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Your financing cheat sheet
Answer these ten questions and win the funding
Venture capitalists have seen it all. They're tough, seasoned and have a finely attuned radar for b.s.. What better proving ground for the entrepreneur seeking financing?
You can avoid being intimidated by preparing yourself with straightforward answers to the questions they're bound to ask. And if you can do that, you're more than prepared for the relatively more forgiving scrutiny of your loans manager or a government bureaucrat.
Hint: If you've built a solid business plan and know it inside-out, you're more than halfway there.
Be able to answer these key questions
1) What's your vision? This includes your grand plans and where you see yourself down the road.
2) What's your product or service, what are its benefits and what makes it unique from the competition's?
3) Where's the market and what's its potential? Is the market new, growing or declining, and how much of it can you realistically claim?
4) Describe your customers in detail, including existing customers, potential customers and the actual decision maker.
5) Why does your customer want or need your product? What does it do for them, and what actual value (in terms of return on investment) does it provide?
6) How do you get your product to your customer? Including the sales process, cost of customer acquisition and the lifetime value of a customer.
7) Who's the competition, what advantages and disadvantages do they have over you, what makes you better, and who might join forces with you?
8) How and when are you profitable?
9) Who's in charge? Profile your management team and their relevant experience.
10) What are your financing plans, how much have you raised already, how will you use it, what are your milestones, and how much more do you require?
A "Sea"-commerce success story
$37,834 loan helps restaurant go online
Even if you're not planning a trip to Prince Edward Island in the near future, you can get a literal taste of the island province by simply logging online to lobsteronthewharf.com. The website for Charlottetown's famous seafood market and restaurant allows you to order from 15 to 300 pounds of cooked or live lobster, live mussels or world famous live Malpeque oysters -- and have them at your door within 48 hours. It's hauling in big business.
But while Lobster on the Wharf has become a P.E.I. success story since Jim and Helen Larkin took over MacKinnon's Lobster Pound in 1981, the online arm is a more recent addition – created thanks to a substantial small business loan backed by the Canadian government.
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