It wasn’t long ago when it seemed that the answer to every business challenge was to “get out and sell more.” Now, business owners are scrutinizing their operations for ways to squeeze out every last drop of profitability. Let’s look at four ways to increase your profitability and grow your business.
This week was actually fairly average as far as the dollars invested, but it felt like a train wreck for most of the show. Daymond was the only Shark really interested in any of the pitches and he convinced Kevin H to join him on one venture. Together, they invested $290,000 in two companies for an average stake of just over 50%.
This week Kevin H. makes up for many episodes of limited investing by putting $235,000 to work in both of the successful pitches. He also takes Kevin O by surprise and undercuts Robert in a deftly handled negotiation maneuver. All together, the Sharks invested $305,000 and snagged an average stake of 50%.
I had the privilege of sitting down with Melissa Knutson, a business banker from Chase in Colorado Springs and asking her about the state of small business lending in Colorado Springs.
That’s right, if you haven’t seen it already, BiggsKofford has a completely redesigned website. We’re planning on keeping the new website current with news articles, helpful resources for businesses and entrepreneurs, links to our team bios and LinkedIn profiles, and eventually a company blog. Please head over to www.biggskofford.com and let me know what you think!
Although dragging myself out of bed to attend the Peak Venture Group’s breakfast by 6:30am was a challenge at first, the experience proved to be entirely worth the effort. Today’s topic was designed to offer alternatives to the traditional funding path of Friends & Family – Angel Investors – Venture Capital – IPO/Strategic Buyout.
This is the first time I’ve been to a city council session and it was a rather enlightening process, if mostly to see what each member of council found most important and why they supported cutting or not cutting in certain ways. Overwhelmingly, this process was a political one with very little cost-benefit analysis and a whole lot of “I think…” and “I’ve always believed…” statements in support or opposition to certain budget items. It certainly begs the question: would cities be able to handle these challenges better if they were managed more like businesses?
Who hasn’t heard of a great idea going belly up, especially in the volatile world of software startups? Ever wish you could get a download from those entrepreneurs about what went wrong and how to avoid the same fate in your business? The fine folks at the Tech Incubator brought us a presentation by Al Davis that proved to be a candid and unassuming walk through the rise and fall of a software company that ultimately closed its doors returning a mere fraction of shareholders’ capital.
