Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with investors

How much is my new business worth??

extrabox — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:11:38 -0800

I am starting up a new business, and I am trying to put a value on it in order to "discuss numbers" with several people who have expressed a serious interest in investing in it. In terms of a one year window, I know pretty close to exactly how much money it will cost to start up and operate the business. For the sake of argument, this number is $100,000.00.

In terms of how much much gross income I expect to take in for the first year, this could also be seen as $100,000.00, and obviously I would expect this number to grow over the next five years by as much as 20% each year.

In terms of investors, I want help with that first year $100,000.00 nut.

So, if some investor decides to kick in $50,000.00 as one has said he would, how much of the business should he get for that?

How much is this business worth as a brand new venture?

(If it matters, although the actual business is in Hong Kong - it is a distributorship - the investors, and ultimate owners are US based.

I appreciate any answers or advice!!!!

Seeking Bill Gates!

goalyeehah — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 05:31:54 -0800

Where do I look for investors? I have completed a business plan for a yoga studio and will begin to look for investors at the beginning of the year. Where would I go to look. I have been told that a good place to look is the back of newspapers in the want ads as ads or posted for people who are looking for business opportunities.
I've also read that blanketing friends and everyone I know with copies of BP is also another way to do it. Any other insights.

(Insert pithy investment-related quote here)

Merdryn — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 07:56:45 -0800

My company has been attracted the attention of several larger companies who wish to invest in us in exchange for a position on the board and an equity stake in the company. We're a small, privately held group, and have no clue what this means for us. Obviously, we need to get at attorney involved in this process, but I'm the kind of guy who wants to know what to expect out of deals like this. Can anyone enlighten me? What happens to the day-to-day operations of my company? Are my decisions capable of being vetoed by my investor? We currently don't have regular "board meetings", per se, and I'm the only stockholder. How does this process play out? The investing company is a publicly traded company, several thousand employees, etc., and we're a small company.

Incidentally, we're in the IT space, and we offer a skilled service (beyond just consulting) with a high dollar value. We sure could use the money for marketing, augmenting staff, even paying our own salaries. Does the investment typically come with restrictions on how we spend it? So many questions!

Where do I find investors?

Galen — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 11:28:00 -0800

MoneyFilter: Where would a 21 year old college student look for investors willing to help said student get started building wealth? I'm 21 and I want to build houses on vacant lots in cities near where I live. I am fairly sure (though I have excellent credit) I can't qualify for a $200,000 construction loan (even interest only).

So, I need people with money to help me through the first two or three projects. How do I meet these people? Where do I find an investor? What companies that make their business investing in upstarts like me? Are there parties I should be crashing?

I just want a boost into the investing world. I don't want to wait till I'm 30 to start building wealth and cashflow. I have the vision now. Please point me in the right direction.

How can I leverage my potential business partner 's interest and solidify a business idea?

AdInfinitum — Thu, 25 May 2006 07:42:23 -0800

Hello. Here’s the lowdown: I’m the senior sound designer / managing director for a leading international sound library company who’s been successfully running a company that doesn’t belong to me for 6 years. I’ve exhausted this opportunity, as the company is limited in its ability to grow due to the owners methods. In short, although I still have my job (and could have it forever, so to speak), I need to get out. I’m striving to create an opportunity for myself (and potentially for some of the other amazing employees I’ve hired who are looking for better opportunities) by starting a new company, and I must act now as I am not getting any younger.. I’ve been thinking this through for almost 6 months now, and something seeming great has just happened. Can you help me make the most out of it? I rent a house from a very successful business owner / investor who has grown to respect my methods and abilities in many ways. After a long conversation with him a few weeks ago, he became very interested in my situation. After hearing that I was looking to pursue new options, he suggested we consider getting together on a partnership to develop a new enterprise in the ‘digital audio media’ domain. Even though he’s a very well-versed business wiz, he is somewhat limited in his knowledge regarding ‘up to date’ technology, Web 2.0, etc. I’ve been educating him via news clippings and links for a while now to supplement his knowledge.

We met for our first ‘formal’ meeting last week, and the results were confusing. At first, we were speaking about developing a local ‘post production’ audio facility that would utilize our current resource-pool (we have myself an about 5 others who are audio experts all willing to jump in) to get us off the ground. During our meeting, we were going over larger-scale ‘broader’ concepts regarding the future of digital media distribution, user-content models, emerging technologies, etc, and the interest swayed from our initial ‘tried and true’ concept completely. We both decided that we wanted to ‘go bigger’, as he is looking to sell off his current software company and get into ‘the next thing’ anyway, and from our discussion many larger-scale topics were covered. This was great, but actually left me a bit disjointed. He was speaking about getting actual Venture Capital and pursuing financing, even before we had decided on any business strategy or direction. He then suggested that we abandon our initial local post-production audio venture in order to somehow secure our ability to ‘get financing’, as it would somehow ‘look bad’ to potential investors if we were to show a related business pursuit before our larger model was introduced. Firstly, does anyone know anything about this method / strategy so that I can confirm its basis?

Aside from that, I’m…well - confused! I finally have a partner with the resources and know-how to really lift our ‘startup-to-be’ off the ground, but I am totally lost in terms of finding a business idea that suits my skills and satisfies our desire to ‘play in the big game’. All I had initially wanted was to find a way to make enough money without working for my current employer on my own, and now I’m in much deeper then I had expected. I want to make sure I can feed my prospective partner with a concept that he will find worthy of pursuit, but now that we have established a desire to ‘aim higher’ I am getting lost in these larger concept models. How can I come up with a business idea that satisfies my interests and skills while at the same time fulfilling his (and now my own, i think) desire to ‘hit it big’?

Aside from that, can anyone think of a way to maximize my potential within this situation? I want, at minimum, to leverage his resources in terms of business know-how and financing for developing something that will grant my independence from this annoying job. I fear, however, that if I cannot now come up with something lucrative enough to inspire his pursuit I will end up just where I began! I’m looking for advice, ideas, and help. I need to navigate my way out of this (decent) job and into freedom…badly. I feel like I’m right on the edge of having a serious advantage through my ‘almost-mentor’, and I do not want to blow it.

Thanks!