KEY ASPECTS OF A BUSINESS PLAN

Imagine yourself squaring off against potential investors to your business, what are they really after? What sections of your business plan do they go to first and which sections will make them invest or walk away?

I began asking myself these same questions while preparing my own business plan. While there are some elements that all investors look for, certain sections are going to be more important to specific investors. Here are the sections that if written well will help to attract all of the operating capitol that I need.

1) Marketing Plan & Sales Strategy: I am launching an e-commerce website. It is not designed to compete with the industry giants but it is designed to earn substantial revenue. Investors will want to know how a company with no store front and zero name recognition is going to attract enough customers to repay their investment. How will the company earn the money? An investor needs to know that our marketing plan is excellent and will help to make the company profitable. If the marketing plan and sales strategy is poor then the investor will know that they have little chance of receiving their investment and profit back. Many people have great ideas but cannot earn a profit.

2) Operations: Can the company navigate, fulfill its commitments, keep cost reasonable, satisfy customers, and manage profits? If not this may be a red flag the company will fail. It may also indicate that the company will need additional funding in the future to fix a crisis or bring the company up to snuff. The operations section will show that there is a solid plan in place to deliver on what we say we will.

3) The Financials: This is probably the first section that 9.5-out-of-ten turn to first. This is ultimately what it is all about for an investor and provides many clues to the chances of success for a business. Many investors have rules on what they will invest in based on this section. Even if they see the company is solid and can earn a profit it does not guarantee they are going to invest. Many investors will only lend their money out if they see the potential to hit their minimum returns. This section will make them want to learn more about your business until the point where they decide to invest or will make them lose all interest. It is vital this section be accurate and easy to understand.

4) Company Description: Who are you, what do you do, and how can I earn money from it? Investors want to see you have a solid idea and the potential to be successful. This section will tell them if you can be competitive and if it is something they want to invest in. Some investors invest in anything that they believe will earn a profit but others invest only in certain fields or businesses that agree with their beliefs and values.

5) Industry Analysis and Trends: Have you done your homework? Do you know what you are doing or are you a pie-in-the-sky dreamer who fails to see the real picture? This section will notify them if your research is accurate and they may verify your analysis. Is this a market that is growing or shrinking? Does your data indicate that your company has a chance to earn market share and is it a good market to invest in?

I have decided to complete several detailed reviews of my plan before asking experts to offer their notes. When they have returned their notes I will review them and incorporate what is useful. I will then adjust it and review and ask the same experts for a final review. My goals are to make sure that my information is 100% accurate, concise, and easy to understand. I want my review committee to challenge me on everything because if I can successfully explain it to them and reach consensus then I can do the same with an investor. It is a great opportunity to ensure that I am explaining clearly  before seeing a potential investor. I want to reach agreement with as many investors as I need as quickly as I can. It is too hard to regain interest after a failed presentation.

I am in the process of rewriting the company description and editing my financial section so that investors can easily understand the figures based on the data that I listed.

Thank you for reading!

http://www.rhondaonline.com/

http://bpexpertviews.blogspot.com/

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/38308

http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Entrepreneur_and_Small_Business_Prob.html?id=xYRX0FAFM0YC

Protecting Intellectual Property, Trademarks, and Your Business

I studied three entertainment law podcasts this week to enhance my knowledge of the topic. When you finish reading this, I encourage you to listen to the same podcasts to enhance your basic understanding of the subjects discussed here. The first podcast is session 5: "Tackling Intellectual Property Law in Cyberspace" from the 9th Annual CIPLIT Symposium. The presenters were Rose Hagan from Google, Ann M. Bartow from The University of South Carolina, Greg Vetter from The University of Houston and Sonia Katyal from Fordham University.

Rose Hagan spoke about her role at Google and defending it from lawsuits that arise from emerging Internet related legal issues. At the time, Google was facing 8 lawsuits and had already been involved in several others. Individuals, companies, and trademark holders were asserting their rights, and attempting to establish precedents for Internet law. Google is often involved in these cases simply because it is a major player in Internet advertising. Google sells advertising space based on terms advertisers select by picking keywords. While Google doesn't create the ads for advertisers, it needs to establish standards within the emerging law and common sense. She stated that Google has no desire to infringe on trademark owners rights because they also spend a great deal of time and money protecting Google's rights and image. Google has policies for keyword and advertisement text. It based these on the countries where the ads are created and the relevant national laws governing trademarks, intellectual property, commerce, and Internet advertising. and ran and the laws that effect them.  She cited cases such as Tiffany v. Ebay and a case involving 1-800-Contacts. Most of the issues she discussed involved advertisers attempting to gain unfair advantage by manipulating Internet marketing options. If a company used my companies keyword, property, and branding to bring customers to their site instead of mine and to sell similar or counterfeit items, then I would need to assert my legal rights to protect my business.

Ann M. Bartow sounded as though she was on the verge of a breakdown as she rapidly moved through her presentation. She stated that "Intellectual prestige is not a trademark problem". She provided examples of designers or companies suing others if a product looked similar to one of their own. They may sue over a style they are using. She believes that these styles, stitching patterns, etc. are not unique enough to be protected and I agree. Some of her examples were of a designer suing another over what they claimed was a similar design but really was re-imaged by both designers from a previous designer's work. It is not unique enough to be protected. Other designers and companies do not want others to be selling items with common themes to their own because they do not want their brand to be damaged because a store that is not as elite selling it makes it less "special". This is the "intellectual prestige" she mentioned. For "intellectual prestige" to be proven it better be a unique and truly original concept.

Greg Vetter spoke about patent law. He focused his talk on software arts and claims law. His insights into patents are interesting. It made me realize that I'd never he happy engaged in patent work but it is valuable information. You may be thinking, "I am not an inventor, so why does this matter to me?" I thought the same but as he spoke I understood. I'll never be spoken about in the same breath as Edison, Tesla, or Ford either but some of his talk applied to my Internet-based business. If your company creates patents for some of its concepts, branding or materials you must have a clear and unbroken history of ownership based on filing and maintaining proper legal documents.

The final speaker for the podcast was Sonia Katyal. The most interesting part of her talk was discussing intellectual property law vs. digital technology. She believes that freedom of speech, public domain, and digital technology moves fast enough that it changes the facts on the ground. I disliked her talk; she seems to relish the idea of destroying copyright owners rights. She believes testing these laws and destroying or minimizing the rights of property holders is a good thing. She seems to have a love for outlaws, activists, and criminals. While Napster and similar sites helped to popularize the online music distribution market eventually became a benefit to the consumer, the right holders, and the companies who invested in the creation of the work, what she endorses hurts all. She wants to dance around in the shadows that the corrupt and criminals use to justify their unethical actions. Sonia Katyal should understand that if people like her and the Internet outlaws she attempts to glorify continue to steal and devalue the creations of others and profit can no longer be made then the creators will simply stop creating new work until certain that their rights are protected. The protection that people like Sonia Katyal attempt to provide to the outlaws makes the world a less safe, less fair, less positive, and less ethical place. These outlaws makes the world a worse place. I wonder if she found herself isolated with outlaws in the real world instead of in the safety of academia if she would still attempt to lionize them? I doubt it but she would probably then attempt to justify their behavior by explaining how society turned them into outlaws rather then understanding that individuals are responsible for their own behavior and to follow the laws of society instead of attempting to break them.

The second podcast deals in Trademark Protections. The first presenter was Marc Trachtenberg. His presentation was entitled "Protecting Your Marks In and From the New Top Level Domains". The panel  discussed the Internet being the gateway to billions of people who go online to purchase products via mobile devices or computers. This is why protecting your marks is vital because selling online may be a companies main or only source of revenue. His talk mentioned activities such as cybersquatting and typosquatting. Cybersquatting is the illegal practice of registering potential domain names before the proper rights owner can and attempting to force the company who wishes to register the name to pay for the right to do so. The case of Panavision v. Dennis Toeppen is one of the most famous cybersquatting cases. Typosquatting is when someone registers and operates a name very similar to a registered domain name in an attempt to trick Internet users to visiting their sites by mistake. They will add an extra letter and make the sites look similar. An example of this is Bank of America's web site is www.bankofamerica.com. A typosquatter would register it as something like, www.banksofamerica.com. How many of you would easily pick up on the difference after having done a keyword search the typosquatters site came up first in the search and then led you to a site that looks exactly like the Bank of America site? They may steal your banking information, money, address book, place spyware, malware, and worse on your computer.

Can your business survive the credibility hit if someone did this to your business and your customers were tricked into visiting a mirror site that damaged them? The podcast made it clear that you need to register your domain on as many of the web domains as possible. There are two categories the generic TLDs (.com, .org, etc.) and country-specific TLDs (.us, .uk, .asia, .ca, etc.) and it can be expensive to register with all of them. It is best to register your mark with as many as you can even if you never attend to use them but the annual fee's can be prohibitive. It is less expensive to be proactive then reactive because brand abusing is growing at least 28% per year according to the presenters data. Marc Tractenberg states that, "With evolving law and technology you can never plan for every eventuality." He advises to select a distinct domain name to protect the company and save money in advertising. If you pick a domain name that is common you will spend too much in advertising fees directing users to your site.

They discussed the IP Clearing House and met with concerns of the audience. It is viewed as a tool to reduce the cost and administrative burden on mark owners.

The third podcast is "IT/Contractual Aspects of New Top Level Domains." It is related to the previous podcast that I discussed.  The commentators wisely point out that the policies, registrations, and procedures are geared more towards good people, who act in good faith. They are classified as "Good Actors". The governments, companies, and others who govern the Internet believed that everyone would obey the law on the Internet. What law? Which countries law? With what authority could they be penalized and is there a penalty? There was not much law and it is foolish to expect all people to act ethically without potential enforceable consequences. The panel called these people "Bad players". A consumer must be able to trust a companies web site and overall web presence. This podcast spent time speaking about how to set up a more significant governing body to eliminate the most severe Internet liability and criminal issues. These issues can destroy a business.

The three podcast reinforce common sense business practices that existed even before the Internet:

1) Do everything legally possible to protect your business from the start. This includes filing all proper copyright and trademark registrations, filing proper paperwork with all relevant governing bodies and verifying that you have eliminated potential liabilities. It is always less expensive to protect yourself proactively then it is to fight legal battles to regain your rights. The legal fee's or issue created by a attack on or loss of rights can destroy a company.

2) Develop a strong and adaptable business plan. Technology and the laws that govern it are changing rapidly. A significant source of revenue for your company can disappear quickly but a new one may likely replace it, be wise enough to see these happening and position your company to thrive during the transition.

3) Your clients must be able to trust you! If they don't trust you on the Internet they will not be spending their money on your site. Your information needs to be accurate and your web sites must be secure, especially if accepting payments.

4) If you are unwilling to stay current on the laws that impact your business then it is vital to hire qualified counsel who is and annually reviews your business. A change in a law can hurt your business but it may provide increased opportunities. You need to be aware of both to maximize your companies position in the marketplace. It is best if you are remaining current on the law because it is less expensive and even the best lawyer will not know as much about your business as you do.

5) Constantly look for new opportunity. Opportunity may exist in your greatest failures. Almost always in life and business you can create opportunity if you are adaptable, creative, understand people's needs and desires, and are willing to do the work necessary to ensure success.

Copyright for Photo1 belongs to @britannica.com

Copyright for Photo2 belongs to @lasvegasnevadadui.com

Copyright for Photo3 belongs to @forbes.com

Feel free to insert your favorite "clean" lawyer jokes in the comment section.