BRICKS AND MORTAR
Karl Dakin
Capital Coach | Stakeholder Investor Campaigns | Design, Stage, and Manage or Support | Reduce Time, Money, and Risk of Raising Funding | Increase Probability of Success! | Opportunity Management
CONTENTS
?·?????? Quick Calendar
·?????? Funding Point
·?????? Capital Coach
·?????? Successful Funding
·?????? Don Cohen Show
·?????? Subscribe – Daily or Weekly Editions
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QUICK CALENDAR
?I quickly list here upcoming opportunities where I will be sharing information, lessons in funding, or meeting in person or via videoconferencing.
?May 31 (change of date from Tuesday to Friday) – Successful Funding - Back Office – Justin Lowell
June 4 – Successful Funding – Leadership – Kon Apostolopoulos
?June 12 - SuperCrowd Chicago – Workshop on Crafting Crowdfunding Offers
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FUNDING POINTS – BRICKS AND MORTAR
?I usually dislike stories that start with “When I was a kid…” so please bear with me. I started this series of editions of my Instant Funding newsletter addressing the challenge of creating, knowing and mastering a business model using the sale of lemonade as an illustration. The ?knowing every nook and cranny of a business model is important to planning and pitching an investment offer as it offers an opportunity to answer the questions of an investor candidate in a manner that builds confidence.
?I started with the simplest possible minimally viable product (MVP) in the form of the production and sale of a single glass of lemonade. Despite this minimalization, it still represents a complex set of tasks, resources, and execution to achieve. In yesterday’s edition, I jumped up the business by scaling from the sale of a single glass to selling a pitcher of lemonade. Today’s edition goes further by placing the sale of lemonade within an establishment – bricks-and-mortar storefront.
?Getting back to when I was a kid, selling anything was pretty much limited to a geographic location. The concept of selling something online without a storefront via the Internet was way in the inconceivable future. The location, location, and location of a business storefront dictated to a large degree the success or failure of the business. Customer candidates were limited to who might walk or drive by the store and stop to make a purchase. The business model addressed a marketplace that was defined by geography and traffic.
?The operation of a business within a storefront greatly increases the complexity of a basic business model without necessarily increasing the size of the potential market. An entrepreneur also needs to also consider:
·?????? Rent or ownership of the storefront
·?????? Additional restrictions on time and place of operation by local regulations
·?????? Travel to and from the storefront
· Service to customers (walk-up window, walk-in counter, seating, restrooms, etc.)
·?????? Style (exterior, interior, utility, artwork)
·?????? Parking or public access
·?????? Traffic (pedestrian, car, public or other contributors to people walking by)
·?????? Attractions (other reasons than buying a glass of lemonade for a person to make the area a destination)
·?????? Distractions (reasons for a person not to buy a glass of lemonade, including competition in the form of other offers of beverages to combining beverages with sit-down meals or simply causing a person to forget they were thirsty)
?Times have changed. Some businesses start and operate without ever having a physical location where they sell their products and services. In such cases, the number of ‘butts in seats’ is no longer a limiting factor because the Internet presents the possibility to sell to everyone with Internet access. Selling outside of a single physical location again complicates the business model, requiring consideration of the following:
·?????? Transportation
·?????? Packaging
·?????? Inventory
·?????? Storage
·?????? More regulations
?The operation out of the retail storefront may be viewed as an unnecessary expense and a limitation on customer engagement.
?I, like some, but not all investor candidates, appreciate the science of and skill of running a small business.
?When listening to or viewing an investor pitch, all of these questions and more are running around in my head as I try to get a handle on the likely success of the particular small business.
Coming from a position where I am no longer a kid and having worked with hundreds of small businesses with all kinds of products and services in all kinds of industries and markets, I see things that tell me the larger, entire story of the small business.
领英推荐
?Some investor candidates care about these details. Many do not. Most lack the experience to appreciate the richness of a well designed and operated small business. They are limited to the presentation of the small business story in a slide deck or offering memorandum. Some ignore everything except the bottom line in terms of profits and the projected return on investment. Ultimately, the investor candidate is primarily concerned about their self interest and how they may benefit.
?The need to engage and educate an investor candidate on how they will benefit from the success of the small business starts with the business model. It represents how success is achieved at any scale in any location. The challenge to the entrepreneur in making a pitch is to demonstrate their mastery of their business model while remaining focused on triggering an investment.
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SUCCESSFUL FUNDING
Friday, May 31st (not the usual Tuesday date), the next show for Successful Funding, will feature my guest, Justin Lowell, with Form Factor. We will discuss getting the back office of a small business in order to support a capital campaign.
?You may register to attend this show at:
?Emiliano De Laurentiis, the CEO and Founder of Knowledge Avatars, was a guest on my Successful Funding show earlier today where we talked about key questions about what is called artificial intelligence (AI). We demonstrated CAP by giving it prompts that generated responses out of proprietary data that I had provided and generated responses out of OpenAI’s Chat GPT 4.0.
?You can see all of my shows at the time of broadcast or recordings of past shows at my profile on LinkedIn.
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CAPITAL COACH
?I am now field evaluating the Capital Coach, an artificial intelligence learning management system avatar (AILMSA) that I have trained on the topic of funding. The Capital Coach is embedded as a widget on my Dakin Capital website at https://dakincapital.com/CAP. The Capital Coach represents a proprietary data set on the Knowledge Avatars learning management system with licensed access to Open AI. Could you give the Capital Coach a try and ask it questions about funding?
I am working with Knowledge Avatars to make CAP the ultimate tool to support small businesses and community projects in raising funding. Two current challenges are (1) training the AI avatar to match specific funding situations and (2) explaining that a highly personalized AI avatar is so much more than a chatbot powered by a Large Language platform. Unique, non-public information about an individual or an organization cannot be obtained through a chatbot. The recent advances in AI have narrowed the field of prospects who stand to gain from personalized AI to high-net-worth individuals, professional service providers, organizational leaders, and other similarly placed who work with fast-moving, fast-changing information that may never be public.
Please share your feedback. Karl Dakin at [email protected]
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DON COHEN SHOW
Monday, I was a guest on Don Cohen’s show where we talked about promotion – the act of sharing information to gain awareness and solicit action. You may see a recording of the show at:
I enjoy being a guest, engaging in conversations with other guests, and building communities with Don, using LinkedIn as a communication channel. Every show is its own adventure as we start with a word of the day and then see where the conversation goes from there.
Don is an expert on LinkedIn, particularly on the use of Live streaming to build brands and communities. We will discuss using LinkedIn as a social media platform for building communities that support raising funding.
All shows where I have been a guest can be viewed on Don Cohen's LinkedIn page under Posts.
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This Instant Funding newsletter is now available in a Daily Edition or a Weekly Edition. You may choose between this Edition, published seven times a week, or the Weekly Edition, published once a week. If you are already subscribed to the Daily Edition and wish to change, just ‘unsubscribe’ and then ‘subscribe’ to the Weekly Edition.
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Karl Dakin, the Capital Coach
Dakin Capital LLC
Capital Coach | Stakeholder Investor Campaigns | Design, Stage, and Manage or Support | Reduce Time, Money, and Risk of Raising Funding | Increase Probability of Success! | Opportunity Management
9 个月What is your minimally viable business model?