John Dimmer

Now that I have my business plan I am all ready to find some funding! This is what John Dimmer from Firs management came to help us with. John went over the different steps to find funding and let us know the challenges we are going to face and how to overcome them. He included 4 main steps of financial support.

Funding sources:

1. Yourself (This one isnt going to do me to much good since im broke) (As much as you can)

2. Friends and family (Now we're talking)(25k-150k)

3. Angel Investors (Growing even bigger)(150k-2.5m)

4.Venture capitalist (4m-Unlimited)

Angel capitalists want more back in return around 10x while venture who used less rick wants 5x back. More risk the more you are going to have to pay them

One thing John let us know is that when he is deciding who to fund he wants to know if they have skin in the game or weather they can just quite really easy if it gets tough for them "which it is going to do many times"!

Another thing I learned is to listen and get as much advise from others in the same game as you because they might sound to be extremely smart but most likely it is because they have been down the same path and already had to deal with the problem....so why not let them make the mistakes and you can just use their advice.

John Goodman

I got a new favorite quote from John Goodman who came to our school this past week. “If you steal from one its plagiarism, If you steal from many its research” This became my facebook status during our first break.

I don’t know too much about what john has done in her life and what she has accomplished but just hearing her talk tells you that she has experienced and lived some serious business in her life. She knows she can do practically anything she wants.

She talked a lot about what you should do before submitting your plans for a new company. Market research is very important so you do not waste your time or the people you are pitching it to. She said to question a small group of people in advanced to see what negative things those people have to say so you can make changes before being denied, DO THOSE INTERVIEWS!

I liked how she talked about needing to know where you want your business to go as you are starting it up so you can set up its legal rights off the bat because it’s usually hard to change. The things to look at are weather your objective is: sell before you die, to sell, to give to kids, to take to public.

The final thing was that most restraints do not sell food they are selling the experience. She pointed out how this is true not only for the fancy restaurant, but also for the fast food joints. This is something to defiantly look into and never forget if opening a restaurant.

I pretty much took everything in that she said because i knew she was rich and had accomplished a lot.

Strength and weaknesses

When deciding who is going to be part of your company and what role they are going to play it is important to look at their strengths and weaknesses. I determined mine in class and these will help me pair up with someone who can look at things differently and help me achieve more than a like minded partner. Coming up with these words will also help me out in an interview since it is a heavily asked question, I will have some thought about strengths as well as weaknesses so now I will not have to use “ My weakness is that I always have to work so hard”

Strengths:

Talking to people, convincing people of things, coming up with way to solve problems, good electronic/ technical skills, patience with dealing with slow/rude people, extreme sports, managing money, spreading the word about things (marketing), designing or working with things to make it work.

Weaknesses:

Needs good directions/ end expectations known, managing my time, lack of long term interest, sometimes unorganized, gets stressed a fair amount (not always bad) worries a lot, procrastinator.

After looking over my list with someone else in just a group of three I found someone who could fill in my problem areas and I could be able to fill in his making him an ideal business partner by using this criteria.