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Things Every Tech Startup Needs to Know about Business Models

By Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (Civil), M Eng-Sci, PhD Abstract The Business Model is supplanting the Business Plan in many organizations. It not only describes the complete business ecosystem, it is a mechanism to discover profitable new relationships amongst stakeholder groups. The Business Model is more resilient than a plan and harder for competitors [...]

Great Art

At TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) 2011, U2′s Bono made an offhand, almost throwaway comment that stopped me in my tracks. He said something like this: ‘The difference between good, maybe even very good art and great art is HUGE.‘ Entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and artpreneurs would do well to keep this in mind. Steve Jobs was [...]

Looking Back to Look Forward

To find out if your startup is really going to be of any real use, take a few moments to perform an Einsteinian thought experiment. Ask: If my product or service had been around ever since Jan 27, 1756 (Mozart’s DOB), what would it be worth today? Imagine YouTube, for a moment, having been around [...]

IOE, Institute of Entrepreneurs

IOE5100, Advanced Business Models Exploriem.org’s Institute of Entrepreneurs presents IOE5100, Advanced Business Models for Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs and Artpreneurs, an MBA level course (For available dates and times as well as more information, please contact: Ms. Theresia Scholtes, tscholtes @ exploriem.org or @tclsholtes) Come study with Prof Bruce, a leader in designing and building business models [...]

Bundling

I think bundling is going to be a big factor in terms of leveraging entrepreneurial ventures in this century. For example, Lululemon Athletica not only sells active wear they also have Yoga classes in their stores. In essence, they are housing two complementary businesses under the same roof. But there is no reason why they [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

Raising Capital by ‘Issuing’ Script

(Plus Tapping Sponsors/Co-Branders/Strategic Investors and Partners for Free Capital) There’s nothing new about raising money by issuing script. The Reynolds Brothers ran a sawmill (established in 1870 by Orson L. Reynolds) in the Adirondacks that in addition to central logging and operating their mill also ran a company store and developed other sources of income [...]

Case Study: Digicel’s Decision to Enter Haiti Cell Phone Market

(Undergrad Mid Term Exam) I reproduce below a case study we did on Digicel’s decision to enter the cell phone market in Haiti. It was a controversial decision by Digicel CEO Denis O’Brien to go into Haiti, by far the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Digicel already had 11 million customers in 32 other [...]