One of the most difficult considerations for an entrepreneur is the risk/return analysis of the potential business venture. An incomplete or poorly-reasoned risk/return analysis on the part of the entrepreneur may lead a savvy financial investor to turn down a potential investment in the business in favor of an apparently less risky opportunity. Even in … Continue reading 7 Deadly Sins of Startups from a Valuation Perspective: No Risk/Return Analysis

Planning for too little growth and trying to play catch up when growth exceeds expectations creates a number of challenges, such as the need to expand operations and capacity and the resulting requirement for capital expenditures and potentially, additional financial resources. However, planning for too much growth is just as bad, if not worse, in … Continue reading 7 Deadly Sins of Startups from a Valuation Perspective: Unrealistic Growth Expectations

While many startup entrepreneurs have experience in a corporate setting, few have had experience actually running an entire operation on their own. In a corporate setting, there are already established relationships, financial resources, and managerial depth across other key functional areas of the business. Usually, in a corporate setting, the functional areas are also managed … Continue reading 7 Deadly Sins of Startups from a Valuation Perspective: Lack of Startup Managerial Experience

Too often, entrepreneurs believe the business will quickly generate enough cashflow to sustain operations and, thus, enter into the new business with insufficient financial resources. They may try to operate on a shoestring budget until the business reaches cashflow break-even out of necessity due to a lack of access to additional financial resources. This may … Continue reading 7 Deadly Sins of Startups from a Valuation Perspective: Operating On Shoestring Budget/No Working Capital

A key part of the financial projections and business plan is for the entrepreneur to conduct a break-even analysis. The traditional break-even analysis reveals what level of sales a business must achieve to cover both the variable costs (cost of goods sold) and the fixed costs (overhead), resulting in $0 profitability. Beyond the break-even point, … Continue reading 7 Deadly Sins of Startups from a Valuation Perspective: No Break-even Analysis

Along the lines of the first deadly sin, the lack of a formal business plan is also common among small businesses and startups. New entrepreneurs often mistakenly believe that opening a business and putting a sign outside is enough. It is usually the business plan that segregates viable businesses from an entrepreneur’s hobby that they … Continue reading 7 Deadly Sins of Startups from a Valuation Perspective: No Formal Business Plan

The value of most businesses is the sum of the present value of the cash flows expected to be generated in the future. Amazingly, many entrepreneurs and new business owners are unable to provide a set of financial projections or budgets and the underlying assumptions. Many believe that growth of the business will just happen … Continue reading 7 Deadly Sins of Startups from a Valuation Perspective: No Financial Projections