People either live at “cause” or “effect”. Average people don’t live at “cause”, they are living at “effect”. They blame situations or other people for their lives. They feel sorry for themselves and focus on why they fail in these circumstances. I am sure you know people who love to feel sorry for themselves, they enjoy playing the victim and even get vocal about it. They are blaming everyone and everything else for their life – but not themselves. They are at “effect” of other people`s actions.

The people who adopt TRM are the people who live at “cause”. They cause everything – no matter what happens. These people work at a level that no average person can understand. They believe that no matter what happens, whether it is good or bad – they are responsible for it. Even if they are not the ones who have created it, they still take responsibility for it.

How do we take responsibility of things when other people’s actions affect us? It’s a three step process, the ALL approach:

Step 1 – Acknowledge: What did I do (or not do) to get this result?

Step 3 – Leverage: What will I do now to leverage this situation?

Put yourself in charge of everything that happens to you. You owe it to yourself, there is no one in this world that knows you more than you. So you are the best person to appoint for making things happen in your life, right? Now, let’s go make it happen!

@GusTakkale
President & CEO, Bytown Sports & Entertainment Inc.
President, Gus Takkale International Inc.
CRAZY ABOUT CHANGE

Rex Parris, Mayor of Lancaster, California doesn’t like to lose. It must come from his class-action lawyer background where he won almost $1 billion in claims for his clients and himself.

Three years ago he decided to make the city where the sun (almost) always shines the first on the planet to produce more electricity from solar panels than the town as a whole consumes.

He tried to get the local school board onside but they called Mr. Parris’ initiative unaffordable so the Mayor used negative cost selling on them.

He created a city-owned micro utility which purchased more than 32,000 solar panels capable of generating 7.5 megawatts on school property. In all, 25 schools got solar arrays.

Mayor Parris

He then sold it to the Lancaster School Board for 35% less than they were currently paying for their electricity from the State’s grid, i.e., they bought their solar panels at a negative cost.

That is an irresistible sales proposition. Everyone in sales should be using it.

If you know your client’s businesses nearly as well as they do (which you should do anyway), you can use negative cost selling on them–where you can truthfully say, the decrease in their costs combined with an increase in their revenues from buying your product or service is greater (hopefully much greater) than the cost of buying your product or service. Or as one of my students put it, “I’ll pay you to hire me.”

Bruce M Firestone

Source/read more: Felicity Barringer, New York Times (April 8, 2013): http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/us/lancaster-calif-focuses-on-becoming-solar-capital-of-universe.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130409.

More examples of negative cost selling:
Best Of Kanata, http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=425
Maple Leaf Design and Construction, http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=482
Negative Cost Selling the Pro Sports team, http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=713
Negative Cost Selling a Mobile App, http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=2436
Jeff Hunt and the Ottawa 67s, http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=297
Negative Cost Marketing, http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=2585

@ProfBruce
@Quantum_Entity

Dr Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (Civil), M Eng-Sci, Phd. Founder, Ottawa Senators; Author, Quantum Entity Trilogy, Entrepreneurs Handbook II; Executive Director, Exploriem.org; Broker, Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc; Entrepreneurship Ambassador, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. 613.566.3436 X 200. bruce.firestone @ century21.ca

Follow Prof Bruce on Twitter @ProfBruce and @Quantum_Entity and read his blogs at www.EQJournal.org and www.dramatispersonae.org.

You can find his works at www.brucemfirestone.com and also at LearnByDoing.ca.

You can engage with him on Facebook via http://www.facebook.com/QuantumEntityTrilogy and http://www.facebook.com/Exploriem as well as via LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/profbruce.

His real estate interests are summarized at www.ottawarealestatenews.com and www.thelandstore.org.

YouTube channels include http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfBruce and http://www.youtube.com/user/quantumentitytrilogy.

You can also read the first four chapters of Quantum Entity Trilogy or send it to your friends for free from: http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/images/QuantumONE_CS_Third_Edition_First_Four_Chapters.pdf

You can read the first two chapters of Entrepreneurs Handbook II or send it to your friends for free: http://www.brucemfirestone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/entrepreneurs-handbook-2013-edited-first-two-chapters-withCovers.pdf

Prof Bruce’s current motto is: “Making Each Day Count”

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 to copy. The Business Model today has 12 main elements—flow chart, value proposition, financial model, benchmarking, effective marketing, talent acquisition, self capitalization, differentiated value, cash conversion cycle, integration of the Internet and Mobile Internet, leverage and social overlay. It is possible today, for the first time in history, to make service businesses scalable and mass customization possible due to the advent of the Internet and Mobile Internet.

Introduction

The Business Model (BM) has come a long way in the last few years from a one page pictogram (or flowchart) of the ‘engine of a business’ to a many faceted model that fully describes the ‘engine room’ of an enterprise.

Recall what a basic BM is—clients are usually on the RHS (Right Hand Side) of the page, the business is in the middle and suppliers are on the LHS. Typically, products and services flow from left to right—from suppliers to the enterprise where some type of value is added and then through the organization to their clients and customers. Usually, money flows in the opposite direction—from clients to the enterprise and then from there to suppliers when they are paid. Occasionally, these directions can reverse with money flowing to clients and customers, for example, and information or marketing opportunities flowing in the opposite direction.

There is an orthogonal dimension in every model—a marketing dimension, which is where each organization demonstrates how they acquire clients and customers in a cost effective manner.

A fuller picture of every enterprise is formed when at least two dimensions on either side (and sometimes more) are included in the model. That is, the clients of the company’s clients and who the suppliers to the company’s suppliers also become known. In this way, new relationships amongst players and stakeholders can be discovered and creative new ways to enhance every organization can be found. Each enterprise is now being looked at as part of an overall business ecosystem and when they are able to secure place as a liked and trusted part of an ecosystem, business longevity is likely to increase.

Steve Jobs insisted that AT&T provide Apple with a share of its monthly subscriber revenues in return for exclusive access to the iPhone for two years (Wall Street Journal, How Steve Jobs Played Hardball In iPhone Birth, February 17th, 2007, http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117168001288511981-euxzmjNFZTZhA_2z8OBtD6GK900_20070224.html?mod=blogs). With this single strategic move, Jobs revolutionized yet another industry’s business model—cell phone manufacturers went from selling a ‘shrink wrapped’ gadget for a one-time payment in a brutally competitive market that was racing to the bottom to an industry with multiple sources of revenues, some of which are recurring.

Imagine how much harder Steve Jobs and Apple would have to work today and how much lower their productivity as measured in terms of revenue per employee would be without recurring revenues from iPhone app sales and revenues, advertising revenues on their iOS platform, downloads of paid content from iTunes and iBooks plus a share of their carriers’ subscriber fees? We estimated that Apple’s Internal Rate of Return on the iPhone is an incredible 288% p.a. (http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=1714). But it wasn’t the iPhone per se that propelled Apple to becoming the most valuable company on the planet; it was the iPhone’s business model that did that.

Was this unprecedented move by AT&T (to give Apple access to a share of its monthly subscriber revenues) worthwhile from the telecom’s POV? Well, Wired.com (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/01/iphone-att-q4-sales) reported that the iPhone represented 80% of all AT&T smartphone activations in the last quarter of 2011 during which they added 9.4 million new subscribers, 50% more than in any previous quarter in company history.

Sam Palmisano, when he was CEO of IBM, told BusinessWeek (April 3rd, 2006) why he places a great deal of emphasis on the importance of business model innovation, “… with product innovation, it’s a certainty that your competition is shortly going to copy what you have done. With business-model innovation, though, if you can come up with a unique way of doing things, it’s much tougher to react to.”

The Complete Model

The complete Business Model is today made of a dozen elements—

1. A one page pictogram (flowchart) showing the whole business ecosystem (the enterprise embedded in a network of relationships with clients, clients’ clients, suppliers and suppliers’ suppliers together with an orthogonal marketing dimension showing how the enterprise acquires customers and clients in a cost effective manner.)
2. A spreadsheet which calculates the value proposition for a single customer or client; it demonstrates in a clear and concise way how a new enterprise/product/service/division creates either lower costs or higher revenues (or some combination of both) for a single customer. The corollary here is that organizations should insist that their suppliers provide them with their value proposition too. They should not expect less of their suppliers than they do of themselves.
3. A second spreadsheet develops a financial model for the enterprise. From this model, each firm is able to measure the impact each additional client has on the top line of the firm. The firm is also able to test the sensitivity of its top line to, say, changes in success rate in any of its marketing channels, changes in its COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) and other variables. The value proposition for clients and their impact on the enterprise (which is measured by the financial model) are mirror images of each other. The business ecosystem is complete when suppliers provide the organization with their value proposition and they also have a financial model of how their client’s organization impacts them. Why should any organization care if their suppliers have workable financial models? Long term viability of every firm depends, in part, on maintaining a sustainable and efficient supply chain.
4. Each business model should be benchmarked against the best-of-breed in their industry. We developed a Business Model Scoring Test, http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/BusinessModels/BusinessModelScoringTest.htm to assist in this regard.
5. Each enterprise will not be successful unless it can acquire clients or customers in a cost effective way. If Super Bowl commercials are needed before acquiring any launch clients, the new enterprise is unlikely to be successful. If any new organization requires heroic efforts to land clients, they won’t be around long. So Guerrilla Marketing, Social Media and Market Channel Development have to be part of the marketing dimension in every business model. This is just as true for NGOs, Not-For-Profits and Charities. These types of enterprises need to have complete Business Models including financial model, value proposition and other elements described here. They have a fiduciary duty to be efficient and effective too.
6. Having a great business model without the ability to execute is not very useful. That is, execution counts, ideas by themselves, even great ideas, are not enough. We developed an online ECQ Test to test individual entrepreneurial ability: http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/ECQTest/ECQ(ns)TestAuto.htm.

“Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder,” Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success, 2008.

7. There are business models that do not easily lend themselves to entrepreneurial startups. Typically, they require enormous amounts of capital that simply cannot be raised by entrepreneurs. Business models that use Bootstrap Capital and Self Capitalization techniques to fund their new startups are usually more focused on customer needs, customer acquisition and building cashflow. Strong cashflow is clearly part of improving survivorship rates and low cost or free bootstrap capital can lead to higher Rates of Return (both project IRR, Internal Rate of Return, and ROE, Return on Equity, will likely increase). Greater use of self capitalization techniques in early stages of startup development will also reduce the need for either Angel or VC capital which will increase the likelihood that original founders will retain control for a longer period. Having launch customers and growing cashflow improve valuations and improve negotiating positions of entrepreneurs vis–à–vis sophisticated investors.
8. Most startups do not necessarily have to find a never-before-tried-idea. Perhaps the reason it has never been tried before is that it is a bad idea. There are very few startups like Priceline.com (where each customer sets a price instead of the business) or Fed-Ex (pioneer of the airline hub and spoke system that made overnight package delivery possible). But at a minimum, each organization requires something that differentiates it from existing firms—there must be some type of innovation brought to bear on the industry. Differentiated Value and the ability to be able to succinctly explain it are essential. Imagine YouTube, for a moment, having been around circa the latter half of the 18th Century. Perhaps a video of Mozart’s last concert or Albert Einstein’s speech when he won his Nobel Prize in physics in 1921 would now be available? (YouTube actually has one minute and 22 seconds of Einstein speaking in Stockholm, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOAzNYVvaNc.) What would such a video archive be worth today? What if Pinterest.com had been around since the 1800s and you could see what else interested James Watt (inventor of the steam engine)? Test and discover enterprise differentiated value using thought experiments like these (by thinking backwards as well as forwards).

“I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things,” Steve Jobs.

9. The Cash Conversion Cycle should be determined for each business model. What use is a fast growing business if it goes bankrupt in the process? This occurs when the CCC is too long which means that it either takes too long to collect receivables or the organization is paying for inputs too soon before being able to deliver its products or services or inventories are too high.
10. Jack Welch when asked upon his retirement from GE, ‘What was the single most important invention during his decades with GE?’ pointed to the Internet and said it’s ‘the biggest change I have ever seen.’ The Internet (and the Mobile Internet) must be integrated into every business model. More on this later.
11. Building leverage into every model is essential; this multiplies the force and effect of effort, time, brainpower and capital. Leverage in business models comes from ten primary sources—i. HR (Human Resources), ii. OPM (Other People’s Money), iii. forced savings, iv. innovation, v. capital equipment, vi. location, vii. network effects, viii. marketing channels that reduce a marketing problem from one to many to one to a few, ix. branding, co-branding, co-opetition and co-creation and, finally, x. inflation. Test your business model by asking yourself do you have great Human Resources, are you using Other People’s Money, benefiting from forced savings, innovating, do you have a great location or brand, does your enterprise benefit from network effects or marketing channels that allow you to connect cost effectively with your clients or customers and reduces that task from one to many to one to a few and is your capital equipment top notch/best-of-breed & do you benefit from inflation? If so, you are probably maximizing your leverage.

“In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy,” Warren Buffett.

12. Business Models with a social overlay can create a coherent community around each enterprise which make it difficult to knock off. They also provide a platform for a separate way of giving back to society often through a not-for-profit organization bolted onto the model. Such bolt-ons can become independent, self-funded marketing channels for the for-profit operation.

Case Study—Loose Button’s Business Model

Ray Cao and Aditya Shah are both young engineers from the University of Waterloo. Now what can they possibly know about the beauty products industry for a client base that is approximately 98% female and growing fast? It turns out that Ray and Aditya and their small crew of hackers and marketing mavens know a lot about their industry—they are reshaping the way it delivers samplers to their consumers.

Previously, suppliers like L’Oreal, Moroccan Oil, Dermalogica and dozens of others would employ agencies to go into malls and high end stores to hand out samples to consumers picked out nearly randomly. How much data did they collect? Almost nothing.

Ray and Aditya are highly analytical and believe in the value of tracking metrics to help build an enterprise and make it smarter. So they decided to do something about this part of the industry and, in doing so, have created one of the most innovative business models yet seen.

Their value proposition is, “We’re the Netflix of the beauty products industry but with e-Harmony for brains,” says Cao.

Every consumer who signs up is asked to complete a profile letting LooseButton.com know what type of products they are interested in. Then once a month, a Luxe Box is delivered to their door by CPC (Canada Post Corporation) or USPS with travel-size samplers from suppliers they are interested in. This is a form of mass customization—every Luxe Box can contain different products matching individual consumer interests with the right type of supplier products with a few surprises on the upside thrown in.

Clients respond well to LB surveys and have independently started to record YouTube videos of themselves receiving, using and experimenting with Luxe Box products. Some of these videos are getting phenomenal numbers of views (over 10,000) spreading the word for LB at no cost to LB. Tribes of makeup evangelists are forming around the strongest influencers in their ecosystem.

What’s also interesting is that clients are paying $12 per month ($10 if they sign up for a year) to receive their monthly try-before-you-buy Luxe Box filled with samples that LB’s suppliers provide them for free. There’s still more cleverness here. In addition to providing them with free samplers, suppliers like L’Oreal and Moroccan Oil pay a rights fee to be included in the Luxe Box which means that LB is in the enviable position of being paid not only by clients but suppliers as well.

Ray and Aditya have also implemented some negative cost marketing—organizations are paying them to market Luxe Box for them… The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine and other publications, desperately trying to hold onto their readers, buy Luxe Box subscriptions (at around 80% of retail price) to give to their most loyal customers vastly extending LB’s reach and increasing its growth rate as well. The Founders won’t say exactly how many clients they have but it’s over 10,000.

Based in Toronto on Bay Street in shared co-worker space, their Ottawa tie-in was they wanted to use By-ward market-based Shopify’s platform but instead had to move to Recurly.com because the former is not set up for recurring payments (aka, subscription billing). Shopify is set up for dozens or hundreds of SKUs, LB has only one.

This is a tough business to knock off in the sense that until the Internet can download mini portions of makeup or beauty potions and as long as Canada Post Corporation and USPS keep going, they’re in great shape.

Here is LooseButton.com’s business model circa 2012. See below. Ray and Aditya have plans to change this model in 2013—adding product sales—because their clients are demanding that.

When asked why they named their company ‘Loose Button’, Ray says, “Buttons are fasteners that connect two pieces of cloth. We intelligently connect consumers and brands.”

They started LB right out of University and have an Advisory Board with luminaries such as Harry Rosen and Jagoda Pike (former publisher of the Toronto Star) sitting on it. “Mentoring helped us a lot,” says Aditya. “We decided not to go into the apparel space since it was already saturated. We went into the market research and product discovery side instead.”

Their biz coach comes in once per week and makes them set goals, track metrics and live up to their word. Internet startups that track their metrics grow 7x faster than those that don’t according to Startup Genome Report 01, Max Marmer, Bjoern Lasse Herrmann, Ron Berman, 2011.

They are also part of Impact.org which focuses on fast growing enterprises. Started out of Waterloo, it is now a national organization.

Both Ray and Aditya were part of the coop program at Waterloo and they each had six tries to figure out that they wanted to do during their course of studies. What it taught them was that they didn’t like working for other people (Ray at a Wall Street firm and Aditya at a large accounting firm and then various tech companies).

LB has plans for other Boxes—perhaps another line focused on Men’s products, possibly a foodie version. They intentionally called their first Box something different from their company name so they could conquer other verticals later. It’s what RIM tried to do with Blackberry and Playbook.

There wasn’t much to change in their biz model other than suggesting that they might consider adding a social layer over the whole thing—the follow/follower model is a powerful one which knits the community more closely together and makes it even tougher to knock off. They might integrate the Twitter API and allow customers and suppliers to follow top influencers in their ecosystem on a more coherent basis than just stumbling onto one of their YouTube videos.

Other changes might include adding a Qricket Code to each Luxe Box (that’s a QR code where you can change the website it resolves to after printing them) so that, like ET, each Box can call home. Maybe there will also one day be a LooseButton.org to give back to their community too.

Business models today are not just about making money—enterprises that are all about the money seem to have none and those that are about building insanely great products and services plus making a contribution to society seem to have it all. This is a Gen Y (and Steve Jobs) phenomenon. So bolting on to their existing model a standalone not-for-profit dedicated to say health and fitness and with its own sources of funding and marketing to their existing business model would not only help LB, it would help the wider community cope with issues like obesity, diet, lifetime fitness, abuse of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.

Their model as it exists today where they get paid by consumers and suppliers plus other organizations pay them to market their product for them while forming an intelligent community that is hard to knock off is, frankly, amazing.

Integrating the Internet and the Mobile Internet into Everything You Do

The Internet is making it feasible to do things with business models that were never possible before including:

A. Create custom outputs from standard inputs

Unlike Henry Ford who said you can have whatever color of car you want so long as it is black, the Internet allows an enterprise to provide a nearly unlimited choice by combining standard inputs into a myriad of customized products or services. Every experience with an Internet-mediated entity can be wildly varied.

Mass Customize Products and Services

B. Reverse out the work to clients and suppliers

For example, a Spa could allow clients to pick and choose amongst services and so tailor each visit to their individual preferences, tastes and needs. Since they are doing all the work of customizing their next visit (adding hair styling, massage therapy, pedicure, manicure, dietary consultation, yoga class and hair coloring and then deleting half the services because, say, they exceed current budgetary constraints), the enterprise doesn’t care how many times they change their minds before hitting the ‘submit’ button.

C. Embed each enterprise in a trusted, networked business ecosystem made up of clients, suppliers, clients’ clients, suppliers’ suppliers and the organization itself

To show how this works, ask for example the question, ‘Who are the clients of a Spa’s clients?’ Since most clients for most spas are probably women, the clients of the Spa’s clients are likely to be men. And what do men want? They want to purchase gift certificates from the Spa. By examining the nodes and links in a business model, it is often possible to discover new ways of delivering value in the ecosystem as well as discovering new marketing channels and supply chains as well.

D. Matchmaking—directly connecting clients to suppliers making service industries scalable for the first time ever

Returning to the example of the Spa, their employees could be treated not as employees but as suppliers. In this way, if a client wants to have a manicure, pedicure, massage and hair colouring, the Internet or the Mobile Internet allows the spa to create a backend system that matches them up much as, say, eHarmony.com or PlentyOfFish.com do. Match making is not a widely understood phenomenon. Service industries are notoriously labor intensive and hard to scale; i.e., more output requires more inputs in a more or less linear relationship or, worse, the ratio of marginal output to marginal input might be less than one. This happens when a service business is too complex to manage effectively as it grows. In consulting, that size is often one person. As soon as the enterprise grows beyond a single practioner, their earnings per person may actually go down while the time to produce those earnings goes up. This is not a happy event and explains there are so many one person service firms in real estate, management consulting, IT consulting, accounting, legal, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, the Mr. Fix It industry, roof repair, mechanic, appliance repair, PC repair, Network management and so forth. Internet matchmaking is likely to change all of these industries by making them scalable. Industry consolidation and larger average firm sizes are likely occurrences.

E. Mass communicate planet-wide through social media and other Internet tools at almost no cost

What is interesting is that some of these communication tools which are free to use like social media powerhouses Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Facebook produce a powerful, newish form of communication—the viral message. It’s newish (as opposed to new) because the chain letter permitted something similar before. But it’s powerful.

F. Crowd sourcing (using the Internet as intermediary) means relying on the wisdom of the crowd to, for example, pick and vote on stories for news agglomeration sites like Reddit.com

Google can serve up ads to people who are searching for, say, digital cameras. Facebook, on the other hand, by mining its d-base, can serve up digital camera ads to new Moms in New Jersey who have never posted any photos of their kids. FB can also advertise wedding photographers in Vancouver to women who have just changed their status from ‘single’ to ‘engaged’. In ‘The Facebook Effect’, David Kirkpatrick points out that Google’s style of advertising (providing information to people who already know what they are looking for, at least in general terms) makes up 20% of all advertising. The rest is brand advertising meant to target people who have not yet made a buying decision or don’t know what they are looking for. That is Facebook’s specialty and you can understand why Kirkpatrick thinks FB will ultimately be a hugely successful commercial enterprise.

G. Relational data base

Organizations mine their customer (or supplier) interactions for intelligence. For example, Amazon asks questions such as, ‘Would you like to see what other people who bought this (book, CD, video, etc.) also bought?’ These suggestion engines result in significant increases in average order size and volume of sales.

H. User generated content

This is another form of reversing out the work to customers and suppliers. It underpins the business models of YouTube.com, Threadless.com, Facebook, Twitter and many other new enterprises.

I. Network effects

Google is an example of network effects—the more people who use their search engine, the better their algorithm is which brings more users which brings more data which delivers greater accuracy which results in more ads served in a self-reinforcing virtuous circle. It is more difficult to produce network effects in a gated community which is why Google+ is likely to struggle while Twitter flourishes.

Conclusion

Business modeling is a relatively new field of research and practice; it will undoubtedly evolve extensively in just a few years.

Business modeling may be superseding business planning in many ways because, as successful Generals know, the best battle plan ever created changes the instant it comes into contact with the enemy. Business models change too when they come into contact with the marketplace and the supply chain and they evolve over time as each organization comes to know and better understand the relationships implicit in their business ecosystems. Also business models are much harder to copy than any single product or service and, if an organization gets them right, they can create amazing new (sustainable) enterprises.

As former student Daniel Beauchamp once said, “Your competitors can copy what you are doing now but what they can’t know and can’t copy is what you are going to do next.” Dwight D. Eisenhower said it a bit differently, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything,”

Entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and product managers with a solid business model know that their implementation and execution of it will test their entrepreneurial skill set and, while they set goals each day and plan out each day and create To Do lists each day, they also know they always have to be flexible as circumstances change and new opportunities and challenges multiply around them.

The Internet is having a profound impact on the way business models are designed and implemented. The more that the Internet and Mobile Internet are incorporated in new or existing models, the more they are likely to prosper. The Internet is just a teenager and is likely to subsume everything in its path over the coming decades.

Business modeling and the integration of the Internet into Business Models are key factors as entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs try to decode the DNA of successful startups and product launches.

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Author Biography

Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (Civil), M Eng-Sci, PhD

Bruce M Firestone is best known as a professor, entrepreneur and founder of NHL hockey team, the Ottawa Senators and their home arena, Scotiabank Place, as well as Author, Quantum Entity Trilogy, Entrepreneurs Handbook II and Urban Nirvana (2015).

Firestone is Executive Director of Exploriem.org, a Canadian registered Not-For-Profit corporation focused on educating and mentoring entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and artpreneurs in Canada and around the world. He is also coaching and teaching via Learn By Doing School, an organization dedicated to providing student entrepreneurs with access to research, education and a network of high achievers not available elsewhere. Prof Bruce is also an effective keynote speaker for organizations with a positive focus on creating opportunity for their stakeholder group.

Prof Bruce has launched or helped launch more than 172 startups in fields including tech, real estate, design, art and services. He advises clients on business modeling, self-financing, smart marketing, social media, differentiated value, strategic selling and business development, market channel development, harnessing the Internet and mobile web, urban design, real estate development, design economics, product management, sponsorship, fundraising and development economics as well as issues related to entrepreneurial organizations including not-for-profits, NGOs and charities.

In May of 2006, Dr Firestone joined the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management at as its first Entrepreneur-in-Residence. He previously taught or studied at McGill University (Bachelor of Civil Engineering), Laval University, Harvard University, University of Western Ontario, University of New South Wales (Master of Engineering-Science, Traffic and Transportation), Australian National University (PhD in Urban Economics) and Carleton University. Prof Bruce is now Entrepreneurship Ambassador for the Telfer School.

Dr Firestone has been an operations research engineer, real estate developer, hockey executive, professor of architecture, engineering, business and entrepreneurship, real estate broker (with Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc), writer, researcher, columnist and novelist. He is a peerless husband and father of five great kids and one fine grandson.

You can follow him on Twitter @ProfBruce and @Quantum_Entity and read his blogs at www.eqjournal.org and www.dramatispersonae.org. You can find his works at www.brucemfirestone.com and at www.learnbydoing.ca. You can engage with him on Facebook via—http://www.facebook.com/QuantumEntityTrilogy and http://www.facebook.com/Exploriem as well as via LinkedIn at—http://www.linkedin.com/in/profbruce. His real estate interests are at www.OttawaRealEstateNews.com and www.thelandstore.org. His YouTube channels include—http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfBruce and http://www.youtube.com/user/quantumentitytrilogy. You can also send the first four chapters of Quantum Entity Trilogy to your friends for free from: http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/images/QuantumONE_CS_Third_Edition_First_Four_Chapters.pdf.
His current motto is: “Making Each Day Count”.
…

@ProfBruce
@Quantum_Entity

Dr Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (Civil), M Eng-Sci, Phd. Founder, Ottawa Senators; Author, Quantum Entity Trilogy, Entrepreneurs Handbook II; Executive Director, Exploriem.org; Broker, Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc; Entrepreneurship Ambassador, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. 613.566.3436 X 200. bruce.firestone @ century21.ca

Follow Prof Bruce on Twitter @ProfBruce and @Quantum_Entity and read his blogs at www.EQJournal.org and www.dramatispersonae.org.

You can find his works at www.brucemfirestone.com and also at LearnByDoing.ca.

You can engage with him on Facebook via http://www.facebook.com/QuantumEntityTrilogy and http://www.facebook.com/Exploriem as well as via LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/profbruce.

His real estate interests are summarized at www.ottawarealestatenews.com and www.thelandstore.org.

YouTube channels include http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfBruce and http://www.youtube.com/user/quantumentitytrilogy.

You can also read the first four chapters of Quantum Entity Trilogy or send it to your friends for free from: http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/images/QuantumONE_CS_Third_Edition_First_Four_Chapters.pdf

You can read the first two chapters of Entrepreneurs Handbook II or send it to your friends for free: http://www.brucemfirestone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/entrepreneurs-handbook-2013-edited-first-two-chapters-withCovers.pdf

Prof Bruce’s current motto is: “Making Each Day Count”

Below are some data published by BusinessWeek on why businesses fail. I’ll bet you that the top five reasons (too much debt, inadequate leadership, poor planning, failure to change and inexperienced management) are in fact related to number six on their list: not enough revenue; i.e., business not generating enough income is probably by far the biggest cause of business failure and they are not generating enough revenue because of inadequate leadership, poor planning, failure to change and inexperienced management, which also means they can’t meet their debt obligations.

KEYS TO FAILURE
The top reasons most businesses fail, according to 1,900 professional who help troubled companies:

1. TOO MUCH DEBT 28%
2. INADEQUATE LEADERSHIP 17%
3. POOR PLANNING 14%
4. FAILURE TO CHANGE 11%
5. INEXPERIENCED MANAGEMENT 9%
6. NOT ENOUGH REVENUE 8%

Data: Buccino & Associates, Seton Hall University, Stillman School of Business (BusinessWeek, August 25, 2003)

If you have enough revenue, you will get financing today, not the other way round. This is the lesson of the false boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s when VCs and others financed startups with interesting business models but no revenue or early prospect of revenues. This has almost never worked, in any age.

If you have enough revenue, you can meet debt servicing cashflow demands so a focus on revenue growth is vital. One needs to not only generate revenue but collect it too. This seems self evident but a lot of startups don’t do billing, invoicing and collections very well.

How long do you think mighty IBM would last if it didn’t collect its receivables? IBM sells around $105 billion (in 2012) worth of goods and services (one customer at a time, btw); their monthly revenues average around $8.75 billion. Also in 2012, IBM had around $18 billion in free cashflow which means, like everyone else, they have bills to pay—only theirs are humongous. Their payables are approximately $87 billion per year, an average of $7.25 billion per month. If they somehow ‘forget’ to collect their receivables for three months, their AR (Accounts Receivable) would balloon by $26.25 billion. Worse, their receivables would be aging fast. Meanwhile their employees, contractors, suppliers, Landlords and so forth would expect to be paid over the same period; their AP (Accounts Payable) during that time would be around $21.75 billion which they would have to pay from existing bank lines, cash on hand or via deferment. Even for IBM, this is untenable; they would be in serious trouble in less than 90 days as bankers, analysts, shareholders and other stakeholders become increasingly nervous. Their CEO would not last out the quarter.

So we need to be cautious in how we interpret the Seton Hall University Stillman School of Business data. In my experience, the number one reason for failure is absence of buoyant revenues. I mean how many businesses have you heard of folding if their revenue numbers are ratcheting up every month?

@ProfBruce
@Quantum_Entity

Dr Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (Civil), M Eng-Sci, Phd. Founder, Ottawa Senators; Author, Quantum Entity Trilogy, Entrepreneurs Handbook II; Executive Director, Exploriem.org; Broker, Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc; Entrepreneurship Ambassador, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. 613.566.3436 X 200. bruce.firestone @ century21.ca

Follow Prof Bruce on Twitter @ProfBruce and @Quantum_Entity and read his blogs at www.EQJournal.org and www.dramatispersonae.org.

You can find his works at www.brucemfirestone.com and also at LearnByDoing.ca.

You can engage with him on Facebook via http://www.facebook.com/QuantumEntityTrilogy and http://www.facebook.com/Exploriem as well as via LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/profbruce.

His real estate interests are summarized at www.ottawarealestatenews.com and www.thelandstore.org.

YouTube channels include http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfBruce and http://www.youtube.com/user/quantumentitytrilogy.

You can also read the first four chapters of Quantum Entity Trilogy or send it to your friends for free from: http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/images/QuantumONE_CS_Third_Edition_First_Four_Chapters.pdf

You can read the first two chapters of Entrepreneurs Handbook II or send it to your friends for free: http://www.brucemfirestone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/entrepreneurs-handbook-2013-edited-first-two-chapters-withCovers.pdf

Prof Bruce’s current motto is: “Making Each Day Count”

MONTREAL (March 18, 2013)—Newly elected Liberal leader, Justintime Trudeau, announced today that if elected Prime Minister he will introduce a new foreign policy initiative—the annexation of Ecuador.

“It is my government’s view that Canada and Canadians must look south to solve recurring weather-related economic issues. Today, I am setting out a bold five step plan to mitigate this important challenge that all Canadians face together—

“One. After each New Year’s Eve, all Canadians will henceforth travel south for the months of January, February and March returning north when better weather arrives in April of each year.

“Two. This is an opportunity that should be shared equally by all Canadians whatever their income or housing status and, to that end, the Government of Canada will be introducing the Fairness in Travel Act in the next session of Parliament. This new Bill will provide each Canadian with an annual taxable grant of $3,000 per month (total of $9,000) to assist them with and offset some of their travel costs.

“Three. A skeleton crew of volunteers will be stay behind in Canada to maintain vital infrastructure and the built environment of this country so ordinary Canadians will not have to worry about returning to homes and businesses destroyed by fire or other misadventure.

“Four. The after tax cost to Federal and Provincial Treasuries will be approximately $116 billion annually. However, our Government intends to enter into immediate negotiations with the Democratic Republic of Ecuador with a view to having the great nation of Ecuador join our Federation as its 11th Province. If these negotiations are not successful, the Government of Canada will move to annexation.

“Five. After joining Canada, Ecuador’s GDP will jump from around $68 billion CAD to more than $184 billion and its population from 14.7 million to 49.1 million during winter months.”

Mr. Trudeau’s announcement today at the Bell Centre was widely welcomed by a throng of well wishers. He passionately called upon his followers in the audience and on Twitter to right an historic wrong that Tories and Joe (Prime-Minister-for-a-day) Clark made when they timidly refused to annex the Turks and Caicos in 1979 even after a non-binding referendum there showed more than 60% of their population wished to join Canada. Whipped into a frenzy, Bell Centre fans poured out of the home of Les Glorieux to march along René Lévesque Boulevard whereupon a riot broke out and windows in more than 30 stores and businesses were shattered. Montreal riot police in full gear arrested more than 50 celebrants.

When asked, “Why Ecuador?” Mr. Trudeau answered this way, “Hola! It’s a peaceful democracy like Canada with great cities, cultures and history, amazing bio diversity, fantastic Pacific coastline plus ownership and stewardship of the Galapagos Islands. It is close to the equator with mild weather year-round and no hurricanes. Most importantly, real estate in Ecuador is a fraction of the cost elsewhere in Latin America or the Caribbean and Canadians will be able to live there at Ecuador prices but with gringo dollars.”

Mr. Trudeau urged Canadians to go to http://canada.gc.ca/ and sign up right away for their free grant.

-30-
For more information, please contact:

Mr. Justintime Trudeau @justintimetru

If you would like to beat the crush, please come to our FREE information seminar on Hola Ecuador, a project by Canadians for Canadians. Sign up here—http://HolaEcuador.eventbrite.com

To find out more about lots at Hola Ecuador, please view http://www.ottawarealestatenews.com/c21-Mirador-san-jose-info-pack-18-March-2013.pdf

Yubarta homes available too:

Another day at the beach:

Media release as PDF, http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/images/ecuador-media-release-18-march-2013.pdf

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

@ProfBruce
@Quantum_Entity

Dr Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (Civil), M Eng-Sci, Phd. Founder, Ottawa Senators; Author, Quantum Entity Trilogy, Entrepreneurs Handbook II; Executive Director, Exploriem.org; Broker, Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc; Entrepreneurship Ambassador, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. 613.566.3436 X 200. bruce.firestone @ century21.ca

Follow Prof Bruce on Twitter @ProfBruce and @Quantum_Entity and read his blogs at www.EQJournal.org and www.dramatispersonae.org.

You can find his works at www.brucemfirestone.com and also at LearnByDoing.ca.

You can engage with him on Facebook via http://www.facebook.com/QuantumEntityTrilogy and http://www.facebook.com/Exploriem as well as via LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/profbruce.

His real estate interests are summarized at www.ottawarealestatenews.com and www.thelandstore.org.

YouTube channels include http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfBruce and http://www.youtube.com/user/quantumentitytrilogy.

You can also read the first four chapters of Quantum Entity Trilogy or send it to your friends for free from: http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/images/QuantumONE_CS_Third_Edition_First_Four_Chapters.pdf

You can read the first two chapters of Entrepreneurs Handbook II or send it to your friends for free: http://www.brucemfirestone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/entrepreneurs-handbook-2013-edited-first-two-chapters-withCovers.pdf

Prof Bruce’s current motto is: “Making Each Day Count”

Abstract

In the five year period leading up to 2010, approximately 91.6% of all tech startups in the US were self-funded or bootstrapped, 8.1% were Angel-backed and just 0.3% were VC-funded. How to self-fund (self-capitalize or bootstrap) new tech enterprises is the subject of this paper.

Self-funding objectives are primarily fourfold—improve speed to market, retain a higher percentage of ownership of new enterprises in the hands of their founders, increase returns on equity and improve survivorship rates. Furthermore, self-capitalization results in more efficient use of a scarce resource—startup funding—crucial to national economic development.

Self-capitalization is a different form of financial capital. Unlike either debt or equity, self-capital is either ultra low cost or free (ignoring opportunity costs). Sources are many and varied. It is an underexploited form of capitalization. It is faster to raise than either equity or debt sourced from conventional sources such as Angels, VCs, commercial banks or Government programs.

Main sources of self-capitalization are trade credit (or supplier credit), deposits/retainers/advances/progress payments from customers or clients, rights fees from and/or investment by strategic investors/sponsors/partners, founder sweat equity, script, soft capital, home equity loans, micro capital loans, crowd funded capital sourced via sites like Kickstarter.com or Indiegogo.com, IP licensing, financial leasing, credit cards, receivable factoring, accretive buying, accretive selling, seller take back financing, trading and asset flipping, partner loans/contributions, consulting/moonlighting, competitions, barter, borrowing physical assets like office space/tools/furniture/personnel, co-branding and co-marketing. In addition to speeding up the go-to-market process, self-capitalization improves ROE, Return on Equity, as well as project IRR, Internal Rate of Return, causes the cash conversion cycle to become negative and allows entrepreneurs to control more of the equity of their own enterprises over a longer period.

Introduction

Texts on financing new ventures tend to focus either on micro-finance for tiny businesses mainly in Third World nations or VC-track enterprises. Leach and Melicher (Entrepreneurial Finance, J Chris Leach and Ronald W Melicher, South-Western College Publication, 2009) refer to early stage financing as ‘seed funding’ whose ‘primary source of funds at the development stage is the entrepreneur’s own assets.’

Schumpeter said in 1934, ‘Entrepreneurs are innovators who use a process of shattering the status quo of existing products and services, to set up new products, new services.’ Entrepreneurs are persons who efficiently use scarce resources, most of which are not their own, to disrupt the status quo. Hence, discussions of business valuation, first round financing, second round, mezzanine financing, bridge financing and IPO are almost wholly irrelevant to a vast majority of startups around the world today.

‘Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that,’ Norman Vincent Peale.

The role of investment banking firms, venture law firms, commercial banks, public financial markets and securities firms is limited in the startup process. In Fool’s Gold, The Truth Behind Angel Investing in America (Oxford University Press, 2008), Scott Shane estimates that approximately 600 (pre-revenue) tech startups were funded in the US by VCs in 2004 while about 35.5% of all Angel-backed startups were pre-revenue. This works out to approximately 16,000 startups funded by Angels each year during this period (J Basil Peters, http://www.angelblog.net/Angels_Finance_27_Times_More_Start-ups_Than_VCs.html).

The US Census Bureau’s BDS data base suggests that an average of 198,000 tech startups (defined as those with 100 employees or less) were created per year in the five year period leading up to 2010 in the United States. Taken together, these figures imply that 91.6% of all startups during this time were self-funded or bootstrapped, 8.1% were Angel-backed and just 0.3% were VC-funded.

Self-Capitalization

If an entrepreneur is someone who efficiently use scarce resources, most of which are not their own, to disrupt the status quo, where does s/he get those resources from? Often they receive funding from future customers/clients and suppliers. Sources such as commercial banks and government support programs play a lesser role than they once did. Commercial banks in Canada and most of the world tend to lend money to people who already have significant collateral while governments may take too long to make decisions and provide support.

Supplier Credit

In 2009, trade credit (or supplier credit) surpassed bank lending as a source of finance for business in the US. TC amounted to $2.15 trillion that year versus $1.5 trillion in bank lending (which was down more than 6.5%, year over year) according to data from the US Federal Reserve.

For startups, trade credit or supplier credit is a key source of funding. For tech startups, supplier inputs may include—software and hardware (both off the shelf and custom), consulting services, office space, fabricators, designers and developers (GUI, packaging, website, mobile app), product managers, HR, law firms (corporate/commercial and IP advisors) and accountants as well as IT and telecommunications infrastructure.

Some of these inputs may be contributed by suppliers on credit. Why would they do that?

• First of all, they do it because they trust the business they are providing credit to, to eventually pay them.
• Secondly, they want to expand the market and their market share—one of their key weapons for doing this is to provide credit to firms that buy from them.
• Thirdly, this tends to lock clients into their business ecosystem—once a client has been approved for trade credit, they tend to buy from the same source over and over again using their approved credit facility on a revolving basis. They also tend to be less price sensitive than retail buyers since they are using credit instead of their own cash and they often have the ability to pass on higher costs to their clients.
• Fourthly, once they establish good credit, they may apply for a higher credit limit to expand their business further.
• Fifthly, suppliers expect to be paid not by their clients but by their clients’ clients. So a supplier is actually funding (indirectly) credit worthiness of their client’s clients.
• Sixthly, suppliers want their clients to survive for a long period. They will often go out of their way to help out a loyal client who gets into financial difficulties by giving them improved terms for their financing, forgiving portions of their debt or trading debt for equity. Commercial banks may call their loans if they learn a new business is experiencing cashflow issues. Suppliers tend to remain supportive (to a point).

Customer Financing—Case Study

Tech companies can also source startup capital from their clients.

Game Tech, GT*, is an advergaming startup about five years old. They are a top notch Ontario-based advergaming firm. They have—i. significant growth in their order book, ii. a client list that includes Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 companies and iii. excellent technology and creative resources within their business ecosystem. With each new order, they need to build a bigger ‘pipeline’ to deliver their products—i.e., hire more highly paid tech developers on contract.

(* Company name and some of the data have been changed for this article.)

GT asks for and receives ten percent of order price upon execution of each new sales contract. They do not ask for nor receive any progress payments even when they hit important project milestones. They wait until their complex projects, many of which are multi-year, are completed plus 30 days to receive the balance of the order price.

As a result, they require substantial amounts of capital from their Bank to fund their growth. At one point, they exceed their approved $700,000 line of credit by $11,000 and, as a result, their Bank calls their loan. Within ten days, they will not be able to meet payroll.

However, in crisis, there is opportunity. Businesses experiencing financial difficulties can turn to four other sources for assistance—their Board, their shareholders, their suppliers and their clients. In GT’s case, their Board and shareholders are one and the same—they are all entrepreneurs with some personal resources but at this stage of their careers and development, they are fully committed. Consequently, GT is forced to adopt a different, bi-directional strategy—they ask their clients for advances on signed contracts and they change their business model.

Their clients (all but one of them) come to their assistance and save the firm. They do this because superb advergaming technology companies are difficult to replace especially mid-contract.

Next, GT changes their model which now calls for 1/3 deposit/retainer upfront with each new contract signed and then progress payments that always put the firm ahead in terms of their cashflow. Only 10% is due upon final delivery plus 30 days. Their Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC) changes from +274 days to -61 days and the firm goes on to open offices in New York, Toronto and LA. Total employment now exceeds 170.

CCC is an important tool for entrepreneurs to use—if it is 0 or negative, then entrepreneurs can grow their businesses without need of outside funding. Let’s examine GT’s current cashflow position using a simplified model.

Assume they do only one transaction in their financial year in the amount of $3,000,000, their cost of goods sold is $2,000,000, they pay 1/3 up front to their contract developers (i.e., $666,700) and they receive a deposit of 50% from their client or $1,500,000.

Their Cash Conversion Cycle is calculated as follows:

CCC = ART + INVT – APT,

Where:

ART is Accounts Receivable at Year End,
INVT is Inventory at Year End,
APT is Accounts Payable at Year End.

We can determine Game Tech’s CCC thusly—

Accounts Receivable at Year End (AR) $1,500,000
Days Per Year 365.25 Days
AR x Days Per year $540,787,500 Dollar-Days/Annum
Annual Sales $3,000,000 Dollars/Annum
AR x Days Per year/Annual Sales 182.625 Days ART

Inventory at Year End (INV) $0
Days Per Year 365.25 Days
INV x Days Per Year $0.00 Dollar-Days/Annum
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) $2,000,000 Dollars/Annum
INV x Days Per Year/Annual Sales 0 Days INVT

Accounts Payable at Year End (AP) $ 1,333,300
Days Per Year 365.25 Days
AP x Days Per year $480,700,000 Dollar-Days/Annum
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) $2,000,000 Dollars/Annum
AP x Days Per year/Annual Sales 243.5 Days APT

CCC -60.875 Days

Notes: Payables Down 0.333333333 0.666667 In 30 days One Sales Transaction

Game Tech’s Cash Conversion Cycle is now a healthy -61 days which means that the faster GT grows, the more cash they have on hand.

This is a non-trivial advantage for them. If they had tried to continue to rely on their Bank to fund their AR and inventory then they are vulnerable to changes in Bank policy because of, say, appointment of a new Account Manager or an overall downturn in the economy. GT is relying instead on its customers and suppliers to provide them with financing, a more stable form of capitalization.

What if GT, instead of asking for half down from clients with each order, only receive payment when each order is delivered? What happens to their CCC? It becomes a significantly worse +122 days. So even though they are still only providing suppliers with 1/3 down, waiting this long to be paid by customers means that they will have to find outside financing for each new order they take.

Of course, if they don’t pay anything to suppliers until they get paid, their CCC will be exactly 0 which is an improvement on +122. However, clients are not then a source of capital for their growing firm. Small changes in company policies produce big changes in CCC.

One of the keys to self-capitalization is to reduce the need for startup capital in the first place. This can be done by looking for financing in the deal flow itself. If capital is available from clients and from suppliers, new enterprises should try to source as much as they can (within reason) from both. It is often low cost or no-cost capital.

Strategic Investors

One of the most overlooked sources of self-capitalization for new enterprises is the strategic investor. What is a strategic investor? Someone who has a strategic interest in your success.

How do you find them? Look through your value chain.

Why go to strategic partners? They will generally make investment decisions faster than Angels, VCs, banks or governments and they will have more capital and better connections throughout your industry than raising money from friends and family.

What will they ask for in return? Often much less than anyone else—perhaps they will be satisfied with, say, an exclusive period during which they can feature/market/use your products or services thereby keeping your products or services away from their competition and further differentiating themselves in the marketplace. The funding they provide may also come with fewer strings attached.

When Apple launches a new product like the iPhone, iPad or iPad mini, what is it worth to a third party app developer, say, to be included on their home screens? Organizations pay significant rights fees simply to be featured in product launches like these. What’s good for Apple is good for your next startup as well.

Equity Investors

Why do equity investors fund startups? It’s to improve their returns.

How do you convince anyone to invest in your startup without giving up too much equity? One thing entrepreneurs often underestimate is the value of their sweat equity. They focus all their time and brainpower on making a new enterprise successful. Investors are passive; alternative investments such as GICs provide minuscule returns—typically 1.7% p.a. or less. Entrepreneurs are expected to generate returns greatly in excess of this and, consequently, they have leverage which they can use to strengthen their negotiating position with either financial investors or silent partners.

Value can be attributed to sweat equity in a number of ways—it can be calculated as a product of number of hours worked times an hourly wage or the difference between the cost of starting a new enterprise and its fair market value. Entrepreneurs can use a financial model that provides an acceptable return to outside investors and assume that the balance of value created is (or should be) theirs.

An equity price is determined as most prices are—by what a willing, knowledgeable buyer and seller agree to in a marketplace where no undue pressure exists either to buy or to sell. The only rule that entrepreneurs need know in this regard is that there are no rules.

Raising Capital by ‘Issuing’ Script

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. In addition to logging and operating a local mill, they also ran a company store and developed other sources of income including catering to boarders as well as selling merchandise to loggers in logging camps (Reynoldston, New York History of a Mill Town).

When they needed to raise money, they issued script such as a $5 promissory note to pay their bills and to fund new ventures or additions to existing ones. The script says it is, ‘Due to the Bearer… In Trade At…’ What this means is that the bearer of the script cannot redeem it for cash, i.e., a sovereign banknote of the nation (the United States of America). The fact that it is redeemable only ‘In Trade’ is key.

Reynolds had a margin on each trade so a $5 note with a GPM (Gross Profit Margin of say 40%) only costs them $5/(1 + .4) or $3.57. It’s a good deal for Reynolds but is it a good deal for a supplier, equipment maker or labourer who accepts script instead of banknotes?

The answer is, it depends. If you can’t get any other work, $5 in credit at a Reynolds Company Store, $5 in cigarettes or candy from a Reynolds vendor (which could then be traded for other resources) or $5 in Reynolds products (milled lumber) might be better than watching your family starve circa 1876 even if you know that it’s only really worth $3.57.

Tech startups can learn from this. They can issue script to employees, contractors, suppliers and clients redeemable in the form of company products or services.

Accretive Buying

If you think that bootstrap capital is something only startups use, think again. Large firms including the Disney Company use Bootstrap Capital,

They did this when then CEO Mike Eisner acquired the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim expansion franchise from the National Hockey League in 1993/94. The franchise fee of $50 million was paid as follows—$25 million to the League and $25 million to the LA Kings (then owned by Bruce McNall). But the Kings were paid $5 million per year for five years, a form of Seller Take Back (STB) financing (or Vendor financing), a prime source of capital for startups.

In addition, Disney got a $20 million leasing inducement from Ogden Corp. (then owner of the Pond, now called the Honda Center where the Ducks play) to sign a longterm building lease. Next, Disney put in place a $30 million line of credit secured by their newest asset (i.e., the franchise itself). Hence, Disney acquired the team for a negative $20 million in cash.

This demonstrates that Bootstrap Capital is often ‘free’ capital. The $20 million dollar leasing inducement that Disney received from Ogden did not require any interest payments and, in fact, there were no principal repayments either. Vendor financing Disney got from the Kings was also, in effect, an interest-free loan for five years.

Free or ultra low cost capital can radically change your IRR (Internal Rate of Return) on a project and your ROE (Return on Equity) too. The two most important influencers on a project’s rate of return are—upfront costs and the passage of time. If you can reduce or even turn your upfront costs negative, impacts are substantial.

This can really help an intrapreneur inside an established organization stand out from her/his peers. Say you work at Cisco and you are an intrapreneur who knows how to use these types of self-funding techniques. Suppose you go to your supervisor and say, ‘I have a project that will take two years of R&D at a cost of $10 million but I have three launch clients each willing to pickup $2.5 million of that cost and take the first six months of production.’ It is likely that your idea will get an enthusiastic hearing. More enthusiastic than a colleague who has a competing project that takes the same amount of time to develop and costs as much to bring to market but they haven’t lined up any launch clients or received any hard commitments not only to buy the product once it’s ready for market but to contribute some (bootstrap and free) capital to help develop it as well.

Accretive Selling

Whatever you are selling, you will almost always sell more of it if you provide financing for your clients and customers. If you are selling $10 per month software seat licenses, you are probably going to sell more than if you sell one-time $1,000 software installs instead. Most tech entrepreneurs are familiar with those ‘Don’t-Pay-A-Cent-Events’ (OAC) that furniture and appliance stores promote but may not be aware that, before clients have even left the building, their sales contracts have. As a result, those retailers have more cash on hand after selling you a new home theater system than before because they sell these contracts to third party financiers for cash.

Tech firms can also turn each monthly service contract or seat license into cash if they pledge them in much the same way.

Alternatively, they can provide financing to clients who buy expensive installations—whether the contract price is $1,000 or $100,000, they can often find third party funders so that their clients pay a monthly fee instead of a one time upfront amount.

Crowd Funding

Bootstrapping is becoming more common for projects that are wholly original or appear to be. Craft businesses are being funded in increasing amounts on sites such as Kickstarter.com or Indiegogo.com. Without giving up any equity, entrepreneurs and artpreneurs acquire significant amounts of ‘free’ capital by pledging unusual experiences including first-in-line-to-buy, customized/personalized products or services, signed copies, dinner with the Founders, personal thank yous, lower prices for products, event tickets, special memberships, invitations to a house party, off-beat t-shirts and so forth.

It seems only a matter of time before crowd funding merges with/begins to compete with the equity finance industry but only after regulatory hurdles make this legal. Crowd funding sites are only permitted to operate on a reward or donation basis but President Obama’s JOBS Act of April 2012 may make it possible to trade equity for investment on these sites (Inside The JOBS Act: Equity Crowdfunding, Forbes, June 2012) after the SEC provides a set of rules for this expected to occur sometime in 2013.

The Last Word

We keep adding to our list of sources of Bootstrap Capital. We hope that it will continue to be helpful to entrepreneurs (and intrapreneurs) as they build new services, products and enterprises of all types. Self capitalization techniques are useful not only to for-profits businesses but also non-profits, charities and NGOs. No list can be complete and ours certainly is not. To view the entire list of self capitalization techniques, please visit, http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=1171. Here are some of the primary sources of bootstrap capital for tech startups—

1. Soft capital—money from family and friends
2. Home equity loans—ultra low cost debt secured by the value of your primary residence
3. Future customers—acquiring cash from launch clients in advance, securing deposits/retainers/progress payments from customers earlier in the deal flow
4. Future suppliers—getting credit from trade contractors, paying later in the deal flow
5. Strategic partners—organizations providing various forms of support (cash, credit, office space, tools, personnel) because they stand to benefit from your offering
6. Micro capital lending—programs that quickly provide small amounts of capital with few strings
7. Government support programs—such as the SBL (Small Business Loan) program in Canada that only requires founders to personally guarantee a small percentage of the loan or SR&ED Tax Credits and NRC-IRAP grants
8. Rights fees—upfront payments to be included in a product launch
9. Product placement—fees paid to be featured in a product launch
10. Licensing fees—royalty payments on patents and other IP
11. Consulting services—moonlighting to support a startup
12. Partners—providing cash and valuable skills
13. Investors—seeking higher returns
14. Financial leasing—pledging fixed assets
15. Factoring—trading receivables for cash
16. ESOPs—Employee Stock Ownership Plans
17. Advertising—securing sponsors who want to be associated with your new product or service
18. Trading—buying low and selling high/asset flipping
19. Credit cards—multiple providers
20. Accretive buying—having more cash on hand after buying a company than before
21. Accretive selling—providing customers with 3rd party financing
22. Script—coupons redeemable in trade by suppliers, customers, employees
23. Crowd funding—non monetary compensation for supporters who supply cash
24. Seller Take Back financing—low cost financing provided by Vendors
25. Sweat equity—supplied by founders.

Conclusion

Financings have been done for a long time using two basic types of capital—equity and debt. However, if we ask the question, ‘What is cheaper—debt or equity?’ with a follow up question, ‘What is cheaper than debt and equity?’ we may conclude that self capital is a new form of funding. Debt is usually cheaper than equity and bootstrap capital is usually cheaper than both because, essentially, it’s free.

Supplier credit is often extended to startups without cost (that is, without interest or other fees usually associated with financings) because, if the startup is successful, a supplier has helped to create a new client for itself, often a very loyal new client.

Clients can also be induced to extend credit to a new enterprise (in the form of deposits/retainers/progress payments) without cost because, again, if the startup is successful, the client has helped to create a new supplier for itself, often a very loyal new supplier.

Self-capitalization methods are tremendously varied. It subsumes sweat equity which is, of course, a form of human capital—capital contributed by startup founders in the form of free or low cost labour.

Financial capital can be broken down in business models and plans into three categories—debt, equity and self capital. Other forms of capital include social capital, intellectual capital, cultural capital and environmental capital, all of which are beyond the scope of this article.

The Internal Rate of Return on a project as a whole is made up of a type of weighted average of the returns on equity, debt and self capital. If the cost of bootstrap capital is small or zero (ignoring opportunity costs), it improves overall returns on equity which explains why many entrepreneurs see IRRs on their own investments much higher than passive investors. It also explains why issuing equity to employees, partners or other stakeholders as a form of payment can be expensive. If a new enterprise is successful, this is likely the most expensive way to source funding. Entrepreneurs must exercise caution in this area if they are to retain longterm control over their new enterprises—additional debt or bootstrap capital is an antidote to losing control to partners, employees, VCs or Angels with one proviso—the enterprise must be successful.

Internet tools are abundant and many are available for free or practically no cost. These let you bootstrap a website, online store, blog, social media presence, do basic accounting, make and receive payments, process credit cards, backup your data, share data and transfer data for no money or very little money. It is much easier to start a business in the 21st Century than at any other time in recorded history.

Bibliography

Accounts Receivable Factoring Guide, Curt Matsen, CPA, 2012.
Entrepreneurial Finance, J. Chris Leach, Ronald W. Melicher, South-Western College Pub, 2011.
Entrepreneurial Finance: A Casebook, Paul A. Gompers, William Sahlman, John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
Entrepreneurial Finance: Finance and Business Strategies for the Serious Entrepreneur, Edition 2, Steven Rogers, Roza Makonnen, McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009.
Equity Valuation for Analysts and Investors, James Kelleher, McGraw-Hill, 2010.
How to Get the Financing For Your New Small Business: Innovative Solutions From the Experts Who Do It Every Day, Sharon Fullen, Atlantic Publishing Group Inc, 2006.
Optimizing Company Cash: A Guide for Financial Professionals, Michele Allman-Ward, American Institute of Certified Public Accounting,2007.
Strategic Trade Credit, Salima Yassia Paul, 2010.
The Kickstarter Handbook: Real-Life Success Stories of Artists, Inventors, and Entrepreneurs, Don Steinberg, Quirk Books, Original edition, 2012.
The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Eric Ries, Crown Business, 2011.

Author Biography

Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (Civil), M Eng-Sci, PhD

Bruce M Firestone is best known as a professor, entrepreneur and founder of NHL hockey team, the Ottawa Senators and their home Scotiabank Place as well as Author of Quantum Entity Trilogy, Entrepreneurs Handbook II and Urban Nirvana (2014/15).

Firestone is Executive Director of Exploriem.org, a Canadian registered Not-For-Profit corporation focused on educating and mentoring entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and artpreneurs in Canada and around the world. He is also coaching, mentoring and teaching via Learn By Doing School, an organization dedicated to providing student entrepreneurs with access to research, education and a network of high achievers not available elsewhere.

Firestone has launched or helped launch more than 172 startups in fields including tech, real estate, design, art and services. He advises clients on business modeling, self-financing, smart marketing, social media, differentiated value, strategic selling and business development, market channel development, harnessing the Internet, urban design, real estate development, design economics, product management, sponsorship and development economics as well as issues related to entrepreneurial organizations including not-for-profits and charities.

In May of 2006, Dr Firestone joined the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management at as its first Entrepreneur-in-Residence. He has previously taught or studied at McGill University (Bachelor of Civil Engineering), Laval University, Harvard University, University of Western Ontario, University of New South Wales (Master of Engineering-Science, Traffic and Transportation), Australian National University (PhD in Urban Economics) and Carleton University. Firestone is now Entrepreneurship Ambassador for the Telfer School.

Dr Firestone has been an operations research engineer, real estate developer, hockey executive, professor of architecture, engineering, business and entrepreneurship, real estate broker (with Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc), writer, researcher, columnist and novelist. He is a peerless husband and father of five great kids and one fine grandson.
You can follow him on Twitter @ProfBruce and @Quantum_Entity and read his blogs at www.eqjournal.org and www.dramatispersonae.org. You can find his works at www.brucemfirestone.com and www.learnbydoing.ca. You can engage with him on Facebook via http://www.facebook.com/QuantumEntityTrilogy and http://www.facebook.com/Exploriem as well as via LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/profbruce. His real estate interests are at www.OttawaRealEstateNews.com and www.thelandstore.org. YouTube channels include http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfBruce and http://www.youtube.com/user/quantumentitytrilogy. You can also send the first four chapters of Quantum Entity Trilogy to your friends for free from: http://www.exploriem.org/quantum-entity-subscribe/

His current motto is, ‘Making Each Day Count‘.

OTTAWA (January 3, 2013) – Exploriem announces today, a new membership program for startup entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and artpreneurs for the Greater Ottawa Area. For a small annual fee, entrepreneurs gain access to essential resources and services. Exploriem will be offering different levels of membership that have a different set of benefits.
Starting at $95.00+HST/year, a startup company will have access to Exploriem’s meeting room, equipped with a Samsung SmartTV and also our large boardroom, equipped with a SMARTboard and lounge area. This gives the startups a professional location with the essential tools to host important meetings.

The program also offers startup companies free and discounted tickets to Exploriem events throughout the year. Members will receive two (2) free tickets to our summer event, EVENT-AID. Members will also receive discounts on tickets to both the Bootstrap Awards and Adawe Trade-Show as well as TechLinks. Members also receive a preferred rate when purchasing exhibitor space at the Adawe Trade-Show and EVENT-AID.

Having a mentor is extremely important when you are starting a new enterprise and so we have added a mentoring aspect to the membership. Startups receive all the above benefits of membership plus they are strategically assigned a mentor for just $195.00 per year.

“A 2011 Silicon Valley study showed that startups that set goals and track their metrics are growing 7x faster than those who don’t. Mentors that help startups set the right goals and then hold them accountable, play a crucial role in their successful development. That is why Exploriem.org has recruited some of the best mentors anywhere to help member startups get on the right track,” Bruce M Firestone, Executive Director, Exploriem.org; Founder, Ottawa Senators; Author, Quantum Entity Trilogy, Entrepreneurs Handbook II; Entrepreneurship Ambassador, Telfer School of Management; Real Estate Broker, Century 21 Explorer Realty, Ottawa, Canada, Janaury 2013 (Startup Genome Report 01, Max Marmer, Bjoern Lasse Herrmann, Ron Berman, May 2011).

Other features include: an Exploriem Member badge for your corporate, personal websites and mobile apps, VIP invitations to Thirsty Thursday Networking events, Corporate Profile in Member Directory, opportunity to submit content and news updates for the Exploriem Newsletter and access to our Partner Services Discounts. More benefits will be added in the future.

Notes to Editors

About Exploriem
Exploriem is a registered Canadian not-for-profit organization. It provides mentorship, conducts events, creates networking opportunities and provides advice, early stage funding, market channel management and office incubator space to assist young entrepreneurs in Eastern Ontario and West Quebec.

Today, Exploriem is led by its Executive Director, Professor Bruce M. Firestone who is best known as the Founder of the Ottawa Senators. He is also Entrepreneurship Ambassador at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Author of Quantum Entity Trilogy and Real Estate Broker with Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc. Assistant Director, Ms. Erika Godwin runs the programming for Exploriem and manages the new business incubator as well. Erika holds a B.Sc Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing and Management from Upstate New York private university, Elmira College.

A list of Exploriem.org mentors is available at, http://www.exploriem.org/entrepreneurial-services/mentoring.

Program Options

Membership $95.00+HST/year
• Use of Exploriem Meeting Rooms and Lounge
• Main Boardroom – 2 hours per year (valued at $150.00+HST)
• Small Boardroom – 3 hours per year (valued at $90.00+HST)
• Use of Exploriem Member Logo on corporate and personal website(s).
• Two free ticket to Exploriem’s EVENT-AID (Valued at $40.00+HST)
• Member Ticket prices to Bootstrap Awards and TechLinks Events. (Bootstrap Awards value: $80.00 for $50.00 – TechLinks value $35.00 for $20.00)
• Corporate Name, Logo and up to 100 word write-up in on-line directory
• Invitation as VIP to monthly Thirsty Thursday’s Networking Event
• Access to Partner Service Discounts
Total Value: $325.00+HST

Membership with Mentorship $195.00+HST/year
• Assigned a mentor – under the Exploriem mentor-mentee agreement. (value:priceless)
• Use of Exploriem Meeting Rooms and Lounge
• Main Boardroom – 2 hours per year (valued at $150.00+HST)
• Small Boardroom – 3 hours per year (valued at $90.00+HST)
• Use of Exploriem Member Logo on corporate and personal website(s).
• Two free ticket to Exploriem’s EVENT-AID (Valued at $40.00+HST)
• Member Ticket prices to Bootstrap Awards and TechLinks Events. (Bootstrap Awards value: $80.00 for $50.00 – TechLinks value $35.00 for $20.00)
• Corporate Name, Logo and up to 100 word write-up in on-line directory
• Invitation as VIP to monthly Thirsty Thursday’s Networking Event
• Access to Partner Service Discounts
Total Value: PRICELESS

Corporate Membership $295.00+HST/year
• Use of Exploriem Meeting Rooms and Lounge
• Main Boardroom | 3 hours per year per organization (valued at $225.00+HST)
• Small Boardroom | 5 hours per year per organization (valued at $150.00+HST)
• Use of Exploriem Member Logo on corporate and personal website(s).
• Four (4) free ticket to Exploriem’s EVENT-AID (Valued at $80.00+HST)
• Member Ticket prices to Bootstrap Awards and TechLinks Events for up to four (4) individuals in the organization. (Bootstrap Awards value: $320.00 for $200.00 – TechLinks value $140.00 for $80.00)
• Corporate Name, Logo and up to 100 word write-up in on-line directory
• Invitation as VIP to monthly Thirsty Thursday’s Networking Event
Total Value: $635.00+HST

For more information contact:
Erika Godwin, Assistant Director +1.613.566.3436 x 214
@Exploriem
egodwin @ exploriem.org

After talking to and working with hundreds of business owners – each with their own success stories and challenges – this compilation highlights the top 10 strategic lessons we’ve learned and passed on time and time again.

1. Simple is good

The more complex a solution, service offering, model etc is, the more expensive it will be to implement, the harder to sell, the more difficult to manage and so on – Think Google Search page.

2. It is equally important to know what you should STOP doing as it is to know what you should be doing

No one has an extra 8 or 10 hours a week to implement a new strategic direction. Something has to go.

3. The role of a business coach is not just someone telling you what to do

S/he has to give you a reality check, hold you accountable, someone to bounce your own good ideas off etc, and to give you some deep insight and other perspective when you need it.

4. Think global now

Design your business with the whole world’s customers and competitors in mind.

5. It is easy to jump straight to tactics to try to build a business

But if you do, your organization will always be reactive to the market. Take the time to plan out your strategy and you will be better prepared for the year to come. It could also make you the market leader.

6. An 80/20 analysis on your customer base can be very enlightening

Particularly if you find that 80% of your revenue comes from just three customers.

7. You don’t need a large corporate budget to market your business

Focus your marketing activities on only the customers you want to reach and utilize all the free tools that are out there.

8. Keep your brand top of mind in everything you do

Your brand is the perception the market has about your organization. It is impacted by everything from the actual product or service to how the phone is answered. Set some rigor and guidelines around your brand image to ensure a consistent and positive outlook.

9. Streamline your business with process

Draw out all the steps from lead to happy client and highlight areas that are repeatable. This is where you can put processes into place to shorten up your sales cycle without losing quality. The areas that are not consistently repeatable are areas of practice where individuals can add their own value and expertise. Having the right people in the right positions for their expertise will maximize the value added to your organization.

10. The best way to win is to change the game

Disruption is not just about technology – it’s even better when you change the way a market does business – it’s a lot more fun and so hard to compete against!

Kingsford Consulting
@KingsfordConsul
1.877.888.0598

For the first time since 1917, there is new legislation governing federal not-for-profit corporations, including those that are registered charities. The much anticipated Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (“NFP Act”) finally came into force on October 17, 2011 after receiving Royal Assent on June 23, 2009. To mark the occasion, here are the top ten things you should know about creating and maintaining a not-for-profit corporation under the new federal law.

1. Incorporation as of right

Non-share capital corporations will no longer be created by Letters Patent, which involved the Crown granting corporations the power to operate. Under the NFP Act, instead of drafting objects, applicants are required to complete a form, known as Articles of Incorporation, which includes an area to describe the main purpose of the corporation. As long as applications are complete and include the prescribed fee of $250, Corporations Canada will issue a Certificate of Incorporation in approximately five business days.

2. Three years to obtain Articles of Continuance

The new rules do not automatically apply to existing federal not-for-profit corporations. Corporations incorporated under Part II of the Canada Corporations Act (“CCA”) have until October 17, 2014 to “continue” under the NFP Act. Applying for Articles of Continuance entails submitting Form 4031 – Articles of Continuance and Form 4002 – Initial Registered Office Address and First Board of Directors. While it is no longer possible to incorporate under the CCA, the old legislation will apply to existing non-share corporations until Articles of Continuance are issued. Therefore, a corporation that has not yet made the transition to the NFP Act can still apply for Supplementary Letters Patent and seek Ministerial approval for by-law amendments.

3. Members have rights and responsibilities

Because the new federal legislation is modeled after modern corporate laws, members have rights that resemble those of shareholders. For example, unless varied by the by-laws, members are entitled to receive a copy of the corporation’s annual financial statements. In addition, the new federal law provides statutory remedies, including the derivative action and oppression remedy. A derivative action occurs when a member, with permission of the court, brings a lawsuit on behalf of the corporation. The oppression remedy permits a court to make an order to rectify an act or omission that is oppressive to the interests of a complainant (usually a member in the minority). While making these corporate law remedies available to members of not-for-profit corporations may have the positive effect of increasing accountability, it may also have the unforeseen consequence of exposing organizations to frivolous lawsuits and fracturing memberships.

4. There are two types of corporations soliciting and non-soliciting

Soliciting corporations are those that receive more than $10,000 in revenues in a financial year from public sources, including donations from non-members, government sources and other soliciting corporations. The five ways that soliciting corporations will be treated differently compared with non-soliciting corporations are as follows:

i. Soliciting corporations must have a minimum of three directors, two of whom are not officers or employees of the corporation;
ii. On dissolution, soliciting corporations must ensure that the assets of the corporation go to a “qualified donee” as defined by the Income Tax Act;
iii. Soliciting corporations may not have a unanimous member agreement;
iv. Soliciting corporations must conduct a review of their financial statements and these must in turn be reviewed by a public accountant; and
v. Soliciting corporations must send a copy of the corporation’s financial statements and public accountant’s report, if any, to Corporations Canada.
The determination whether a corporation is a soliciting corporation is based on an examination of the corporation’s sources of revenue as presented in the annual financial statements and so the status can change from one year to the next.

5. Non-soliciting corporations can have only 1 director

That being said, it would be prudent to allow for a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 3 directors considering soliciting corporations require a minimum of 3 directors. That way, if you happen to become a soliciting corporation in a given financial year, you will not need to amend your articles to allow for additional directors.

6. Even non-voting members get to vote where there are changes that affect their rights

The articles must set out the classes of membership and the rights which attach to each. If you have more than one class of members, keep in mind that even non-voting members get to vote where there are changes that affect their rights. This means that the corporation will not be able to alter the rights or conditions of any class of membership without the support of a two-thirds majority of that class. Under the new regime, the more classes of members there are, the more groups there will be who have an effective veto over fundamental changes.

7. The Act speaks where your by-laws are silent

By-laws set out the day-to-day rules for governing and operating a corporation. There are many default rules that apply if they are not overridden by provisions in the by-laws. So, if the corporation wants to exert control over its own internal processes it must have bylaws which speak to those issues.

8. Written resolutions in lieu of meetings are allowed

The directors and members of not-for-profit corporations will be able to pass resolutions in lieu of holding meetings (if they are signed by all the directors or members entitled to vote on the resolution at the meeting). This practice has not been acceptable since the late 1990s when Corporations Canada determined that written resolutions in lieu of meetings are not permitted under the CCA. Although there are inherent benefits to transacting business at meetings, the change will undoubtedly be welcome news to organizations for which the requirements to have the directors or members in the same place at one time is cumbersome.

9. Ex-officio directors are not allowed

The NFP Act stipulates that directors must be elected by the members – and only by the members. The implication is that federally incorporated not-for-profits can no longer have ex-officio directors. These are directors who sit on the board by virtue of their office or position in another organization. Not-for-profit corporations with ex-officio directors on their board will have to change their board governance structure and recognize these stakeholders in others ways.

10. For some corporations, an audit is optional

Under the CCA, the members were obligated to appoint an auditor to audit the annual financial statements of the corporation for report to the members. Under the NFP Act depending on the status of the corporation as either a soliciting or non-soliciting corporation and the gross revenue of the corporation, the members may have some latitude in deciding whether to simply have an audit engagement, a review engagement or a full audit engagement.

Joel Secter, formerly of Drache Aptowitzer LLP, provides legal counsel to charities and not-for-profit organizations across Canada. His articles have been published in periodicals such as The Canadian Taxpayer, Canadian Not-For-Profit News and Canadian Fundraising & Philanthropy. He can be reached at joel @ secterlaw.com.

I draw on work by Erik Kuhne of CivicArts.com, small villages in Crete and noted development economists like Hernando de Soto and Walt Rostow. Neo-urbanist planning principles also form part of proposed solutions– Jane Jacobs and more recently Richard Florida have done extensive work in this area.

When architects gave over (circa the immediate post WWII era) the design of cities, towns and villages to urban planners with their moronic monoculture zoning maps (big box stores here, office buildings there, ridiculously named ‘industrial parks’ here, single family homes there and, oh, we forgot to set aside some land for civic buildings like schools and our budgets are tight so let’s build schools on cheap crap land no one else wants like under high tension power lines so we can irradiate our kids when they are most vulnerable (i.e., experiencing the fastest cell division of their lives)), we started to produce the worst urban blight, maybe ever. Right. Heck of a plan. I blame the profession of architecture.

Architects actually know something about design, delight, light, space, negative space, art, beauty, utility, form and function. Urban planners have zoning codes that they think are the equivalent of the Ten (Million) Commandments. Cities are being planned by Vogon bureaucrats? Are you kidding me? No wonder almost everything built in the last 60 years is a piece of crap.

The County of Renfrew cannot revive its regional or local economies without reviving its urban fabric. The good news is that the county has some main streets (in Renfrew, Pembroke, Petawawa, Eganville and elsewhere) that have ‘good bones’.

They have strength in outdoor adventure (snowmobiling, skiing, whitewater rafting, kayaking, fishing, canoeing, motor boating, sailing, camping, RVing and resort stays) that they can build on and there are lots of inexpensive initiatives that take more guts than money to start and carry through to completion…

[If you would like to view the slides as a PDF, please click on the following link: http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/renfrew-reborn.pdf. To download a copy in PPT format, please click on: http://www.old.dramatispersonae.org/renfrew-reborn.ppt.]

@ProfBruce

Follow Prof Bruce on Twitter @ProfBruce and @Quantum_Entity and read his blogs at www.EQJournal.org and www.dramatispersonae.org.

You can find his novels at www.brucemfirestone.com.

You can engage with him on Facebook via http://www.facebook.com/QuantumEntityTrilogy and http://www.facebook.com/Exploriem as well as via LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/profbruce.

His real estate interests are summarized at www.ottawarealestatenews.com and www.thelandstore.org.

YouTube channels include http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfBruce and http://www.youtube.com/user/quantumentitytrilogy.

You can also send the first four chapters of Quantum Entity Trilogy to your friends for free from: http://www.exploriem.org/quantum-entity-subscribe/

Prof Bruce’s current motto is: “Making Each Day Count”

“Dr.?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry to disturb you but there’s a young woman here to see you.”
“Does she have an appointment?”
“Umm, no.”
“Is she a student?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well tell her to make an appointment and have security check her out,” the physicist says to his EA. His EA is a young man, Alex, 21, who is going places, he thinks.

Their lab at the Department has grown fantastically using the resources of the Commonwealth. It’s grown not only in terms of personnel (from 2 to more than 700) but spills over into a network of trailers that are parked everywhere. Farrar wants them to work at Livermore (Lawrence Livermore National Lab near SFA, San Francisco Aerodrome) but they decline, politely but firmly.

The General says security and confidentiality will work better there but the scientists don’t care SFA (sweet fuckall) about the General’s concerns. Still they agree to a joint CSIS (plainclothes group of agents) and Commonwealth Military presence here. The Cartesian Powers are no joke and they understand this. They detest 24/7 security but put up with it.

The physicist is still living in the President of UBC’s basement but now they have a full time RCMP hut at the gate (one of those horrible nanosite extruded/grown brownish nest-looking structures) pretending to provide security for Dr. Woo. But it’s the physicist they’re actually looking out for. When he’s over at Euph’s place, they sit in a couple of squad cars that look ridiculously out of place on Granville Island. Euphony brings them coffee and hot chocolate.

She’s offered them some of her illegal Wrecked Brew too which they regretfully decline. He reminds her that the ‘P’ in RCMP stands for police but she just shrugs. “I’ll cast an evil spell on them if they try anything.” The RCMPs (all men) have no interest in busting a small time bootlegger especially one who looks as yummy as Euphony does. As his economic prospects have recently improved so have hers so she can afford nicer things now—she’s been shopping at Bolts in downtown Vancity and it shows. What she likes especially is the effect it has on him—it’s really, really good.

…

“Dr., my name is Arcadia Valenzuela.”
“Hello, Ms. Valenzuela.”

She’s been waiting in their ante room for two days. She refuses to leave the premises while security checks her out. They think she can’t afford a hotel or something—she’s a waitress from Texas after all. They’ve scanned her and made sure she has no weapons or viruses or other surprises for them but she won’t tell them what it’s about. She seems very determined. Maybe she’s some kind of groupie who likes physicists but she doesn’t look like that. She’s attractive enough but not showy in the way you would expect a groupie to dress or act. She sure is set on seeing the Dr. though.

The only thing she has with her is an old Thermalite Quadcore SYS505HS Tower which must be a bitch to lug around. She lets them boot it up but it has zero/zip on it. She has a data cube too (just under a centimetre per side) which they find of course but she won’t let them touch it. It’s for the Dr., she tells them. This makes them uncomfortable and leads to a standoff until Alex tells the physicist that he has a hunch that she is legit.

Alex has gotten to know her a bit in the 48 hours she’s been sitting two metres from his workstation.

…

“He said to tell you everything,” she continues, “but is it OK if I boot up my PC?”
“Please.”
She inserts her data cube and a video of Jag Durai and G4nesha starts playing.
“Freeze frame,” the physicist says right away to her computer but the video dumbly keeps playing. He realizes instantly the thing is an antique so he reaches for the screen but it doesn’t respond to touch either.
“Here,” she says showing him how to move a mouse awkwardly on a teensy touchpad on a keyboard that just as awkwardly folds out from the base of the tower. He freezes the video and then enlarges it. He can plainly see that G4nesha has the same freckled complexion as Ash3r does. What the fuck?
“Do you know why this Quantum Entity looks the way she does?”
“Yeah. I think it’s because Nesha and Jag are bonded and linked. She’s evolved or something.”
“Nesha?”
“G4nesha, she’s Jag’s QE—they can read each other’s minds—they’re, they’re linked.”
“Ah, Miss Valenzuela, do you mind telling me where, umm, Jag and G4nesha are?”
“Sure. They’re in a prison camp in Shenyang, that’s near the—”
“I know where it is,” the physicist interrupts.
“They were taken there by a guy named Yao Allitt when I was 15 and—”
“Can you hold up a minute, Ms. Valenzuela please?” the physicist says. Then via intercom he says, “Alex, can you ask Dr. Wong to join us immediately? And please cancel my appointments for the next two hours.”

…

They get the story out of her in about 90 minutes—the quantum scanning that Mr. Durai has perfected, the link that can be formed between human and quantum counterpart that has been hinted at in their equations but never (scientifically) demonstrated let alone verified, the evolutionary step that QEs take after mindlink is established, their subsequent release from the three laws, the quantum tunnel that Mr. Durai initially uses to drop his data cube on Arcadia’s floor, even their visits using hacked Sinofighter consoles are disclosed. But still he feels he is missing something, something important.

“Ms. Valenzuela, is there anything more about these visits that you can tell me?” he asks.
“Not really.” But she doesn’t make eye contact with him when she says this so he goes over to where she is sitting. She is hunched over in her chair, shoulders rounded, like she’s been beaten down, maybe by life. He kneels down so his eyes are on the same level as hers, he takes both of her hands in his and says, “Arcadia, I don’t mean to pry. Neither Dr. Wong nor I will ever tell a soul what you have said here unless you give us permission. But we have to know everything, everything. We can’t help you otherwise. Are you sure there isn’t anything else?”
“Well maybe one more thing.”
“Uh, huh?”
“Well, you see, like, those consoles, Jag used them, I mean we used them to be with each other, I mean like intimate sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Well, ah, really all the way.”
“I assume they worked?”
“Yeah. Really, really well.”
“Is there something else?”
“Yeah, we are going to try like maybe next week to have a baby.”
“A baby?”
“Yeah, it was my idea. You see,” she says in a rush to get it over with, “I thought he could use that little quantum tunnel of his to send something else through.”
“Would that be sperm, Ms. Valenzuela?” Dr. Wong asks as clinically as possible to save the young woman any further embarrassment.
“Yeah. But Jag wasn’t sure he could transport something live so we were going to try something else first.”
The physicist reaches down to pick up Popeye who is back for some more attention. Cady just looks at the enormous cat.
He says, “Well we won’t be sending you through, Pops. You’re way too big. Maybe we should try a lab rat first.” As soon as he gets this out of his mouth another thought occurs to him. He looks at Chuck who immediately sees it too.
“Ms. Valenzuela, is there anything else? I think I might have something that can help you and Jag but I want to make sure I have all the facts.”
“That’s pretty much it except Jag said, well he isn’t too sure, but he thinks maybe Imperial China is working on some kind of super weapon based on his work, some new way to attack the Commonwealth.”
“No surprise there. OK, Arcadia, how big is Jag?”
“About 6’3”.”
“No, how wide is he—how broad in the shoulders?” the physicist asks.
She holds out her hands indicating a big man about 55 centimetres.
“What are you thinking, Dr.?”
“I think Arcadia we can do better than bring a vial of sperm out of Shenyang. Let’s see if we can widen that quantum tunnel, stabilize it and test it. Afterwards, let’s go get Jag out of that shithole they have him in. Let’s bust him out, Ms. Valenzuela.”

When he says this, Cady jumps up like she is 15 again and gives him the biggest hug. Her face only comes up to his chest. “Oh, oh, oh, Dr. that would be the best thing evverr. Can you do it?”
“I don’t know for sure, Arcadia, but I think the answer is yes.” When he says this she bursts into tears. He puts his arm around her and strokes her hair. She’s had a rough go, no doubt about it.

…

@ProfBruce

Follow Prof Bruce on Twitter @ProfBruce and @Quantum_Entity and read his blogs at www.EQJournal.org and www.dramatispersonae.org.

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