Live Q&As

Food trucks are a good way to test the market and see if customers are attracted to your food concept.  Given the scarcity of great locations for new restaurants in the DC market, starting as a food truck will let you try out different locations around town.  You could identify two possible paths - one to start as a food truck and stay a food truck the other to use the truck as your test kitchen before making an investment in permanent space.  I really think you should figure out how to bring more food trucks to the University of Maryland! There is an untapped market. 

Despite the penetration of online sales, there is still a vibrant economy of direct sales organizations.  Traditional companies like Mary Kay still have a strong following and can produce significant returns for their power sellers.  Other newer companies, like Stella and Dot, have successfully leveraged this model for products like jewelry that people still prefer to buy in person.  Engaging with a direct sales organization might be a great way to generate extra income -- but also a lower-risk path to testing your entrepreneurial skills.  You are working with a known product, but it is up to you to get it to market and find new and repeat customers.  

A business intelligence dashboard customized for universities. Like any large organization, universities have extremely complicated structures and need better tools to coordinate activities and determine success metrics.  Like CEOs and CFO's, Presidents and Deans need to be able to see a snapshot of their organization at any time.  

Talk to a lot of people who have experience working in the markets you are targeting! Look for local public companies that have had succcess overseas (you can see revenue breakdown in their public filings) and talk to them about the challenges of particular regions.  Working internationally poses higher market and possible regulatory risks (and IP as well) but can also yield a higher return for cracking the code.  You could also look at global markets as opportunities to inexpensively test your product and work out bugs before expensively launching locally. We've worked with CirrusWorks, a local startup that decided to test their strategy in Asia before bringing to the states.  

I like to think about it in reverse - what is the impact small business can have on the fiscal cliff (or economy in general)?  As we all know, the reality is that we need more jobs.  What if as part of re-tooling our workforce we focus on entrepreneurial skillsets? We have people dropping out of the workforce - imagine if they had the right skills and understanding of the process to start their own businesses? Right now, most people don't even know where to start if they have an idea.  We train our doctors and our lawyers - we need to be doing more to train our entrepreneurs.  

I'd encourage any small business owner to plan their business model around bad accounts the same way a large corporation would - expect a certain percentage will not pay.  You also need to be more proactive about vetting customers, requiring downpayments/pre-payments or credit card holds and flagging when your outstanding A/R is beyond what your business can handle.  The thrill of a new customer can sometimes blind entrepreneurs -- sometimes you need to vet your customers the same way they may vet you.  

That is a great idea -- I'll have to look for her at my kid's next soccer game.  You raise a great point of using new delivery methods and technologies to revinvent older products or find new markets.  Netflix didn't invent DVDs - they just realized people would rather have them in their mailbox in a bright red envelope. 

The biggest impact on my career was the time I spent as an early employee at  a startup technology-focused investment bank.  Our company advised a lot of early stage companies -- but we were a startup company ourselves answering the same questions as our clients.  How do we get new customers? What markets should we spent our time - sectors or geographies? How do we pitch ourselves vs. our competition? How will we make payroll? I benefited from learning a lot of lessons from our clients as well as from our firm's successes and mistakes.  

I think the biggest issue is that people confuse starting a business and running a business.  You may have the best chef and the best food - but if your staff is poorly trained, reservation system doesn't work or overpay for ingredients you will have a hard time in a crowded market. Restaurants often open too early and they don't spend the time to work out the kinks before making an impression on their customers.  Getting someone to try a new restaurant is easier than having them come back a 2nd time . 

There are two schools of thought - one, as you mentioned, is that you should never give away your product for free because you dilute your value. The other is that you need to seed the market and get experience.  What if you think of a freemium model for your PR services -- look for potential companies that aren't currently paying for PR support (maybe smaller non-profits) and then have them agree that they will start paying once you have shown some success (based on agreed upon metrics - social media, earned media,etc.).  You will get your foot in the door, have some references but also have some potential upside for doing good work. 

You are right, you do need to protect your time while also being open minded about potential customers.  a couple suggestions - 1.) You should have a product menu that categorizes your services by budget range.  You can send that to prospective clients in advance -- and confirm that option A, B or C is within the range they might spend.  Once you have set a range - the meetings and proposal will help determine client requirements and then determine which package is right fit.  2). Determine estimated value of customer. I'd say if they don't know the budget, then I'd also put a lower weight on the probability it will turn to work. Create a calculator for yourself - weight the probability of work and multiply by dollar value of work (based on organization size, what you think they want, etc.). Then determine a threshhold when you do/don't take a meeting.  If the expected value is going to be below $x, then don't take the meeting.  

There are free sites like LegalZoom that might give you a good start -- but it's also worth spending some time with a corporate lawyer to make sure you have all your ducks in a row.  You also want to make sure you are choosing the right legal structure for your business . Most VCs will not fund companies that are LLCs, so you might want to get advice on whether you are starting in right place.