Category: Business Financing & Funding

Bad Accounting is Bad Business and Bad for Your Personal Credibility

Don’t Like Accounting? You will never be an integral participant of a community when you do not know the language of the community.  Accounting is the language of business.  If you are in business, you have a responsibility to become competent and conversational in accounting.… Continue reading

Mezzanine Financing – A Guide for Business Owners

Mezzanine financing is a type of debt financing that sits between bank loan financing and equity financing in a company’s capital structure.  This post is meant to be a general overview of mezzanine.   I recommend that all business owners should know about this financing option… Continue reading

Business Owners Benefit from Good Ideas from the Edge

Happy Anniversary to the Stockman Grass Farmer newspaper and Wired magazine — 65 years for the Stockman Grass Farmer this month and 20 years for Wired magazine in January (but issue 1.1.1 released this month for the iPad).  At certain points in time for me,… Continue reading

Trend-spotting at Harvard Business School

One magnificent place to spot trends (and things that are too trendy) is the Harvard Business School.  There is a famous saying that someone should watch what newly minted Harvard MBA’s are doing and do the opposite — such as when all the MBA’s joined Internet… Continue reading

Business Purchase and Sale Agreements (a series)

This post begins a series of posts on business Purchase and Sale Agreements.  Even though I have executed a number of  Business Purchase and Sale Agreements in my investing career, this series falls in the category of “teaching what you want to learn” as I… Continue reading

Business Financial Models – Coca-Cola vs. Wine

As the next post in the series on a Perfect Business, Financially Speaking, I think an anecdote told by Donald Keough in his book “The Ten Commandments of Business Failure” conveys the advantages of having a good business financial model versus the alternative. Mr. Keough… Continue reading

Enlightenment about Investor Alignment

Obtaining alignment among the various parts of a company, particularly between company founders and investors, is a never-ending topic.  Two items have caught my eye this month that relate to this issue and may help spread some enlightened thinking about investor alignment. First, Fred Wilson, a… Continue reading

Company Founder Regrets Sale to Traditional Private Equity

Be careful to whom you sell your company, said the founder of Jimmy Choo footwear, Tamara Mellon.  In the Financial Times, Mellon was quoted, “What happens in private equity is they come in and they say we’re going to be a great partner.  We want… Continue reading

Facebook Governance and ISS — I Support Zuckerberg

For each unique company and unique situation, I believe they should utilize business structures, financing strategies, and all other tools that help them keep their company unique.  For this reason, I cheer on Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for their ability to utilize unique investment terms… Continue reading

Construct a Perfect Business, Financially Speaking

Designing the financial model (in a real-world sense, not a spreadsheet sense) of your business is worth every minute that you can dedicate to it. We should craft the financial model of our business with as much care as a fine architect and craftsman would… Continue reading