds a team. Continue reading “Your Business Plan is About You”
