EQ Journal

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70 Ways to Raise Bootstrap Capital

There are certainly hundreds or even thousands of clever techniques entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs are using to raise cheap/free capital, aka bootstrap capital. No list is ever going to be complete. But here is our summary of what people are doing these days to self-capitalize their new products/services/enterprises. If you would like to add to our [...]

Finding Bootstrap Capital Where You Least Expect It

(How one company made $800,000 from their below market office lease) Entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs work their magic every time they launch a new company/product or service with little or no funding. They’re amazingly good at finding niche opportunities and exploiting them to raise cash. Here’s one I learned from Rod Bryden who was on the [...]

Accretive Financing: Disney’s Deal to Buy the Ducks

How You can End up with More Cash on Hand after a Deal Than Before How the Disney Company Ended up Buying the Ducks from the National League for a Negative Amount of Cash I have been involved in more than 168 startups over the last 25 years—either as a principal or as an advisor. [...]

Bootstrapping Your Own ETA Business

(Executive Travel Apartments Are Not Subject to RTA, Residential Tenancy Agreement) (Reducing Capital Requirements for Startups) A former student recently introduced me a new form of Bootstrap Capital, or at least, one I hadn’t considered before. It seems obvious to me now but I think it takes some creativity to apply it to any business [...]

Main Sources of Capital for Startups

Is lack of access to capital really the main barrier to entry for most entrepreneurs? I believe that a stated lack of access to capital by many would-be entrepreneurs is more of an excuse than anything else. There is lots of funding around for passionate entrepreneurs who can execute on a good biz model. Here [...]

Financial Leverage: A Simple Model

(Is Bootstrap Capital a New Form of Capital?) (What Occupy Wall Street is Really Complaining About) Leverage or gearing means using OPM, Other People’s Money, in one of your projects. Simply put, when your project’s rate of return is higher than the coupon rate (interest rate) on money you borrowed or used to capitalize it, [...]

Need Startup Capital? Get Some from your Clients

(This article, written by Journalist Greg Markey, first appeared in Ottawa Business Journal, http://www.obj.ca, Jan. 17, 2012) When Bridgehead began renovating its new location on Preston Street, the locally headquartered coffee shop chain turned to the community for funding. They established a program called ‘plant a bean,’ whereby customers buy gift cards in amounts varying [...]

Real Estate Investing Made Simple

I met with a couple in their early 40s last week and they asked me to lay out a program for them so that in addition to building their portfolio of financial assets, they could create a real estate portfolio as well. They agreed that the latter would not include a ‘flip this house/as-seen-on-TV’ approach–they [...]

Grasshoppers, Squirrels and Ants in Grassel

Occupy Grassel Movement Picking up Steam/Government Planning Action The majority of the population of Grassel is made up of Grasshoppers, Squirrels and Ants. Mensa Ants account for 1% of the population. These are the groups that populate the World of Grassel, viz: Grassel World, 100 Rows x 100 Columns 1. Grasshoppers are low wage earners [...]

IRR, Internal Rate of Return

Power of Leverage/Goal Setting Determining the Internal Rate of Return Probably the truest measure of a project’s rate of return is its Internal Rate of Return. The IRR is that interest rate that exactly balances the discounted value of future net cashflows with the investment required to develop the project or enterprise. The higher the [...]

How to Write a Great Testimonial

The Difference Between your Value Proposition and Differentiated Value I just wrote a testimonial for a mortgage broker that I admire (Dilys Hagerman). Here is what I wrote about her: “There are five reasons why I believe Dilys is a great mortgage broker: first, she is très sympatico. She has a good heart and really [...]

If I were King (or Queen) of Exxon, I would….

INTRODUCTION If you were King or Queen of Exxon, what would you do with the unprecedented gusher of profits accruing to that company over the last decade? Here are a couple of excerpts written about Exxon in 2005 and 2006: Exxon profits hit fresh US record Exxon Mobil is the world’s largest listed oil company. [...]