My First Mashup

Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

So you’ve created a widget that’s going to change your industry or you have an idea that could make millions, no you need the money. The truth is, creating a ground shattering concept with multiple avenues of capitalization potential is only 1% of the equation.

Before you start trying to raise capital you have to look at your company as a whole. Are your corporate executives in place and who are they? Are they friends and family or are they the who’s who of your particular industry? Unless your brother is the premier and most sought after CFO in the widget manufacturing industry, he needs to be replaced with a professional CFO; the same goes for other executive positions.

When a VC reads the bio section of your business plan their eyes need to tear up as they see that you’ve strategically collected the best of the best in the industry for your company’s launch and you’ve just succeeded in passing the initial test of the VC. You must have an elite and specialized executive staff with a tried and tested career yielding success in previous business relationships with companies at the same stage as your company.

The next thing you have to look at is your board of directors. Again, each member must have a full bag of tricks and contacts that they intend on using liberally to help you grow you company at a rapid pace. After your business structure is sound and your board of directors is ready to start moving forward with their strategies, you need to use the contacts in the portfolios of your executives and board members to start creating strong and long term minded strategic alliances and partners that will enhance your company. These alliances must be solidified by contracts spelling out what each party will contribute to the relationship.

Leave nothing to chance, unless they are willing to sign a contract with you, it’s not a relationship that can be taken seriously and will only convert into negative baggage that will haunt you down the road. Now with all this in place, you’re ready to put together a business plan. Find a consultant who can not only author a premium grade business plan but also offer corporate structuring and turnaround services to look for holes in your business model and correct them. The author of your business plan is playing a vital role in your company’s ability to raise capital and grow. Choose your BP author wisely.

Now that your company is structured and your business plan is done you’ll need a way to distribute equity that protects you from lawsuits and gives the investors the comfort of knowing that you are ready for funding if they decide to invest, you need a PPM (private placement memorandum). Your business plan author is the natural ‘go to’ consultant for this as they already have an intricate knowledge of your business and have the writing experience to author such a technical document. After all this is done you are now ready to start talking to venture capital firms. Don’t leave the success to chance, hire a consultant that matches companies like yours up with the global venture capital market. Go to Google or another search engine and search for “investor finder” or “Venture capital finder service” these investor finders are a elite group that has substantial contacts in the funding world and can often match you up with investors and equity firms who are seeking investment opportunities like yours.

Raising capital is the last thing you do after you’ve gone through the process of structuring your company properly, now that you have, get out there and start raking in the cash! Here’s to your success!

For Corporate Consulting or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Structure your company should spearhead your capital raising initiative. Make sure that your corporate layout is conducive to creating and retaining investor and venture capitalist attention. You should have a solid and elite executive team composed of the best of the best that your industry has to offer and if you can’t attract those in the upper echelon of your business genre, you need to take an active approach to branding them as experts using on and offline PR campaigns labeling yourselves as industry experts who are innovating industry changing solutions. Create a stir, be controversial (but not offensive) and be ready to back up your stir with empirical evidence of your knowledge and success. You should have an advisory board and board of directors composed of industry specialists. Each individual should represent a forte that makes investors start to salivate when they are reading the bio section of your business plan. They should be able to contribute with contract negotiation, strong alliance introduction capabilities and more. When choosing professionals to fill the void of adviser and director positions you should think in terms of corporate ‘growth’ and ’stabilization’.

Next you want to make sure that your entity is prepared to receive debt and/or equity capital. You’ll need a solid business plan, don’t write it yourself, you’ll only hinder your ability to raise capital. Call a professional to write your strategic business plan. Next you’ll need a way to distribute equity or debt shares, a Private Placement Memorandum is the most common mechanism for helping companies raise capital quickly and easily while staying within the regulation guidelines of the SEC. Your PPM must be written by a professional to deliver the ultimate protection for your company while simultaneously spelling out the technical intricacies of your business to the investor.

Now that your company is structured properly, you have a business plan and a PPM, you are ready to start raising capital. Your first call should be to a corporate turnaround consultant with an arsenal of global funding contacts composed of all the necessary contacts such as: venture capital firms, private equity firms, angel investors, private investors, accredited investors, structured finance firms and so on. This turnaround consultant, if they are part of an established firm (always use a small boutique firm if you can find one, they are much more affective and one on one than the larger firms and tend to get the job done quicker without the headaches) they will have a service call and ‘Investor Finder’ service. They will reach into their gargantuan bag of contacts and give you so many funding options your head will spin, thus, making your fund raising efforts fast and painless.

Now that you achieved your first round of fund raising it’s time to get serious. Yes! It’s time to take your company public. Stay away from Pink Sheets and Reverse Mergers, you’ll only regret it. If you are a smaller business or a startup, your best bet is the OTCBB. Go back to your turnaround consultant and have them start putting you through the sec audit, sec registration, FINRA registration and Market Maker joint venture and S1 filing. They should be able to handle the entire ‘going public’ process for you and in 4 to 7 months, you’re public and trading.

Be sure to take advantage of the multitude of strategies to capitalize off of your securities. Remember there are many ways to capitalize off of your shares, selling shares through your market maker, continuously engaging in heavy PR to stabilize and enhance your stock price and another way that many entrepreneurs don’t consider as an option when raising capital, the almighty hedge lender will can lend your company money against your collateralized securities. Yes! Use your stock as security for financing. After you pay off the loan, line of credit or lease you get those shares back (be sure that your lawyer audits your contract with the lender to keep away from any convertible stock clauses). So now you are raising capital by selling stock as well as the ‘on demand’ loan or LOC concept of security backed lending.

Congratulations! You’ve just completed ‘Real’ corporate finance 101! Now get out there, put your company together and start raising the capital you need.

For Corporate Consulting or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Hopes soared on reports that the recession was coming to a close as the United States economy posted a healthy 5.9% gain and businesses invested to boost GDP. Boise real estate always depends on the national economic trend, so good news will help out.

In its second reading of fourth-quarter gross domestic product, the Commerce Department said the economy grew at a 5.9% annual rate, rather than the 5.7% pace it estimated last month. Not since summer of 2003 have we seen such a rapid pace of growth in GDP. The fastest quarter was the third quarter which posted a robust 2.2% growth rate. The Boise real estate market will see some benefit from these increases, plus other local market factors.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, growing at a 5.7% rate in the October-December period. It is looking like the first quarter of 2010 will not continue in the rapid pace of recovery shown throughout 2009, which had posted the most impressive numbers since the worst financial catastrophe since the Great Depression. Even thought consumer spending and the housing markets were down, the fact that businesses increased investment in software and equipment helped add some steadiness to the economy and allowed business to liquidate bloated inventories. This wan’t just a national trend either, as the Boise real estate market saw very similar changes in volume as well.

Stripping out inventories, the economy expanded at an annual rate of 1.9%, rather than the 2.2% pace estimated last month, indicating growth was not being driven by demand. Inventory sales amounts were alarmingly reduced from $33.5 billion to around $16.9 billion in the final quarter. Throughout the latter portion of the summer, inventory sales plummeted to $139 billion. The inventory changes alone were responsible for a 3.88% difference in GDP. This was the biggest percentage contribution since the fourth quarter of 1987. A big lift came to the Boise real estate market through the liquidation of these extra inventories by construction companies.

In fact, since 1946 there not been such a dramatic shrinkage in the economy as the 2.4% drop recently. Toward the end of 2009, consumer spending had to be reduced from the projected 2% to 1.7% in consumer spending. Although offset soon afterward, the “cash for clunkers” program drove GDP, by stimulating consumption, up by a respectable 2.8%. Previously reliable consumer spending levels, usually adding about 70% of GDP, was much lower than normal, adding only 1.23% to the nations GDP. The Boise real estate market has shared in the impact of the national financial crisis.

With spending on commercial real estate heading down quickly, the fact that the growth happened at all was due mostly because of equipment purchases and investment in software necessary for business growth and improvement. With business investment being much higher than the projected 2.9%, at 6.5% actually, improvement is on the way. It had dropped 5.9% over the prior three-month period. Spending on new home construction grew at a slower 5% rate in the fourth quarter, instead of 5.7% estimated last month. With growth as high as 18.9%, the third quarter was a busy one. Both exports and imports grew much stronger than initially estimated in the fourth quarter, leaving a trade gap that contributed 0.3 percentage point to GDP growth, the data showed. In the Boise real estate industry, the GDP and other market factors are closely watched.

The author enjoys writing articles about boise real estate & Boise Idaho real estate. To learn more about these topics click on the links above!

We get calls all day, every day from companies that talk about ‘wanting’ real corporate publicity that will transform their company but few have the stomach for what it really takes and even fewer have the financial dedication it takes to obliterate their competition and take their rightful place at the top of the food chain.

Of course it’s important to cater to the traditional media (TV, radio, newspaper, industry journals, etc) but the genre of publicity that wins every time is viral publicity consisting of video, social and news bookmarks, article submissions, press release submissions and photo/logo sharing sites. The reality is online publicity is where you’re going to completely annihilate your competitors and claim your rightful position.

When you take into consideration the ultra powerful medium and stealth of viral publicity, all other promotional genres cower in comparison. Online your pre public or post public company will claim instant viewers and a cult-like following that TV and radio can’t even remotely compare. Billions of searches take place every day and it is the viral publicists job to do what SEO and traditional publicists can’t do and that is get solid search engine ranking while simultaneously bringing in powerful results that are targeted and strategically placed.

Forget pay per click, it’s a waste of your time. crush everything in your path with viral publicity that claims power positions on the natural search results on all search engines. You must have a solid combination of mediums at use to take control of targeted keywords and industry genres.

So the next time you tell your self-proclaimed publicist or seo agent that you need publicity that will claim your position and deliver virtually instantaneous results for your company, you’ll understand why there is silence on the other end of the line…because they have no clue as to what it takes to get serious results that will rip and shred everything in your path. The powerful combination of viral publicity and massive exposure will force-feed your concept to the willing masses who are pleading with a company in your industry to step up and spoon-feed the very info that your company is offering.

Stop wasting time and money with so called ’solutions’ that don’t work. You need a publicist, investor relations specialist and SEO demigod that will take you by the hand and pave a way for your company to succeed.

For Corporate Consulting or Investor Relations Solutions, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Corporate Publicity That Works the easy way!

If you own or run a company that is trying to raise capital in the current economic conditions you’ve undoubtedly been challenged by the limited funds available. Investors are more difficult to find and the individuals that are actually willing to part with their cash are even tougher to find. You’ve talked to friends, family members, your cpa and your attorney but trying to get them to invest is like drawing blood from a stone, it’s just not happening.

There is an easier way. Most broker dealers and market makers have an emergency number in their rolodex that reads “Investor Finder”, these specialist consultants are brought in when there is nowhere else to turn for cash. A true Investor Finder has 1,000’s of investor contacts that they can call on to get funding for their clients and are constantly using online viral strategies to attract more investors to their database.

An investor finder usually is not a licensed securities broker/agent or attorney; instead they are traditionally consultants that are active in the investment banking facilitation aspect of the industry. Being that they are not licensed they do not accept equity payments or percentages; instead they work on a flat fee basis.

A good consultant in this genre can bring in 30 to 70 real investors per day and it’s up to the client to sell the opportunity from there. A typical lead from an investor finder will be an investor or investment firm that is responding to the consultant’s opportunity introduction email or snail mail mailing, they have read about the opportunity and they respond one of two ways, either they are calling into a phone room to be screened and qualified or they are contacting the client directly.

Many times the investor doesn’t know that they are part of the “finder’s” database but do recall signing up to receive investment opportunity updates, so either way the investor is solid and active. If you are trying to raise capital and need real results quickly and can’t afford to waste time begging for cash, you need to seek out a qualified Investor Finder consultant and make your fundraising efforts fast and easy.

Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

A lanyard is simply a device that allows you to secure something to your person so that you have easy access to it such as an identity card or event name tag. Commonly, a lanyard can be worn around the neck, but can also be worn on the arm, waist or wrist.

Usually, lanyards are made up of a cord; nylon, cotton, or polyester twill. Several different lanyards are created from denim, fleece, PVC, satin or even leather.

Attaching your item to the lanyard has a few options or methods. Alligator or bulldog clips, swivel hooks (metal or plastic), spring hooks or split rings, are a few of the ways.

Nowadays, a lot of people make use of lanyards. Lanyards have become very popular these days. It is now possible to be able to say ‘hi’ to so many people by their first name now, because they are working their work ID cards around their necks, with their names clearly showing. They become welded almost to their body!

A plastic badge holder is often used to protect the badge from wear and tear. Most companies that sell lanyards usuallyt also sell you all the accessories too like badge holders & other attachment items. If you have security passes one thing you might want to buy for your lanyard is a retractable badge reel. This chord lets the user to scan their security card without needing to take off the lanyard. The cards can be retracted close to their pocket so it won’t swing around the neck. It is most useful in work environments where there are moving machines. They are less likely to cause an accident with a lanyard chord becoming entangled in moving machinery. Should this be needed, you can get lanyards with built in plastic safety breakaways.

Of course, lanyards are also great for advertising purposes. It can double as an advertising tag and name tag if the lanyard is custom printed with a company logo, slogan, or name.

You can print on lanyards. The flat ones made out of polyester twill, nylon, or cotton has the necessary flat surface area and the right printable material. There are 3 different printing techniques that can be used, namely hot stamping, screen-printing and dye sublimation. Hot stamping is the cheapest normally seeing it only uses one color. This method is best for badges used at trade shows or by students. Screen-printing uses colored ink. It also produces a higher quality and longer lasting image in case you need a more durable and better quality finish. Dye sublimation is the most expensive technique, which makes sense seeing it produces the most detailed and longest lasting image.

Discover how button badge and mug as corporate gifts can enhance your marketing today. Visit us to get some great corporate gift ideas.

Everyone seems to be “going green” right now and collection companies are now following suit. Agencies such as Pacific Northwest Collections are now eliminating paper files and instead are using a piece of software called Document Locater. The shift from paper to paperless has benefited the company in many ways.

Collection agents now can utilize the document locater to obtain files containing debtor information and are able to use this data to answer their queries over the phone in real time. This is helpful for the company because it is more efficient. Before the shift, payers oftentimes needed to wait on the phone for information, or even for a call back from the collections company.

Being able to quickly access information is a useful and effective way to collect, because contacting debtors may prove to be difficult. If an agent does get a payer on the phone, it can prove to be frustrating to wait on questions and often times a debtor may not be able to answer a call back from a collections company.

Financially the new system has turned out to be profitable. With the new green system, hours of work are eliminated. No more typing, filing, or copying is required, leaving agents with more time to contact debtors rather than do clerical work.

The new system also lends to professionalism of the company. It may seem like a collection agency is uninformed when they cannot access information immediately. The more creditable an agency seems, the more likely those in debt are to take the company seriously. Although shifting the information to software and purchasing the software itself may be costly at first, the whole procedure seems to pay for itself. A manager at Pacific Northwest Collections asserts that the company saves $2,000 with the new system.

In a bad economy, collection agencies may struggle with retrieving money from those in debt. Companies who are creative and can think outside of the box may very well turn out to be the most successful.

Mallory McGuinness-Hickey is employed by debt collection agency Rapid Recovery Solution and writes free lance articles on financial news and other subjects.

Record companies have apparently found a new tactic to cash in on royalties. As we are well aware, at first these businesses sued individual users who illegally downloaded music. But this approach to collecting money in order to recover from major financial loss has destroyed their public image.

Instead of lowering the cost of CDs in order to compete with music circulating through the internet that is for free, these businesses have turned to collection agencies who are now bringing cellphone companies to court over royalties from ring tones. Contesting that ring tones counted as public performances, the music industry asserted that cell phone companies should be obligated to pay performance fees. The courts quickly denied this claim.

Despite this unsuccessful attempt to collect on royalties, Broadcast Music Inc is now suing T-Mobile over ring back tones, claiming that the mobile carrier is selling them without licensing agreements. Unlike ring tones, which play out loud when someone calls a cellphone, ring back tones play specifically to the person calling. In other words, instead of hearing a cellphone dialing, the caller will hear a song that was chosen by the cell owner.

Music lovers are quick to point out the contradictory nature of this lawsuit. If ringtones that can be heard by anyone around a cellphone that is being called, do not equate to a public performance, it seems absurd to sue the mobile carriers over a ringback tone that can be heard only by the caller. Record companies seem to be grasping at straws as they suffer from huge financial losses.

It does not seem that lowering the cost of CDs and DVDs is an idea that has occurred to the major companies. There are still a number of music fans out there that prefer to collect and own the media, however with prices constantly spiking, downloading music for free seems very tempting. CDs generally go on sale for about seventeen dollars.

Specific bands have been skirting the issue of music downloading through unique tactics. Radiohead, an alternative rock band, established a website where fans can download the music for free, or for a donation. Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor has followed suit. With record companies’ unsuccessful lawsuits and declining public image, it seems as though thinking outside of the box and fair pricing may be more effective than bullying money out of mobile carriers and individual users.

Mallory McGuinness-Hickey works for debt collection agency Rapid Recovery Solution and writes free lance pieces on financial news.

The start of the history of window cleaners in the UK came about as a result of the creation of windows and the perfection of the art of glass-making after 2000 BC.

The first window cleaning products were simply rags and water, however the first tool to be used that specialised in window cleaning for the horse sweat squeegee. This was originally used in the stables to rub down the animals, yet some realised that the long handles and absorbent material made it ideal for window cleaning.

Throughout the 20th century there was a much more rapid development in window cleaning tools. This came down to many advances in chemicals and different manufacturing processes. In 1936 the single blade squeegee was invented which helped to prevent the problem of streaks and spots on the window after it had been cleaned.

As time has passed, even soap became redundant in window cleaning. When tinted windows were developed it became necessary to develop a detergent that would not damage this glass. The result was ammonia-free window cleaning products that were effective in removing stains yet were not corrosive.

Nowadays, there are even products that leave a thin wax seal that locks in moisture and prevents water spots as well as delivering a beautiful shine to your windows by reflecting light.

As a result of all these advances, all are now able to clean their own windows and go out and buy these products without procuring the services of a professional. However for much larger projects or if you want the job done to a very high standard, then there are numerous window cleaning services available.

For those that live in high rise flats or for office buildings, there are professional window cleaning services that can offer a far more extensive clean with all the finest products. Window cleaning has grown into a large industry and for many has become a passion. There are even competitions held all over the world that allow window cleaners to prove their skill and speed in their work.

Are you in need of someone to do window cleaning? We are here to provide of window cleaners in the UK. We have services to take care of all of your needs! Find out what we can do for you!

Content Management Systems (CMS) can be big or small, simple or complex. Defined, it pertains to a system for managing content. The term Content Management System (CMS) refers to a software package that aids automate jobs and information is a certain unit or organization. Look at content as any object that is sent, received,created, stored, or otherwise handled in some way. An effective CMS software should offer a framework upon which to establish the tools required to link humans with such information. According to the website www.cm3cms.com, an effective CMS should include following elements:

1. Tools to facilitate build up any kind of content driven web interface

2. Forms management

3. User management

4. Personalisation services, i.e. the ability to target content to individual users and groups

5. Authentication

6. Starting tips for purpose-specific content management applications – e.g. forums, surveys, shops, websites, intranet tools, extranet tools, information input and tracking, etc.

7. Index and search (well, James Robertson defined this already)

8. Tools to facilitate integration with other data management systems

With CMS, your unit or organization no need to rely on someone else to run or manage your daily transactions. You can also update, edit and remove your contents whenever and wherever you want to. There is a standard content delivery processes to form consistency of quality. When it comes to convenience, CMS permits you to monitor and respond promptly to users enquiries and claims and allows you worldwide access for content changes. It also permits an easy modification of layout, easy delivery of content to various channels and it helps you promptly establish new web interfaces. The gains don’t just terminate there. With CMS, you can save on the cost of additional manpower or IT outsourcing as you or someone else in your organization can do the updating of information. It also brings down the requirement for desktop-based content software.

Find out more how CMS Systems together with good Online Marketing Strategies can help boost your business whether new or old!