Community Banks New Financing Option For Start up Companies

When Amy Loera was looking for a loan to expand her family’s Mexican-restaurant business earlier this year, she applied at nine different banks. They all turned her down.

Many of the banks accepted her initial application but simply didn’t take things any further, she says. Some raised concerns about the nationwide downturn in the restaurant industry in refusing her request. And some told her that if she had applied a year ago, she would have had no problem.

So Ms. Loera turned to a local lender, Arrowhead Credit Union in San Bernardino, Calif., after a business acquaintance told her the credit union had given loans to other businesses in the community. She was approved for a $643,000 loan this summer. read more

Venture Capital Financing Slows Amid Economic Downturn

Silicon Valley technology startups are adopting a new business plan: deferral.

MerchantCircle Inc., a Los Altos, Calif., Internet startup, typifies the trend. Last month, company founder Ben Smith was in New York talking to media companies about raising $50 million, with which he planned to make acquisitions to fuel MerchantCircle’s growth. But as the financial markets tumbled this month, Mr. Smith canceled two trips to New York and a roadshow to Europe to raise the capital. For now, the fundraising is on the backburner.

“When we started the year we were pushing really hard for growth,” says Mr. Smith, who in 2005 founded MerchantCircle, which provides online advertising services for small businesses. “That’s just not as important anymore. Now it’s all about cash flow.” read more

4 Steps to Assessing Your Product’s Profit Potential

I’VE TALKED TO a lot of people who have found a promising market by coming up with a product or service that would solve a problem. But they’re paralyzed about taking the next step. What if they put in the time and effort — and possibly money — and it flops?

There’s one process they’re missing. Validating your market after you’ve come up with a niche business idea is a crucial step you can’t afford to skip.

Of course, there’s no way to guarantee success, but ask yourself the four questions below. If you can check off every one, you’ll know — as much as possible — that you’re onto a winner. read more

Entrepreneurs Feel Squeeze as Venture Capital Gets Scarce

Venture capitalists are reining in spending amid the financial downturn, a shift that has implications for entrepreneurial activity.

According to two sets of data pegged for release Saturday, venture capitalists did fewer new financing of companies and spent less money in the third quarter than they did a year earlier. Venture capitalists typically put money into young companies, with the aim of profiting later when those start-ups go public or are acquired. read more

How To Pitch And Partner With Google

Chris Sacca is one of Google’s Principals for New Business Development. Here he blogs about how to get noticed, if you are interested in working with Google, Inc.

I am on the front line of inbound business proposals. I would gather I see 40-50 per day. The launch of Google Talk has probably added another 15-20 per day.

So, as I sit with trepidation considering how many emails I have flagged for follow-up in my inbox on this Sunday afternoon, I thought I would take a minute to type out some hints that will make it easier on both of us and increase the likelihood that your company and mine will get some business done. These are in random order and I might expand the list as time goes on. As always, your comments are welcome. Anything I missed? (Keep in mind, this is my personal blog and nothing herein is approved by my employer.) read more

How Much Is Your Company Worth?

After a string of rough years and falling values for private companies, here’s some good news: Now just might be the best time to sell a business that we’ve seen in quite some time.

Why? Jay C. Jester, marketing director of Audax Group, a Boston-based private equity and mezzanine firm, explains that many private equity companies and venture capital firms raised money for investment funds with capital-deployment time limits several years ago, and now the clock is ticking ever closer to midnight. “There’s a ton of private equity with a fuse on it,” Jester says. “You’ve got pent-up supply and pent-up demand coming together. There’s activity in just about any sector you can think of.” read more

Can CUIL compete with GOOGLE?

Pronounced “cool”, the launch of new search engine Cuil.com is the next in a line of many who have tried to slay the Google beast. Cuil does have some serious competitive advantages, like 120 billion indexed pages (about 3x that of any other search engine). Designed by ex-Googlers Anna Patterson, her husband Tom Costollo, and two engineers Russell Power and Louis Monier, the team thinks they finally have Google beat. read more

Top 10 Small Business Owner Woes

The National Federation of Independent Business has recently released a report on the top 10 matters that plague small business owners. read more

Felix Dennis - How To Get Really, Really Rich

Felix Dennis is the founder of Maxim Magazine, along with a number of other publications. In his new book, How to Get Rich: One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets, Dennis shares some of the secrets that made him a near billion dollar man. He’s preaches that becoming successfully rich involves not working for anyone but yourself.

Inc Magazine interviewed Dennis at his New York offices.

For a book called How to Get Rich, you spend a lot of time dissuading potential entrepreneurs from trying. You say I’ll need to get used to groveling and failing, and I’ll need to be so driven, it may put my marriage at risk or hurt my relationship with my kids.

It’s kind of a crazy thing to decide that you’re going to be worth tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars and set out to do that. It doesn’t suit everybody. I warn people throughout the book that if you’re not driven by this desire, you really shouldn’t try. It will lead to a lot of heartache and a lot of sacrifice — and not just you doing the sacrificing.

read more

Private Equity Is Not Dead

Here’s an article in Conde Nast Portfolio about the livelihood of private equity. Overall, in a study by Earnst & Young, “private equity owners create more value than their private counterparts.

[Conde Nast Portfolio]

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