The jobs act promised small individual investors the ability to invest in the next Google. It also pledged founders an alternative route to raising money. Why should only the already rich get the benefits of investing in the next Google or Amazon?

Less risk for the new startup investors.

According to Entrepreneur, “Seventy-five percent of venture-backed startups fail.” Investing in startups is a risky affair, yet investors are will to take these risks because of the potential of significant upsides.

For founders, having a new source of capital has a definite upside.

Having access to crowdfunding platforms are not just for small startups anymore. As of 2018, “since its launch, nearly 1,000 companies have registered with the SEC on 50 platforms, and over $127 million has been committed to campaigns.”

Before acquisition the then SeedInvest CEO Ryan Feit previously said, “With over 37,000 accredited investors, SeedInvest is by far the largest platform in terms of the number of high net worth investors. Also, unlike other platforms, we have family offices, venture funds, and high net worth individuals who can write checks between $250,000 and $2 million.”

Platforms are changing; not all platforms are the same.

“This sets us apart from all other platforms and ultimately results in larger raises for startups on SeedInvest. We have never been interested in simply trying to list more startups than other platforms or generate the most investment volume. Historically we have only launched one percent of the startups that apply to raise capital, and we invest meaningful time in those startups we select.”

Andy Pandharikar, Commerce.AI CEO, said, “Commerce.AI is building a billion-dollar company. Part of our mission is to democratize artificial intelligence. We originally planned to raise an initial $100,000 on the platform a year ago. The opportunity was 700 percent oversubscribed. We literally had to turn down investors. This funding helped us grow our company while progressing our mission.”

Raising more money in a different way.

“Now, a year later,” says Andy, “we are back to raise more money. This time we are raising an additional $750,000 capital from SeedInvest. We want to offer seed investors the opportunity to be part of our success before institutional VC’s take all the allocation. We plan to raise a limited amount from SeedInvest first, and then get institutional investors for the rest as we scale revenue.”

According to Andy, “Since the last round, we have had 890 percent growth in revenue and achieved great customer success. We have signed paid deals with large enterprise brands such as Cisco, Chanel, Netgear, Coca Cola, Midea, USPS, and SC Johnson.” Overall, Andy continues, “We have been delighted with the seed funding process.”

New platforms allowing additional and varied investments levels will catapult opportunity in the crowdfunding space.

While not everyone will experience the same results as Andy and Commerce.AI, platforms like SeedInvest mean you no longer have to have a black book of contacts. No longer must you have a list brimming with top-tier Angel Investors or Venture Capitalists to help you build tomorrow’s technology today.

The bottom line is that crowdfunding platforms for startups might just be the best new way to secure the funding you need to make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality.

https://samplecic.ch/crowdfunding-your-startup-at-700-percent-oversubscribed-3.html

Earlier this year, Twitter quietly removed its vowels and released Twttr, a platform that essentially acted as a prototype for design changes and feature tweaks the company was considering for its regular site. By creating a separate application under the platform’s original name, the company signaled an attempt to get back to its startup roots. Unlike its more popular brother, Twttr is a place where the company can (if it wants) fail fast and often to find out what truly works best for users. You can create a product that truly delights customers.

For entrepreneurs, this prototype should serve as an example of what it takes to build a continuously successful product.

By introducing this platform, Twitter is attempting to create something that does more than keeping the lights on: It’s trying to create a minimum delightful product or MDP.

The pure beauty of an MDP

Many entrepreneurs are already familiar with the concept of a minimum viable product, or MVP, which is meant to do the fewest things required to accomplish a goal. Fewer may be familiar with the idea of an MDP.

An MDP is essentially what happens when you take an MVP and add a second goal of user enjoyment and engagement.

Where an MVP can mainly be developed in isolation from the real world, an MDP requires regular interactions with potential users to create something people will use regularly.

For entrepreneurs, an MDP is what should eventually come out of that first spark of inspiration. It shows that a startup is not only thinking about the business side of a product but also about its target audience. When an application is streamlined and engaging, it’s clear that it’s been put in front of potential customers and that developers have thought through what the user approach will look like each day.

To create and maintain an MDP, it’s essential to have the right processes in place. 

After all, finding a problem that needs to be solved — and figuring out how to solve it in a way that pleases users and keeps them coming back — is far from simple. Luckily, there are a few steps startups can follow when developing a project that will help keep users coming back for more:

1. Identify an actual problem.

An idea that exists only in a vacuum will ultimately result in a product that’s set up to fail. It might seem like the most brilliant thing in the world, but if an idea isn’t solving a problem that a wide variety of people have, there will be no compelling reason for anyone to use it.

Tinder is a good example of a company that had an idea that was not only a smart design choice but solved a problem people regularly dealt with. To connect on other dating sites before Tinder, a person mostly had to shoot a stranger a message and pray the other was remotely interested. Not ideal for either party.

Tinder, on the other hand, offered an easy way for two people to signal they were interested in each other without one party having to put him- or herself out there first. The swipe was a simple and elegant solution that kept people coming back.

Ask three questions to figure out whether the path you’re heading down is a useful one: What problem is being solved? How is this product’s solution better than the competition? Is this an issue that occurs frequently enough to keep customers coming back? These questions are critical to a development process that will result in more than something that just seemed like a good idea at the time.

2. Figure out how the product will fit into users’ daily lives.

While it isn’t possible to check out every single use case for a product before it’s released, there are ways to get an idea of what typical use might look like. Develop representations of a variety of users with their own stories surrounding when and how they use the product. Knowing what the user is doing with your product helps bring a project into focus and indicates which features will be useful in the final product and which can be scrapped or delayed for future versions.

Many modern companies rely on user stories to develop and target their products, including Apple and JetBlue, but it’s a practice that’s been around for a long time. In the 1940s, the magazine Seventeen created a hypothetical reader known as Teena to pinpoint the type of audience the publication was trying to reach. In 2019, the magazine is still going strong.

3. Perform frequent A/B tests.

Just because a product works well for developers doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to do the same for real-world users. To avoid succumbing to unseen biases, perform A/B testing when possible to better capture customer preferences.

When my company worked with the cash-back application Dosh, A/B testing was a significant part of the process. Features, approach, design, and branding, were modified throughout multiple prototypes to best drive user behavior and increase audience buy-in. One wrong turn could have taken the whole project down the wrong path, but A/B testing helped us steer it right.

For a product to survive in the long term, it generally has to reach the MDP stage at some point.

Sometimes, it’s after the harsh reality of a market failure. Other times, it’s from soliciting feedback from paid users to figure out why a product isn’t working, or why some other part of the market isn’t currently working.

It’s not necessary to get there the hard way, however.

By being mindful of the problem that’s being solved and testing directly with users, entrepreneurs can create a product that will delight customers without bogging them down in bloat.

https://samplecic.ch/how-to-create-a-product-that-truly-delights-customers-3.html

Within this format of podcast and content, I want to provide you with the best tools to become a fantastic CEO. I realized that the most beneficial way for me to add value to your life so that you can stay relevant (both professionally and personally), will be to place some of the best CEOs in the world — in front of you. Here is the first of the How to CEO podcast interviews.

You can use each of these CEO podcasts to put together your own combined knowledge to become the qualified, quality individual you are working toward becoming. Make yourself a leader that merits being listed here among the “greats.”

In this episode, I welcome Cynthia Johnson, my first guest on the podcast.

As the co-founder and CEO of Bell + Ivy, a marketing and PR firm in Santa Monica, CA, and Las Vegas, NV. Cynthia talks about the lessons that kept her going as she tried to start her own company. Cynthia also reveals her favorite management books and her takeaways from them. Cynthia shares that being a CEO takes a lot of hard work.

Cynthia was listed as top personal branding experts in 2017 by Entrepreneur, top 50 marketers on SnapChat by Mashable, top 12 Female Entrepreneurs that Inspire by Darling Magazine, and the Top 20 people in SEO by Guardian. She is a contributing columnist to Entrepreneur and has had work published in Forbes, TIME, and several other industry-specific and top-tier publication.

I have known Cynthia Johnson for about ten years and wanted you ( the reader) to be able to follow her journey of excellence. One of the things that Cynthia points out is that you have to have people you can lean on as you build a life and a company. You’ll need friends, and you are going to need advice along the way. You can’t plan for the type of information that you are going to need to be a CEO. One day you will need some advice, and you hope that you have someone to turn to.

Personality traits can help aspiring leaders get to the top of their respective companies.

Cynthia shared her tips on how to become an approachable yet confident and assertive CEO. When you become a CEO, the world, and everything around, you will change. You can take this tremendous opportunity and make of it what you will, to either crash and burn or ultimately rise and succeed. Either way, the direction of being a CEO will have changed your life.

As a keynote speaker, Cynthia has spoken for companies and events such as the Alibaba Group in China, World Government Summit in Dubai, Global Ventures Summit in Indonesia and Mexico, and Web Summit in Lisbon, among others. She has participated as an influencer in marketing campaigns for PayPal, Joseph Carr Wines, and several other leading brands.

Notably, Cynthia has had her first book Platform, The Art and Science of Personal Branding, published in February 2019 with Penguin Random House.

I have read her book and can recommend it to anyone. Cynthia’s Book: Platform; The Art and Science of Personal Branding. This book fits in with her business because it is mainly for people in the branding field. The book guides people to see what they may be missing in their work. The book can guide IT people and other experts in opening their eyes to other possibilities.

Management Book finds.

Cynthia has recently enjoyed are: Leaders Eat Last, and The Dumb The Things Smart People Do With Their Money. You have to understand the business from any angle and be able to identify if someone needs you, or if they are having a hard time. You need to be able to lead the way rather than merely directing the way. In the book: The Things Smart People Do With Their Money, Jill Schlesinger tells about someone who was asked to speak at a conference. As the speaker arrived to talk, they brought him a cup of coffee.

The next year, when this speaker came to speak and asked for a cup of coffee – the people pointed to where he could get his own coffee. The speaker later said that the cup wasn’t for him; the cup represented the position he had held. Cynthia uses this analogy to remind herself that you may not always be a CEO.

When looking for the type of personality, it takes to be a CEO.

Cynthia readily replies she feels a needed personality type for a CEO is the quality of being agreeable. You can’t always be pleasant, so you have to learn how to balance this attribute. Thoughtfulness would be the next personality trait to work on – but with the ability to decide at any time. She says that people get on board early and you have to be able to step away and think through the problems.

One CEO style to keep foremost in mind  — autonomy.

“I can’t hold everyone’s hand. I want the employees to grow, and their growth will leave me room to get my work done.” As this seems to be the time of women stepping forward to take their place, I wondered if Cynthia had seen business problems with women or being a woman in business, herself? She mentioned that sometimes there are people with extensive careers who are older, and you have to draw a line — in a clear way to be heard and taken seriously.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to learn not to use trite words or the often standard verbiage, such as the term, “elephant in the room.” You need to skip past silly words, right there at that moment, face the issues right then by stepping up and addressing the current issues in precise terms and with eye contact.

To carry on duties as a CEO, and still keep some balance in your life.

Keeping fit is probably the essential piece to keep in mind in your life, Cynthia tells me. Exercise will help you to be able to think and be transparent. The next key would be the prioritization key. This element and reflects what you will cut out.  Lean on your team and let them be responsible. You have to know that everything will not work out. I have found the same thing as Cynthia as I’ve had a child join the family.

Speaking events. How and why?

I believe that speaking events help you connect with people. Then as you get to know the events and the people who are putting on these events and you’ll gain a personal connection. You find when and who you can get advice from. In attending events, you tend to become friends with people who are doing the same thing you are doing — finding those who are like you while traveling and connect to become better.

One piece of advice.

Don’t put it all on your own shoulders and don’t blame anyone else. Remember to get and consider outside perspectives for success.

https://samplecic.ch/how-to-ceo-podcast-interview-3.html

Cloud adoption is picking up steam and for a good reason. There are myriad advantages to running a business in the cloud and fewer risks than ever before. According to a LogicMonitor survey, 83% of enterprise workloads will be cloud-based by 2020.

While the odds are good that your business could reap significant benefits, cloud adoption isn’t as easy as flipping a switch.

Instead, you must create a well-defined strategy for your cloud endeavor to help your company realize its vision.

What’s Your Intent?

The first step of plotting out an ideal cloud strategy is determining what type of cloud environment will best meet your needs. If your primary goals are flexibility and scalability, internet-housed public cloud models such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure are optimal.

On the other hand, a private cloud allows you to maintain some on-premise resources and deliver computing power over a secure and private network. In industries where compliance is a significant issue, private clouds check all the right regulatory boxes.

If both public and private environments suit your company, you might want to consider a hybrid cloud solution that balances both approaches. For example, you might run high-volume applications in a public cloud while keeping a tighter grip on high-risk apps through a private cloud. Hybrid clouds allow these two environments to meld seamlessly. While this sort of strategy can be more expensive to implement, it can provide the best of both worlds.

Identifying your preferred cloud model dictates how everything else develops from there.

If you take the time to identify your goals and outlook before investing in a cloud approach, you’ll be set up for a smooth transition.

Create Your Cloud Adoption Strategy

Without a smart cloud adoption strategy, you risk investing in a cloud environment that doesn’t meet your expectations. In the worst case, you might end up with a cloud infrastructure that is a step down from your original solution — leading to lost customers and revenue. Avoid this scenario by creating a clearly defined cloud strategy with these five steps:

1. Create an in-house committee. 

Appoint a committee of stakeholders to evaluate possible cloud implementations. This group might include employees who use the applications regularly, IT data analysts, and other personnel.

If a committee is impractical, work with your cloud provider to determine the right adoption path for your company.

Most service providers will offer a free or low-cost consultation to give you an idea of price, and many will help you make the migration in increments to keep costs low and establish early buy-in.

2. Develop decision criteria. 

Consider your current environment — including the types of applications you rely on and their technical characteristics — the needs and constraints of your data, any regulatory requirements you must meet, and your performance requirements for managing workloads effectively.

All of these different factors must work together to deliver an optimal user experience while avoiding costly mistakes. Cloud solutions are flexible, so you’ll have many decisions to make. Determine the criteria you need to consider so that the cloud strategy you choose can best serve your operations.

3. Conduct an analysis of benefits and risks. 

Create an overview of your most common use cases, examining their potential benefits and risks. In many cases, you can take steps to mitigate the risks — or it’s possible the risks you perceive might be based on myths.

Get in touch with your qualified cloud provider to find out how to reduce or negate those risks. If you’re still left with a long list of liabilities, a private cloud environment might be most appropriate.

4. Ease in with cloud-based applications. 

Instead of jumping into the cloud, consider replacing some of your current applications with a software-as-a-service equivalent. That will make deployment, updates, scaling, and a ubiquitous computing environment more accessible.

Having the system and operation accessible can go a long way toward limiting disruption once it’s time to migrate to the cloud. When your organization operates in a partial cloud environment, there will be less of a learning curve associated with complete cloud adoption.

5. Create or update your disaster recovery plan. 

Part of the cloud’s appeal is its role in disaster recovery plans. The cloud can handle the heavy lifting when it comes to recovering data or limiting downtime. If your on-premise server goes down, you can flip a switch and operate out of the cloud in the meantime.

You also have a partner in recovery: Generally, the burden can shift to your cloud provider. Make sure your plan is clearly articulated, so stakeholders know what to do when disaster strikes. If an outage is due to your internet service provider, for example, one part of the plan would be to failover to your secondary line.

If your cloud servers go offline because of a disaster, then you might need to repoint your systems to new IP addresses temporarily. Be prompt about putting this into action so you can continue operations until the original servers or services can be restored.

Cloud adoption represents an exciting opportunity, but it’s not something that companies should rush into.

For the best results, organizations should develop a clearly defined cloud strategy that outlines implementation in a logical and well-thought-out fashion. A cloud strategy doesn’t just ensure that you reach the best possible end result — it also minimizes the amount of experimentation and the number of iterations necessary to get there.

https://samplecic.ch/how-to-develop-a-clearly-defined-cloud-strategy-3.html

Today, we have millions of cameras deployed throughout various industries, organizations, and global borders around the world. However, with each of these individual cameras monitoring continuously and collecting vast amounts of data points, what good is it if not actionable or context applied?

Trueface, a US-based leader in computer vision, utilizes machine learning and artificial intelligence to augment camera data into actionable intelligence. This technology is working to make both public and private environments safer and smarter.

Computer vision as a market was valued at $9.28 billion in 2017 and is set to grow towards $48.32 billion by the end of 2023, according to Market Report World. As adoption continues to increase, we’ll see computer visions being applied to several industries, including entertainment, gaming, manufacturing, supply chain, retail, hospitality, healthcare, and financial services.

The company has now raised $3.7 million in seed capital led by Lavrock Ventures with participation from Scout Ventures and Advantage Ventures.

“This round of funding will help us expedite our efforts in making computer vision affordable, effective and trustworthy,” says Shaun Moore, CEO of Trueface.

Computer vision deployments have impacted and provided benefits to enterprises throughout multiple industries. Today, casinos are leveraging age detection technology like that created by Trueface to ensure that those entering the gaming floors are of legal age. As a result of this type of implementation, the pressure on security teams is drastically reduced and allows for focus on more critical tasks.

The United States Air Force sees the technology as a market leader as they have recently partnered with Trueface to enhance base security through smarter access control.

With all client deployments completed on-premise, the Trueface team has designed their technology with data privacy at its core by implementing blurring and fleeting data in appropriate deployments, the personal data of those who have not opted-in is never recorded.

Furthermore, the team is working on efforts to allow their computer vision solutions to become plug and play, opening up the market for even those who are non-technical or don’t have engineering resources to benefit from their solutions.

Disclaimer: Trueface and parent company, Chui are an alumnus the ReadWrite Labs accelerator program. Kyle Ellicott is also an advisor to the company.

https://samplecic.ch/trueface-raises-3-7m-to-turn-camera-data-into-actionable-insights-3.html

Let’s say a startup has defied the odds and survived its first several years. The entrepreneur has found a niche market, launched a product, secured funding, and continued to assemble an effective team. The business is moving forward. As the business grows, and entrepreneurs feel they have a safety net where there was none before. But how to stay hungry? Helping startups commit to improvement at every stage has to be the goal.

Staying Hungry: Helping Startups Commit to Improvement.

When things are tough — a startups attitudes and sense of urgency often begin to change. A startups’ attitude changes when they feel that all is well. As the company milestones become less urgent, the intensity of their attention ebbs and start to diminish. This relaxing time is the period when it is most likely to see competitors swoop in and gain market share. Using an improved product offering, or a better customer service, or just a better market strategy might help.

I’ve seen companies come out of the gate and tenaciously follow their North Stars, only to lose focus later on. They start to get comfortable — in some cases, too comfortable. The initial hunger subsides, and employees gradually become less motivated to make the extra effort to drive the company forward.

I implore every company I work with to combat this kind of stagnation by identifying what they can do better at every stage of the company’s life cycle. The critical question is: How do some startups manage to avoid the pitfalls of complacency when others don’t?

Two words: Continuous improvement.

Continuous improvement is valuable at every stage of a company’s life cycle. While it is crucial to set a course for your employees by setting key performance indicators that will ensure the company meets or exceeds its goals, it is equally important to adjust those goals over time as market conditions and customer demands change.

As those goals evolve, it is also critical to stay focused on the company’s best practices to provide a baseline for ongoing changes that can significantly improve growth, profit margins, and retention rates. A constant focus on continuous improvement also helps employees stay intrinsically motivated and challenged, making them less likely to feel stagnant in their current roles.

Progress By the Numbers

Having a reliable way to track progress is key to continuous improvement. Each functional area of your company should have its own KPIs to strive for, each of which should align with your company’s central mission. Choosing the right KPIs is critical — not only will they provide a roadmap for your employees.

But they will also help startups demonstrate to investors that the company is on the right track toward meeting its goals. Management should also ensure that each functional area has its own KPIs that will reinforce broader company goals that can be measured at the individual department level.

Because your goals need to evolve as the company hits various milestones, a KPI dashboard, which show progress toward goals, is a critical way to help teams prioritize their work. For example, if a sales manager shows his team a P&L, balance sheet, and a statement of cash flow, it can be unclear what employees need to focus on next. But if he shows that the customer retention rate is 80 percent when it needs to be at 95 percent, the team can use its KPI dashboard to take action on that data.

Customer needs and behaviors change regularly, but many companies only alter their approaches long after a problem has been identified. To avoid this pitfall, be sure to reexamine your standard processes continuously and to adjust your KPIs with a view to the future. It is always better to get ahead of a problem than to trail behind it with a quick — and potentially ineffective — fix.

Keep an Eye on the Lag and Lead

By documenting standard processes thoroughly and making sure all relevant data remains at hand, management should be able to determine more easily where changes need to be made. To help managers figure out what needs to change (and how), it is useful to turn to lag measures and lead measures.

Generally speaking, a lag measure is retrospective data that is too late to change, such as the previous month’s revenue. A lead measure tells you whether you’re on track to hit a goal in the future. For example, if a company is trying to increase its conversion rates, the lead indicators might be the number of phone calls.

Maybe the problem will be the number of demos that a sales team makes with potential clients. Later, the team would examine the lag measure of the number of demos that didn’t convert. Both measures are key indicators of a company’s progress, and they can inspire procedural changes to help teams meet their goals.

When processes are standardized, a single small change can alter the course of an entire functional area. If everyone isn’t doing things the same way, change becomes more difficult. With thorough, up-to-date documentation, everyone from a new hire to a seasoned manager has something concrete with which to gauge themselves.

At any moment, there can be a downward turn when unexpected obstacles emerge. More importantly, each person has documentation of what worked before showing them a precise roadmap of what needs to go right, which is crucial for continuous improvement.

The Lifeblood of a Startup: Motivated Employees  

Management needs the right data to make informed decisions on how to improve, but employees are the ones who truly move the needle. The manufacturing-era “carrot and stick” method of motivating employees, in which workers are given compensation for jobs done well and penalties for under-performing, no longer works—and it is especially ineffective with millennials.

Extrinsic motivation, in the form of raises and promotions, is also unsustainable. Companies that rely on a purely monetary reward system run the risk of paying their people too much too soon and being unable to retain them as they continue to advance in their careers. Today’s employees need to be motivated intrinsically to do better.

KPI dashboards are a fantastic intrinsic motivation tool. They not only allow employees to track their progress; they also will enable them to pinpoint areas in which they can do better. To improve employee performance at my old company, Affiliate Traction, we developed an online KPI scorecard.

Each employee was given five goals to accomplish, and employees could view each other’s progress toward those goals in a live spreadsheet. This gamification of work caused a noticeable uptick in employee motivation and productivity —and it didn’t cost us a dime.

The most successful companies I’ve worked with have been learning organizations — ones that take the time to figure out what makes them successful, to document those strategies and procedures, and to reassess them as the organization grows.

Employees are far more likely to stay motivated if they are continually learning and growing along with the organization. As with any learning process, mistakes are inevitable. But in my view, mistakes are only failures if you cease to learn from them.

https://samplecic.ch/stay-hungry-helping-startups-commit-to-improvement-3.html

Paying back small business loans (SBL) has become a nightmare for so many entrepreneurs in this millennial age. The research by Main Street Lender on over 10,000 business loan applicants in the U.S disclosed that about 64 percent of applicants were unable to secure any type of financing. About 82 percent of applicants were denied financing by their bank. There are four painless ways to pay off small business loans early.

While several factors make it difficult for small business owners to meet their loan payments, there are unconventional ways to pay off you SBL early and with ease. #1 Apply for a loan that doesn’t exceed your current business worth:

While getting a SBL from a finance company to expand your business is part of your business plan, working towards paying back what your borrowed shouldn’t be left out.

Interestingly, one of the ways to pay off your small business loan earlier than expected is to apply for a loan within the range of your business worth. For example, if your small scale business worth $4000 and you want to apply for SBL to boost your business growth, it’s pretty much advisable that you apply for a loan within the range of $3000-$4000.

With the loan within your business worth, you’ll be able to manage and track your business growth much better compared to when you apply for a loan beyond your business worth. For example, if you apply for a loan of $6000—this will not only make you think that your business has already increased but might also feed you with the notion that you have excess to spend.

If you’re weak in managing your finances, with time, you might end up finding it challenging to pay off your debt.

Note: The U.S Small Business Administration has emphasized that the success of any business lies in its management. And that poor management of small business loans is cited as the reason behind business failure.

#2 Invest more on item(s) with high selling power:

Practically, investing more on item(s) that sells pretty fast in your company/store is not just a strategic way of increasing your business profit. But, it can be a way to pay off your debt earlier, and with ease. How do you spot out the best moving part of your business?

All you have to do is to study, keep track of both the previous and current sales records of each item sold in your store/company. Let’s say you run a retail store where you sell provisions, toiletries, and vegetables. And the average weekly sales report of each item for the past six months is as follows:

• Provisions: 345 pieces.
• Toiletries: 200 pieces.
• Vegetables: 150 pieces.

From the above results, you’ll discover that ‘Provisions’ have more selling power than Toiletries. Toiletries have more selling power than Vegetables. Learn early that it is wise to invest a higher percentage of the loan on what is selling the best in this case — provisions. Then use a moderate percentage of the loan on toiletries, and a lesser percentage of the loan on vegetables.

Thus, this technique ensures the constant availability of items with higher selling power — which will result in more profit.

#3 Save 20 percent and invest 80 percent of the entire loan into your business:

Saving 20 percent of the SBL received, and invest 80 percent of the loan into your business. This way of spending is a smart way of preparing for an emergency monthly loan repayments.

With the saved money (or backup money) you can easily pay up your SBL monthly refund without going through stress — especially during low sales seasons and still, secure your reputation with the lending agency.

Hence, if sales are friendly enough, it’s advisable to pay off your monthly returns from the money realized through sales and still leave the saved money for the raining day.

#4 Adopt the two-week half-monthly payment system:

Several analytical kinds of research have proven the ‘two-week payment system’ to be a reliable technique that clears debt earlier than expected. The Mortgage Report affirms a two-week half monthly mortgage payment system to be a program that short-circuits any loan amortization schedule.

A two-week, half-monthly payment system is simply a scheduled payment system whereby a borrower pays off half the monthly loan every two weeks.

Interestingly, instead of you paying off your SBL of $3000 in three-months — you will be paying $1000 every month. You can make up six full payments of $500 in 84 days in this way. This way of payment is less than three months (90 days) using this type of payment system. Thus, the two-week half-monthly payment system has earned you six debt-free days compared to the standard monthly payment method.

Note: This technique can be used for any form of loan you have or want to apply for.

Conclusion:

There is no doubt that the challenge to pay back small business loans (SBL) has become a nightmare for many entrepreneurs, but with the above tips you should be able to make your full payment early, and with ease. Also, you have to be consistent in your payments to guarantee a reliable result.

Image Creds: vitaly-taranov-145502-unsplash-825×510

https://samplecic.ch/4-painless-ways-to-pay-off-small-business-loans-early-4.html

Pitch decks are underestimated and overestimated. Some founders dismiss the deck as pure “show” and cobble together a few slides for their venture capital (VC) audience. But I suspect that most founders spend tens of hours perfecting their deck. I worry that their efforts are concentrated in the right place but on the wrong problems.

Pitch decks are powerful because they reflect on your brand and style. They can give life to your argument and supporting stories, but they cannot close the deal without you, the presenter. 

To get this three-part series on pitch decks rolling, let’s cover the purpose of a pitch, what it has to answer, and where it can go wrong. Let’s also identify some problems that are worth concentrating on.

Presenter v. Presentation

There’s a difference between the presenter, who does the heavy lifting in a pitch, and the deck, which supports the presenter. In a strong pitch, I find that founders focus on their story and use the deck like a stage prop or good lighting, which work best when they don’t draw attention away from the actors. 

Some decks are meant to stand alone without a presenter, but those are a different beast and belong in another series.

Personally, I believe the purpose of a deck is to guide you and your audience through the narrative of a vision. The deck can offer subtext, emotions, data, and imagery that are difficult or too time-consuming to articulate in words. A bad deck can ruin a pitch, but a good one can’t close deals on its own.

Different VCs, Similar Questions

VCs have different investment approaches and priorities. I notice that although they may evaluate startups from unique perspectives, they seem to converge on a shared set of questions. You may not hear them in these exact words, but these are the three main categories and what the questions sound like:

• Founder-Market Fit: Why are you and your team the best people to solve this problem? What unique expertise or background makes you perfect for this market?

• Differentiation: What’s special or inimitable about your idea? Are you trying something new, or are you the next Uber of ____?

• Why Now? What about this time and place makes your idea right? Why not five years ago, or five years from now? Why isn’t anyone else doing this?

Those questions will shape what you put in the deck, but the deck alone cannot answer them.

Credibility

First-time founders may not be sure what to emphasize in their pitch to VCs. Some go too heavy on the market opportunity without substantiating the vision behind it. Others find themselves immersed in the product features they worked so hard to build.

Part of us wants to share what we’re proud of and to emphasize what captured our interest most. While that can bring out our passion, it may not strike VCs as important.

As the a16z VC Andrew Chen reminds us, just six percent of VC deals produce 60 percent of the returns. VCs hunt for that six percent along with a much, much smaller cohort of startups that become the next Google, Facebook, or Amazon.

Credibility becomes the struggle for founders. We want to be forthright and realistic, but we also want VCs to believe that we are part of the six percent. It’s a delicate balance.

Pitching Around Vision

There is a difference between your pitch, a distillation of your vision, and the deck, a tool that facilitates your pitch. There’s also a difference between the presenter, the person who communicates the most important points, and the presentation, the cumulative experience that includes everything: data, voice, hand gestures, emotions, visuals, the Q&A, and many more things that we’ll discuss in this series.

A successful pitch makes a VC so excited about your vision that she will sing your praises to her colleagues and fight to make you one of the few deals of the year. She will work to convince her partners that you are part of the six percent.

Next up, let’s talk about how express a vision with that much impact. Vision can seem like an ambiguous concept, but a well-presented vision can be as aspirational as it is down to earth – and a good deck will help with that.

https://samplecic.ch/your-pitch-to-vcs-is-more-than-a-deck-4.html