In a conversation with a client, we discussed a piece of advice he had received from a venture capitalist in regard to his business. He had been seeking an investment of a few million dollars, most of which would be spent on development and hardware infrastructure for the business. The business already had clients lined [...]
As with many of the pitches airing this season on Dragons’ Den, it’s somewhat difficult to get a good feeling for the business side of the presentation, with more of the focus of the show being on the banter between the dragons, and less on the actual information in the pitch. One presentation that got [...]
This past week on Dragons’ Den, there were several entrepreneurs who presented their ideas on the show, only to discover that their valuation was completely off. In some cases, that was precisely the reason they did not get a deal, in others, it was merely a contributing factor. What is fascinating, though, is the number [...]
With a company that spends significant amounts of time working on websites and applications for small businesses, and an association with a few other companies doing similar work, I’ve seen a large number of projects which have lent themselves to be proposed to investors for some capital. Some were being backed by someone other than [...]
There’s a fairly well known rule in propositioning to potential investors – make sure you have some personal investment in the business or you risk losing all interest up front. The reason for this is fairly simple – the investor wants to see that you believe in the idea enough to take some risk before [...]
I particularly liked the deal made last night on Dragons’ Den (if you haven’t seen it yet, click here to watch it online). There was another deal made during the show, between Clayton Hollingsworth and Brett Wilson, for $5000 ($500 of which Clayton received before he left the set), but while Clayton was providing a [...]
Two dragons compete for a deal on Episode 8 of CBC’s Dragons’ Den – read the review of the deal here.
Elie Kochman is the author of Advice for Small Business Owners and the founder of Optimal Upgrade Consulting. Using his experience working in the corporate world along with his exposure to the world of small businesses, he writes these articles to assist others avoiding common pitfalls of growing a business. His experience in the corporate world, building his own business, and working directly with other growing businesses has given him some perspective on the trials and pains of running a business.
