The panel, building a start-up technology company, was actually a presentation by Dirk Knemeyer (Principal, Involution Studios LLC). Dirk’s session was a great summary of the nuts and bolts of building a technology business from scratch. Here are the notes:
– dream a little dream, dream a big dream
– his favorite quote: â??a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single stepâ? â?? Confucius
– Test the business viability
- What kind of resources â?? people, infrastructure, money â?? will your business require
- Biggest mistakes â?? grossly overestimate revenue and grossly under estimate the costs
- For products, revenues will come much later and slower than you expect
- How much income will there be and when will it start coming
- Who will buy your product and why
- How long can you possibly go without making nay money? do you have reserves, can you change your lifestyle
- Do you have resources for more money? Can you get a loan or other cash infusion
- How much of your time are you willing to put into your company? you will have to do everything; have to throw yourself into it completely
- How comfortable are you with risk and uncertainty?
– Alone or together?
- Need to make a philosophical decision on this
- One of most important decisions
- Which is more important to you- greater ownership, greater salary, or greater control?
- What business critical skills do you lack? Do I need a partner to help with this?
- Regardless of skills, what things do you want to do and what donâ??t you wan to do?
- How much of a control freak are you? Very common trait among entrepreneurs
- Regardless of your need for control, how well do you collaborate with peers?
- Do you have the money to hire the employees you would need to get started?
– Set the vision
- What are you going to be selling? Donâ??t try to be all things to all people; What is your unique value proposition?
- How are you going to position that in the marketplace?
- How will your company be structured and run to make this happen?
- What do you dream your company will grow up to be? Someday I dream this is where my company will be
- Dream big!
– Create a powerful identity
- Must haves: logo; web site; business cards; digital letterhead / document templates; power point / keynote templates , but most specifically sales presentation
- Nice to haves: printed letterhead, return address stickers, sales/product sheets (this is more of a must-have) â?? mini-brochures, leave behinds
- Only for the well heeled: printed brochures, printed envelopes, logo folders
– The legal stuff
- If you can afford it, hire an attorney; Typical retainer is $1500 â?? $5000 to get started
- What kind of company should we be? (99% of time should be LLC) [my personal opinion on this is that I disagree; this is way too much of a blanket statement; accountants disagree with lawyers on this]
- Appoint a registered agent
- Initial forms and fees: incorporate in state your doing business in; getting a federal EIN; business license in your city; certificate of good standing from your state if you intend to also be incorporated in other states; incorporation fees in other states â?? if you have employees/owners in other states
- Prepare various business contracts and docs: client/customer contracts; contracts for consultants; NDAs; non-compete agreements; patent forms and filings
- Draft your formal articles of incorporation
– The financial stuff
- Begin a relationship with an accountant; better than waiting till end of year; sooner rather than later
- Open a checking an account; be sure no monthly fee and you can epay with no additional charges
- Create an invoice template
- Carefully track all your financials / buy QuickBooks (learning curve though)
- That nasty thing: payroll!
– The issue of insurance
- Begin a relationship with an insurance broker
- Get general liability insurance – should be under $1000 /yr
- If possible, get health insurance
- If you have payroll, you need workers comp insurance
– Human resources
- Write job descriptions
- Find, interview, hire employees
- Create a formal process for education new employees; biggest cost is staff turnover
- Gather and track key info on all employees
- Provide forms and paperwork to the state
- Create a policies and procedures manual; you can buy software to create this
– Setting up your space – strongly consider not getting office space (over/under = 4 people)
- Many office costs
- Transportation costs
- Telecommunications
– Hiring people
- The people will define the company
- This will shape your company
- Get employees on a contract to hire basis
- Try to work with people through recommendations / networking
- In the early days, pay more for good people with both salary and experience
- When orienting employees, document all steps processes
– Sales
- All principles must do sales well
- Lead generation: marketing (raise awareness) â?? more for products; networking (leveraging connections); cold calling (goinâ?? fishing) â?? more for services
- Courtship process
- Closing
– Service and management
- Do whatâ??s right, not whatâ??s easy or nice
- Your employees always come first (not you customers, but employees); your customers do come second
- Best customers are ones you already have
- Be proactive, not reactive
- Be organized
- Pay attention to the little things
– Get paid
– the slides from his presentation are located here
