Michael Bowers's Blog – March 2009 Archive (7)

Quick Tip For Entrepreneurs ~ March 31

Chris Shipley, co-founder of Guidewire and executive producer of DEMO, has mentored thousands of startups in her 13 years running the tech conference. In this interview on Vator.tv with Bambi Francisco , Shipley shares her advice to entrepreneurs, based on the many mistakes she's observed.…

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Added by Michael Bowers on March 31, 2009 at 7:50am — 1 Comment

Quick tip for entreprenures...

Angel investor Hamin Rezepour shares with nuResume founder Reena Jadhav his top industry picks for investing in 2009 along with a tip for entrepreneurs...…

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Added by Michael Bowers on March 29, 2009 at 9:30pm — No Comments

Crawl, Walk, Run...

In a video interview from Vator.TV Bambi Francisco discusses lessons learned in funding high growth companies with Gus Tai, general partner at Trinity Ventures.…

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Added by Michael Bowers on March 25, 2009 at 8:46am — No Comments

Ideas to Deals...Live

I’m often pitched by entrepreneurs who have great ideas (and some that don’t) but are living in fantasy land when it comes to raising money because they haven’t articulated how they would turn their idea into a fundable deal. The key is to make it easy for the investor to say yes. Speak to the investor about things that are important to them. Don’t try to convince them that everything they know and have experienced with early stage companies is wrong and you know better. On March 19, 2009… Continue

Added by Michael Bowers on March 23, 2009 at 8:00am — No Comments

Small Business is the Heart of the American Economy

"Small Business is the Heart of the American Economy" is how President Obama referred to small business in his speech on March 16. The President outlined a plan to increase liquidity in the secondary market for Small Business Administration (SBA) loans by using a portion of the TARP funds to purchase SBA loans from banks. This would allow banks to make loans, sell the loan on the secondary market and use the funds they received from the sale to make more loans. This is critical. As I have said… Continue

Added by Michael Bowers on March 17, 2009 at 2:59pm — No Comments

International Bootstrapping Association

At the Ohio Small Business Development Center we often have small businesses coming to us seeking capital. Sometimes we can help them, sometimes we can't and sometimes the business needs to build some traction before they can get external funds. At that point we help them come up with ways to build their business by "Bootstrapping". Bootstrapping is a financial model where a business is financed without investments by formal, sophisticated outside investors—using the founder’s own funds, maybe… Continue

Added by Michael Bowers on March 16, 2009 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Retail Market Entry ~ A How To Story

I found this video of Jennifer Yen, creator of pur~lisse, a line of cosmetics designed not to irritate even sensitive skin. In this clip Jennifer discussed how she developed the line and took it to market. For all of those looking to enter consumer markets there is a great lesson here.

Congratulations… Continue

Added by Michael Bowers on March 10, 2009 at 3:00pm — 1 Comment