entrepreneurship

A quick story about Capital Raising and Romance

By brendan at 21 February, 2011, 1:01 pm

I met just before Christmas with a chap recently who wanted to raise capital to help in franchising his business, which I will decline to name for reasons that become obvious soon. I, however, thought it was a bit early to try to raise capital as his business wasn’t particularly systemised, exciting or potentially lucrative. [...]

Monetising Brands through on Demand Bespoke Manufacturing

By brendan at 29 January, 2011, 2:46 pm

So my Dad said to me “so you reckon I should order an initial stock of ten?”. I said “it’s the 21st century. You don’t need to hold stock”. We were talking about a new way of monetizing his Greypath brand, because I had just turned my first dollar of profit from selling Churchill Club [...]

Drawing Financial Reports

By brendan at 15 December, 2010, 8:48 am

My boss made me present financial reports as drawings. Along time ago when I wore an accountants hat, I used to work for a multinational engineering group that had a lot of operations in Asia. My boss was a Filipino who lived in the US, had been a managing partner of Arthur Anderson and was [...]

5 things I hate hearing from Entrepreneurs

By brendan at 24 November, 2010, 8:45 am

Bit tired and emotional this week from competing deadlines. This generally brings out my more caustic side, so I thought I would share lines I hate hearing, and which instantly kill any meeting for me with young entrepreneurs. Most of which I’ve heard more than once in the last month. We hope to… There is [...]

Pricing = Timing

By brendan at 22 October, 2010, 6:26 pm

People talk about price as if its the only thing you negotiate. Its not obviously, but pricing can have interesting impacts on your business and the the timing of your sales. I was at a family function many years ago when an older Jewish real estate agent, took my hand in his vice like grip, [...]

The Language of Business

By brendan at 13 September, 2010, 9:32 pm

I was in the Army when I first heard the expression “The best way of learning something is to teach it”. Another expression I like is that “you don’t truly understand something until you have to explain it”. This is especially true when you have to explain it to a child. So last week I [...]

Do you have the right background to win at small business?

By brendan at 10 August, 2010, 1:25 pm

A source of regular marital disharmony at my house is how issues at work should be solved. The end point of these conversations is generally one of us not speaking to the other for 10 minutes. My wife has spent almost her entire career working for large enterprises. I however have spent the majority of [...]

How to monetise anything – part IV

By brendan at 14 July, 2010, 3:28 pm

Last post I continued the discussion on “How do I monetise anything” with a look at the value in a situation. This, the final post in the series, looks at identifying the Packaging that your monetisation should take. Packaging When I say packaging, I mean how things are packaged up, or what’s in the bundle [...]

How to Monetise anything – part III

By brendan at 14 July, 2010, 2:44 pm

Last post I continued the discussion on “How do I monetise anything” with a look at the attributes of the situation. This post I would like to have a look at identifying the value in the situation. Value The second step in the process is to identify the value that the attributes of the situation [...]

Sweat Equity & the Bee Sting

By brendan at 17 November, 2009, 7:55 am

I staked out my spot in the shade at the skateboard park. Got out my book, biscuits and water bottle and prepared for a relaxing hour while the kids went completely berserk. It seemed like only 2 minutes later when all of a sudden there was that screaming that signifies pain, as compared to the [...]