Comparable Transactions

Comparable Company/Transaction Appraisal Method

Companies like Business Valuation Resources and Bizcomps are leading providers of information about private company transactions. They sell reports to business brokers, which they can use to do comparable company searches and evaluations. When it comes to valuations using comparable companies, the values are based on a lot of financial analysis data such as net sales, cash

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Why Owners Sell Their Business

Why Owners Sell Their Business

I teach a boot camp class each month for our local Small Business Development Center (SBDC). There is portion of this course that looks at the three ways to become a business owner. These ways include: buying a business, buying a franchise, and starting from scratch. As I discuss the option of buying an existing

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Business Cycle Economics and Selling a Business

Business Cycle Economics and Selling a Business

When the seller makes the decision to sell his business, time is often his worst enemy. Many things outside of the seller’s control can often negatively effect the value of the business. For example, changes in the industry can make elements of the business obsolete. The interest rate hikes by lenders can make your business

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Customer Revenge

The Surprising Power of ‘Sorry’: Defusing Vengeful Actions in Business

We all have a need to exact revenge from time to time. In fact, it is hard-wired into animals and is especially acute in humans. Behavioral psychologists have conducted tests on animals and humans that show that when one party is wronged or feels unfairly treated, they will often try to deny or punish the

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Building Models Based on Customer Insight

How Zip Car Built a Business Model Based on Customer Insight

Henry Ford said that if he asked customers what they wanted, they would say a faster horse. Gathering customer insight is not about asking the customer about what they want, but talking to customers about their daily challenges and developing a deeper understanding of their needs. Another challenge is knowing which customers to listen to.

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Taxes and Crowdfunding

Taxes and Crowdfunding

While crowdfunding is becoming more and more common, tax support and guidance for the campaign creators continue to remain unclear on many points. At a minimum, the tax treatment of funds generated through crowdfunding depends on whether the campaign is reward-based, donation-based, or equity-based. Moreover, if it is reward-based, the value of any reward offered

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Information Asymmetry in Equity Crowdfunding

Information Asymmetry in Equity Crowdfunding

When it comes to equity-based crowdfunding, start-up investments are characterized by a high degree of information asymmetry between the entrepreneur and the investors. To obtain a positive return, investors need to accurately assess both the qualifications and ability of an entrepreneur. They also need to accurately assess the potential of the entrepreneur’s idea. Traditional institutional

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Some Equity-Based Crowdfunding Statistics

Some Equity-Based Crowdfunding Statistics

CrowdCube is the largest equity-based crowdfunding platform in the United Kingdom. Since its founding in 2008, it has facilitated more than $60 million in transactions to date. Combined, those transactions have involved nearly 88,000 investors and over 140 successfully funded ventures. The average individual equity-based investment was approximately $4,000, although investments ranged from as little

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Crowdfunding 101

Crowdfunding 101

Generally speaking, crowdfunding is divided into creative campaigns, reward-based campaigns, and equity campaigns. In creative campaigns, such as a Michael Moore movie, the backers support the message or the “art” and make donations to help promote the cause. Creative campaigns have been around forever, however reward-based and equity campaigns are relatively new. In reward-based campaigns,

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The Cycle of New

The Cycle of New

When a new disruptive technology is discovered, it is often marketed aggressively by the developer. The typical cycle is that it is over-hyped and people expect huge results. They invest heavily as they succumb to the madness of the crowd. Most often, V1.0 products meet with a few roadblocks that tarnish its appeal. Most dissatisfaction

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Are Large Corporations Past Their Prime?

Are Large Corporations Past Their Prime?

One has to ask “Are corporations past their prime?” Corporations came into being to allow multiple investors to invest a portion of their capital across several risky, but potentially highly profitable endeavors.  Corporations Come Into Existence When sailing ships were constructed to carry on world trading, it was a highly lucrative proposition but was fraught

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How to Value an Existing Lifestyle or Micro Business

How to Value an Existing Lifestyle or Micro Business

When it comes to buying a business, size does matter. Most lifestyle or micro businesses have under 1 million in annual sales. When it comes to lifestyle and micro businesses, the owner is also the top manager. For valuation purposes, a good rule of thumb for a marketable lifestyle or micro business is that the

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Testing Your Customer Segment and Value Proposition Hypothesis

Testing Your Customer Segment and Value Proposition Hypothesis

Once you have made a hypothesis regarding your customer segment and value proposition, you need to gather insight to validate your hypothesis by designing questions or experiments to take to potential customers. If you are designing questions, it is important to avoid questions that will influence the customer’s response. In other words, avoid leading questions

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Testing Your Value Proposition’s Ability to Deliver Gains

Testing Your Value Proposition’s Ability to Deliver Gains

Now that you have a potential list of products or services that you plan to incorporate as part of your value proposition, you need to see if it creates the benefits your customer expects, desires, or would be surprised to see. You can use the following questions to test your value proposition’s products and services

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Testing Your Value Proposition's Ability to Alleviate Pain

Testing Your Value Proposition’s Ability to Alleviate Pain

Now that you have a list of potential products or services that you plan to incorporate as part of your value proposition, you need to exposed them to the first test. You can use the following questions to test your value proposition’s products and services. These questions will help you determine if your products or

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Defining Your Value Proposition’s Products and Services

Defining Your Value Proposition’s Products and Services

After you understand the customer’s job, their pain points, and their gain points, it is time to define a value proposition to deliver to them. The products or services that you will provide can come in four different flavors: With these flavors in mind, make a list of all the products and services your company could deliver.

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Understanding Customer Segment Gain Points

Understanding Customer Segment Gain Points

Once you have a pretty good idea of the job your customer segment has to do, it is time to ferret out and define their gain points. Use the following questions to describe the benefits your customer expects, desires, or would be surprised to receive. After answering these questions, attempt to rank your customer’s gain

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Understanding Customer Segment Pain Points

Understanding Customer Segment Pain Points

Once you have a pretty good idea of the job your customer segment has to do, it is time to ferret out and define their pain points. You can use the following questions to more accurately describe the customer’s negative emotions, undesirable costs and situations, and risks they experience before, during, and after their job.

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Understanding Customer Segment Jobs

Understanding Customer Segment Jobs

Once you have a good idea of your target customer segment, it is time to dig a little deeper. To do this, describe the specific tasks your customer segment is trying to do in their core job, the problems they are trying to solve, or the needs they are trying to satisfy. Besides the customer

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Serving Economic and End User Customer Segments

Serving Economic and End User Customer Segments

When fleshing out your business model canvas, you need to define your customer segment and value proposition. However, it is sometimes necessary to consider both the economic buyer and the end user when defining your customer segments. For example, the other day I took my grandson to a Chuck-e-Cheese. The end user was my grandson

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Barbie, Seeing Things Others Do Not

Barbie, Seeing Things Others Do Not – Business Lessons From Elliot And Ruth Handler

Izzy (later change to Elliot) and Ruth Handler were husband and wife that complemented each other’s skills when it came to business. Elliot was the dreamer, who I have often referred to in business as the Oracle or someone who can see things that others can not. Ruth, by contrast, had a business mind and

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Inside Out Business Model

Inside Out Business Model

Ignore the status quo and don’t build a better mousetrap. Stop focusing on what your competitors do. Instead, challenge orthodoxies. To do so, start with any of the nine business model building blocks and build outwards. While we typically start with customer segments to build a customer-driven business model, there are four common starting points.

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Red Ocean vs. Blue Ocean Strategy

What is a Red Ocean vs. Blue Ocean Strategy

The term “red ocean” refers to all the industries in existence today, otherwise known as “the known market space.” Blue oceans, by contrast, denote all the industries not in existence today, otherwise known as “the unknown market space.” Red oceans are contested markets while blue oceans are untainted by competition.

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Free as a Business Model

Free as a Business Model

When you have a free product or service with high amounts of traffic, platform advertisers become interested in subsidizing your free product or service by paying you a fee to share their advertisements. Free products generate high platform traffic and increase the attractiveness of your platform to advertisers. Freemium users get basic functionality for free.

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Critical Thinking About Macroeconomic Forces

Critical Thinking About Macroeconomic Forces

When completing a Business Model Canvas, it is helpful to guide the discussion through the use of questions. When it comes to looking at macroeconomic forces that will affect your business model, the following set of questions should help you in thinking more critically about your business model. These questions are broken into four categories:

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Critical Thinking About Industry Forces

Critical Thinking About Industry Forces

When completing a Business Model Canvas, it is helpful to guide the discussion through the use of questions. When it comes to looking at industry forces that will affect your business model, the following set of questions should help you in thinking more critically about your business model. These questions are broken into three categories:

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Revenue Streams - Business Model Canvas

Choosing a Revenue Stream

When it comes revenue streams, they are generally either “transactional,” resulting from a one-time payment, or “recurring,” resulting from ongoing payments that deliver value or provide post-sales support. When it comes to defining a business’s revenue streams, I find it helpful to consider a list of different types of revenue streams to guide me and

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Value Proposition - Business Model Canvas

Choosing a Value Proposition Type

When considering your unique value proposition, I find it helpful to consider a list of common value propositions to help guide me and my client’s thinking. To that end, here are eleven common value propositions that businesses might offer to their selected customer segment. Review the following value proposition types and determine which one is

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Customer Segment - Business Model Canvas

Choosing a Customer Segment Type

The first step for a new business or an existing business coming out with a new product line is to define the customer segment they are targeting. During the early stages of the process, I recommend starting out with a broad definition of the customer segment. The following is a list of five common customer

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Customer Service Is More than a Slogan

Business Lessons from Mickey Drexler – Open Communications Is More than a Slogan

Mickey Drexler hates emails and memos but loves to communicate face to face or over the phone. He prefers personal interactions so he can be sure that others are listening to him. When Drexler was hired as the new president of Gap Inc’s Stores Division in 1983, his first order of business was to fire

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What Is Disruptive Innovation?

What Is Disruptive Innovation?

Disruptive innovation is not about the next new product as much as it is about transforming an existing market from being expensive and complex to affordable and accessible. A disruptive innovation is more about targeting a high profit/low margin business and creating a high volume/low margin alternative. For example, it is very expensive to take

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The Tipping Point of Labor and Automation

The Tipping Point of Labor and Automation

The other day we talked about mass-produced products being the only ones making it to the market. We stated that this was because they require high sales volumes to break-even. However, we also discussed that some manufacturing was able to be customized and more easily distributed. In the past, it required large capital investments to

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