Introducing Building the Team: Flower Power
By BRYAN BURKHART
Three years ago, I knew nothing about flowers.
Today, I am chief executive of what I believe is the world’s fastest growing flower delivery service, operating in five cities, with $18 million in venture capital and more than 80 employees.
My background is in business, entrepreneurship and technology. I studied entrepreneurial management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School for my undergraduate degree. After college, I moved to San Francisco and joined a software start-up, Callidus Software, as one of its first business hires. Our task was to figure out whether we could sell the software to anyone. Thankfully, we did. We grew the business to more than $100 million in revenue, taking the company public in 2003. I was 28 at the time. I ultimately became senior vice president of global sales, responsible for 76 employees in offices around the world.
It was an amazing first ride, but I was feeling dissatisfied for two reasons. First, as the 800-pound gorilla in a very small market, we were as big as we were ever going to be. Plus, the product was boring. If I described it here, you would fall asleep.
I wanted more. I wanted the chance to build something great, something with a product that people loved and that had a chance to be a really big business. However, I’m not Mark Zuckerberg. I don’t know how to code, and I have no idea how to create a market that doesn’t already exist. But I am willing to work really hard. So, I took a year off to come up with the next great idea.Read more…
Ten Hard-Earned Lessons About Selling a Business
By JOSH PATRICKCREATING VALUE
Are you getting the most out of your business?
My last three posts have focused on Holly Hunter and her business sale that went bad. I want to thank Ms. Hunter for allowing her story to be told. Although she made some mistakes, she was willing to talk about them in the hope that others might learn from her experience.
But those mistakes are hardly unique to Ms. Hunter. In fact, many business owners have had similar experiences. The most important step owners can take when they think about selling their business is to make sure they understand the sales process. Once you start down the road, you’ll enter an alternate universe where the unexpected becomes the norm. Dealing with the unexpected is easier if you follow best practices.
If you decide the time is right to sell, here are 10 lessons that owners like Ms. Hunter have learned the hard way. Read more…
More Thoughts on Growing Your Business — and Helping Employees
By ADRIANA GARDELLASHE OWNS IT
Portraits of women entrepreneurs.
In previous posts, members of the She Owns It business group discussed last year’s accomplishments and their goals for 2013. This week, a member of the group, Alexandra Mayzler, who owns Thinking Caps Tutoring, adds her perspective and leads the group into another conversation about managing employees.
Looking back at 2012, Ms. Mayzler was most pleased that her company created an infrastructure that she believes will enable it to grow. “When we started talking, my biggest concern was I didn’t want to grow if we didn’t have a system in place,” she said. “Now we have it, so there’s no excuse.” In the last year, she said, she has transferred the information needed to run the company from her head to a handbook complete with flowcharts that explain how to do things — including hiring and firing — the Thinking Caps way. Read more…
A Business Owner Goes Back to School
By PAUL DOWNS
STAYING ALIVE
The struggles of a business trying to survive.
I read with interest an article in The Timesabout online college courses a couple of Sundays ago. Prompted by a rather roundabout turn of events, I recently took a business course online.
I left college quite some time ago, in 1986, and started my business immediately afterward. At various points over the years, I have contemplated going back to school but never took the time to do it. I was too busy, the courses were too expensive, and I didn’t see any need for an enhanced credential — I had already risen as far as anyone can go in my company. An M.B.A. seemed like it might be interesting, but not worth the time and effort. Fast forward to July of this year, when I picked up the phone and found myself speaking to a potential client, who, it turned out, was an office manager for Coursera, the online education company.
We started discussing the kind of table she was looking for, and while we were speaking, I took a look at her company’s Web site. I was surprised to see my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, featured prominently and even more surprised when I clicked through to see the courses being offered. An old cycling buddy of mine who teaches at Wharton, Christian Terwiesch, was giving a course called An Introduction to Operations Management. Leaving aside the scintillating title, this is a subject that is near and dear to me: figuring out the best allocation of resources — labor, machinery — in order to keep production flowing in a factory. Read more…
A Modest Proposal to Open Up Small-Business Credit
By AMI KASSARSEARCHING FOR CAPITAL
A broker assesses the small-business lending market.
In my last post about the state of small-business lending, I discussed the need to find a way to break through the gridlock in order to open up access to reasonably priced capital for small-business owners and entrepreneurs.
In this post, I would like to suggest that we create mechanisms and loan products that would allow lenders to be paid a percentage of an entrepreneur’s future earnings — irrespective of what company the entrepreneur ends up building or working for. The payments would continue until the obligation was paid off. (I’ve written previously about this idea on my company’s blog.) Read more…
This Week in Small Business: Nothing Magical?
By GENE MARKSDASHBOARD
A weekly roundup of small-business developments.
What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week.
The Debt Ceiling: Spare Change Anyone?
As the debt ceiling deadline approaches, a new solution to the problem is floated: letting the Treasury Department mint a trillion-dollar coin. A Republican congressman tries to thwart the idea, but the White House didn’t rule it out. Felix Salmon explains why it won’t happen: “What we’re talking about here has a kind of cold war mutually-assured-destruction mentality.” Neil Irwin says the coin idea is “idiotic,” but says, “The fact that it is idiotic is kind of the point.” Edward D. Kleinbard thinks that issuing scrip could be another workaround.
Outlook: Nothing Magical
A popular small-business sentiment index continues to register low readings, and a Staples study finds that many small-business owners are feeling overworked. But according to another study, most small-business owners are excited about the year’s prospects. A new survey from Visa finds that the top areas of concern include the cost of health insurance, attracting new customers and rising taxes. Adam Ozimek believes there is nothing magicalabout small businesses: “We would be better off if people would stop romanticizing small businesses and instead focused on the outcomes that really matter, like economic growth and unemployment.” Sam Barry and Kathi Kamen Goldmark say that the Soup Nazi is one of the six types of business owners.
The Economy: Shoddy Data Read more…
Business Owners Reflect on Small Victories — and the Dangers of Growth
By ADRIANA GARDELLA
SHE OWNS IT
Portraits of women entrepreneurs.
In my last post, She Owns It business groupmembers looked back on what it took to survive 2012 and talked about their goals for the New Year. This post continues that conversation.
Deirdre Lord, who owns the Megawatt Hour, said her company has come a long way since it began operating in December 2011. Back then, it offered just one product to help its commercial and industrial clients manage, track, and forecast their energy usage and expenses. But Ms. Lord said the company learned more about its customers’ needs through conversations that provided important feedback. “It’s not one-size-fits-all,” she said. As a result, the company now offers three products. Read more…
Drilling Down: Andrew Sullivan Decides to Start His Own Business
By GENE MARKSDASHBOARD
A weekly roundup of small-business developments.
This week’s Dashboard roundup of small-business news includes a link to a news article about Andrew Sullivan’s decision to leave The Daily Beast and move his popular blog, The Dish, to his own, subscription-based site. Mr. Sullivan writes about politics, the economy, business and culture, but is he ready to be a small-business owner? It seems he’s off to a good start, with more than 16,000subscribers already signed up — delivering almost half a million dollars in revenue almost instantly. We decided to ask him a few questions as he enters the world of entrepreneurship.
Q.
Do you have a business plan?
A.
Yes: to make enough money so we can do The Dish without relying on a sugar daddy or ads.
Read more…
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Selling a Business? It’s the Details That Count
By JOSH PATRICKCREATING VALUE
Are you getting the most out of your business?
When we last left Holly Hunter, she had sold her business. She had received her down payment but the following payments had stopped after about a year. And it was obvious she had made some mistakes.
While Ms. Hunter’s mistakes are easy to spot in retrospect, it’s also easy to understand how sellers fall into these traps. She was ready to move on. She thought she had a good deal. She was paid about a third of her selling price of $1.4 million in cash and the rest was held as a seller’s note. And for about a year, things went well, at least on the surface. Read more…
Why the Founder of a Start-Up Chose to Give Up Control
By JOHN GROSSMANN
Last week, we published a case study about a start-up founded by a young Australian expatriate who faced a difficult choice — just how difficult was revealed by the scores of conflicting reader comments that poured in to this blog. The choice belonged to Jacqui Rosshandler, who was about to run out of money: she could mothball her breath freshener business, Eatwhatever, and find a job, or she could accept the financial lifeline offered by Arthur Shorin, longtime owner of the Topps Company, who had sold his company and was nurturing start-ups.
It was Mr. Shorin’s terms that made the choice difficult. He wanted 75 percent of Ms. Rosshandler’s company, Jacquii L.L.C. In return, he offered a $250,000 infusion of capital; a job with his New York company, Artuitive; and the opportunity to earn back 15 percent of the business if certain financial goals were met — which would bring her to 40 percent ownership of a company that had been all hers.
In a recent interview, condensed and edited below, Ms. Rosshandler explained why she said yes to Mr. Shorin’s offer last February — and also responded to some of those reader comments
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