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I had the pleasure of interviewing Tara M. Hernandez. She is the Marketing & Communications Director at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We talked about airport ownership structures, air service development, marketing strategies, branding, and a lot more.
Negotiating is perhaps the most romanticized aspect of partaking in an investment opportunity. The idea of meeting room negotiations is widely portrayed as the climax of movies, in TV advertisements, and other media outputs. However, David Amis and Howard Stevenson suggest that it is often the shortest stage because many winning investors simply do not negotiate (p. 225, 2001). On the other hand, they also acknowledge that “Negotiation will almost certainly bring improved terms” (p. 228, 2001). Unlike other fundamentals of early-stage investing, negotiating is not a spectrum of choices. Negotiating starts with a choice between actually negotiating and not negotiating at all. Both are valid options and deserve further analysis to better understand the intricacies of negotiating early-stage investment deals. Continue reading “Negotiating (5th Fundamental of Early-Stage Investing)”
While some fundamentals are open to interpretation, early-stage structuring seems to have a more specific foundation. The principles behind structuring early-stage investment deals are to keep it simple, comprehensive, yet unrestrictive for future funding rounds. Regardless of the structure employed, it is important to consider its implications on future funding rounds. A simpler structure will speed up negotiations as the venture transitions from the angel round to VC funding. Below you will find some structuring highlights and links to helpful resources. Continue reading “Structuring (4th Fundamental of Early-Stage Investing)”
After discussing Sourcing and Evaluating, it is time to look at the process of Valuing early-stage investment deals. An important lesson learned from those prior discussions is that there is more than one way to accomplish each of those two functions. Valuing early-stage business opportunities follows the same pattern. There is more than one way to value early-stage investment deals and there are numerous considerations influencing this decision-making process. Continue reading “Valuing (3rd Fundamental of Early-Stage Investing)”
The best way to approach evaluating early-stage investment deals (or any deals for that matter), is to think of it as an ongoing process. The idea behind evaluating investment deal is to cover all bases to determine its potential and suitability to an angel investor’s portfolio. A thorough evaluation of an investment deal will lead to an investment opportunity or a rejection. Both of these outcomes have important takeaways and are worthy of further analysis. There is no scientific formula for evaluating investment deals; however, there is plenty of steps that can be taken to assess an opportunity objectively. Continue reading “Evaluating (2nd Fundamental of Early-Stage Investing)”
I recently had the opportunity to interview Backstage Capital investment associate Arnulfo “Chacho” Valdez. Backstage Capital is a unique seed-stage investing firm that specializes in startups founded by founders who identify as women, person of color, and/or LGBTQ. We talked about entrepreneurship, startups, seed-stage investing, financial capital, and much more.
This blog post kicks off a series of reviews exploring the fundamentals of early-stage investing. The starting point to these discussions is David Amis and Howard Stevenson’s book Winning Angels: The 7 Fundamentals of Early Stage Investing (2001). For entrepreneurs, this will be a sort of reverse engineering experience, since the book was written specifically for angel investors, yet it is extremely useful to others in the entrepreneurial journey. Continue reading “Sourcing (1st Fundamental of Early-Stage Funding)”
Dear Readers,
Over the upcoming weeks I will be adding new materials to My Entrepreneurship Blog; mostly regarding entrepreneurial feasibility and early stage investing. I will be reviewing David Amis and Howard Stevenson’s book Winning Angels: The 7 Fundamentals of Early Stage Investing. This is an exciting opportunity to look at entrepreneurship from a different perspective. Also, I am working on a couple of intriguing interviews relevant to the discussions at hand. Overall, a lot of materials and tools that will certainly spark important conversations. Stay tuned!
Best regards,
-Jose F. Saavedra
Earlier this evening, I had the opportunity interview Matt Eames from Raleigh Marketing Consultants, Inc. He is the President and CEO and leads a team of approximately 25 marketing and sales professionals. Raleigh Marketing Consultants is an outsourcing organization that provides marketing and sales services to large corporations. We talked about outsourcing marketing efforts, business to business relationships, entrepreneurship lessons, and a lot more.
1.- Without Teachers
By Teacher Appreciation Week (2017)
https://aef.com/ad-campaigns/without-teachers/
This outdoor ad was displayed during Teacher Appreciation Week in 2017. It is a simple ad thanking teachers for their work. Its appeal technique is humor by deliberately misspelling the word “dumb,” in the statement “Without teachers, we would all be dum.” Continue reading “Marketing Campaign Analysis: Outdoor Ads”