MBA Crash Course Part 1:

REQUIREMENTS FOR A NEW VENTURE

A new venture’s success depends on many factors. It all starts with being a great leader for your management team. A successful leader should carry the passion, optimism, determination, and resiliency so their goals can be manifested. A great leader should be a great team player, and be strategically sound by planning for the long term. Finally, it is crucial for future leaders to work on their sales skills and surround themselves with entrepreneurs who possess a strong sales acumen.

NETWORKING

As a future leader for your startup, your most valuable skill will be networking. You need to network in order to have a successful launch for your new venture.

An example that has worked for myself is setting up information interviews. This will provide a valuable opportunity to get further insight in a company that you would like to partner with or work for. Try to aim for setting up 1 interview every week or biweekly. If you repeat this process then over the next few weeks you will have plenty of information, great connections to have as potential references, or interested customers!

Taking advantage of Linkedin’s inmail has helped with prioritizing your mail sent to potential customers/business connections. It will further your chances of those individuals reading your mail and giving you the opportunity to either sell your business or provide information.

CULTIVATING GREAT ENTREPRENEURIAL IDEAS

The first step of coming up with the next big idea is to assess if the total addressable market or T.A.M. is large enough to provide value for our new venture. We want to make sure that our new venture can capture %5-10 of the total market, and for the total market to be large enough (let us use the $20 billion mark as an example which 5% of 20 billion = $1 billion in revenue).

Believe it or not, Hollywood has provided new ventures with great ideas in the technology sector. I like to take inspiration from Elon Musk who has ushered in plenty of amazing inventions by drawing inspiration from Star Trek.

ETHICS

After you have drawn inspiration from media and found a sizeable enough market to draw in the right revenue to continue reinvesting in your business, your next step is make sure you have the right ethics.

A good business comes out with an amazing product but a great business comes out with an amazing product and is also transparent. The fact is that transparency will build trust, salesforce is a great example since they report all security problems as they occur for the general public to see. Health Canada will always report product deficiencies and let public know of recalls on pharma products and this mindset is always appreciated by your customers. Transparency is the noble way of building trust with your current and future customers.

THE INVESTING PERIOD

In business we refer to this as the ‘seed stage‘. This stage is comprised of your unproven idea while you are either bootstrapping your funds, getting investments from angel investors, receiving support from family and friends etc. On average, 5-10 years if your have acquired enough funds, you can take your business public.

The type of legal entity that you should set up depends on the type of new venture you are starting.

If you are the sole owner then proprietorship has the benefits of being quick to setup, and less expensive. But, you hold full liability and that can be seen as a tough sell for investors which ultimately can make it more difficult to raise funds.

If you have a partner then general partnership has the positives of also being less expensive and fast to set up but also the same liabilities of personal liability and begin difficult to raise funding from investors.

If you have more than one partner than a limited partnership has positives of being less expensive to start with less liability risk compared to sole proprietorship and general partnership. The negatives is having limited influence on the company from your investors so it will be harder to raise funds from these investors.

If you have a group that your company name is registered under than your company may be a corporation. Your company will have a board of directors and the pros of this are better access to the capital for growth making it easier to sell. The cons are being more expensive to start up and having to answer to shareholders if your business is not performing to their standards.

Having a limited liability company is a great direction for your new venture as it is less expensive to maintain compared to a corporation and your personal assets such as your home, automobile etc. are protected just in case your company is in legal trouble.

KEEPING YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (I.P.) SECURE

You have probably seen R, TM, or C on company logos before. These symbols are how your I.P. is legally protected from copyright. You can used a non-disclosure agreement to protect your property from being stolen and used by your own employees as well.

Legally protect your company with Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright.

Patents: The cost is approximately $1k-1.5k and setup take approximately a year to finalize

Trademark: The symbol ‘R’ on your company name is what helps to protect it from being used by other companies.

Copyright: This is saved for products that you cannot use trademarks on which are music, video etc. Copyright is good for 50 years.

That will conclude part 1 of my series, your new venture. Let me know what you think and if this information has assisted you with starting up your own venture!