Business Plan | Funding Roadmap Startup Blog

Rethinking Preemptive Disaster Planning: How Technology Can Help FEMA / SBA Lend to and Save More Small Businesses After a Disaster

On July 7, 2011, In Business Plan, By joe

The Problem

In states struck by natural disasters, tens of thousands of small businesses have been damaged or gone in an instant! This has caused unprecedented challenges to the public and private mechanisms designed to address small business access to capital and community recovery

Nothing but the shirt on their backs: Affected business owners are too often left without the necessary documentation or information for FEMA/SBA to process their claims and applications after a disaster.

The longer it takes for a small business person to painstakingly re-construct their documentation, the more likely it is that they will give up and the JOBS they created and their tax revenues will be lost forever.

Look at the facts: SBA and the Department of Labor statistics indicate over 40% of businesses that experience a major fire or natural disaster never reopen and over 50% that do fail within two years.

Preemptive Disaster Planning tools for a FEMA/SBA loan need to be accessible on websites such as http://www.preparemybusiness.org/ and http://www.ready.gov/ to provide a way for small business people to beprepared for an SBA Disaster Loan, as opposed to downloadable PDF list.

Why we need to solve this problem now

Mitigate the economc impact: Responsive and prepared government agencies can mitigate the economic impact of disasters.

Businesses that reopen quickly after a disaster realize increased business revenue, can put people back to work, create new jobs, and provide much needed sales, property and payroll tax for the impacted communities. Early successes are also critical to boosting morale during recovery efforts and can have a substantial positive effect on the community rebuilding effort.

The technology solution

Make it easy, make it available: We have the technology to solve this problem now and increase the success rate of rebuilding American small businesses and towns long before they may need it.

It’s called the http://fundingroadmap.com , a standardized private label licensed cloud-based SBA and GAAP compliant, transparent multiple choice business plan and due diligence reporting system and repository, where all information required by the SBA for a disaster loan is included and can be retrieved from anywhere at any time.

See the list here: https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/InfoNeeded.aspx as required by the SBA.

Cloud-based: Fundingroadmap technology can instantly play a very important role in preparing entrepreneurs and small business owners ahead of time so they can compile and protect financial documents and information in an SBA compliant standardized reporting system that is ready in an emergency for the process of applying for FEMA/ SBA small business loans and other necessary capital.

Completing a Funding Roadmap document enables a business to look ahead, allocate resources, take key steps, meet challenges, solve problems, and embrace opportunities. It provides a place to compile facts, upload and store securely online all of the answers to the mandatory questions and the documents lenders and investors require during the review process for capital.

Keep moving forward: We all recognize the importance of a plan for startups. Less obvious is the need for established companies to maintain long term effective plans that are flexible enough to adjust to changing challenges and goals and can be made instantly available for review by FEMA/ SBA online should an emergency strike.

Improve staff efficiency

Go virtual: Instant access to this critical information will allow FEMA counselors to assist the recovery efforts of those FEMA staff on the ground in the disaster states, remotely and quickly helping determine the current and future status of a company.

Go mobile: This information is accessible on mobile devices and provides instant access for review by investors, lenders, SBA/FEMA or insurance companies, helping small businesses back to productivity much more quickly than current methods. Fundingroadmap helps claims processors to quickly and accurately determine resources to be distributed to claimants after a disaster with complete security and transparency.

You can learn and see more on this short webinar below we presented with our partners the ASBDC:

http://asbdc-us.org/Resources/Webinars.html

The participants’ journey

Keep everyone calm, make the process smoother: Post-disaster processing staff, instead of commiserating with victims and giving them a nearly impossible to-do list of required documents, could instead be receiving applicants armed with everything they need. Claims and loans could be processed in hours, days or weeks, instead of months, years or never.

Bring back jobs: Providing a faster more efficient and successful process for small business owners desperately trying to access capital, to quickly recover after a disaster strikes, rebuilds a community faster, bringing back jobs, community morale and tax revenues.

By implementing a new technologically advanced standardized reporting system, governments can reach victims faster and farther away, engage more easily, and deliver a more successful experience while creating quantifiable results.

This holistic, integrated approach to data management empowers everyone involved and will revolutionize the government’s ability to preserve the businesses of the hard working entrepreneurs who have built this great nation.

By adopting the Fundingroadmap, government can solve the problems as outlined above quickly, and systemically ensure better results.

Funding the World Forward on Funding Roadmap

On May 2, 2011, In Business Plan, By joe

“Funding the World Forward” is a way of sharing funding success with other startups. We want to inspire our clients who get funded, launch a new venture, or continue to grow their already established businesses, to take some of their good fortune and “pay it forward,” in the form of a small investment/donation, a mutually beneficial initial contract, or deeply discounted necessary resources to a local or interesting startup or non-profit, -we leave it up to participants to contribute whatever their new venture can afford.

Here’s how it works.

Register your company on our http://startupsacrossamerica.com Marketplace with a free listing. Include the amount of money you’re trying to raise and where you are located, or sign in to your company’s Funding Roadmap. Bring your A-game to convey the compelling essence of your proposition in your Executive Summary. If you’re a subscriber to the Funding Roadmap Hone your executive summary and upload your video pitch to get across. Fill out the full Funding Roadmap and be ready for serious investors and lenders when they come calling. Whether you’re a subscriber or a free lister, make it exciting for people to invest in you and the public to vote for your idea.

Use social networking to get the word out.

Share your business idea with your friends, followers and fans, let the world know about your vision and innovative business. Use Twitter and Facebook to spread the word and learn more about your company. Encourage friends, followers and fans to vote for you on the marketplace. Impress investors with how the public feels about your idea and the transparent and compliant information you choose to present to them within your Funding Roadmap .

People love to be the first to discover the next big thing. Their vote for you helps them to be a part of your success. Once you are funded you’ll be aware of a roster of great startups to whom your newly funded company can donate a small percentage of your funding or samples from your inventory, or special discounts for other businesses or non profits that need your product or service. Everyone can recommend and vote for other startups who might receive some of your or others’ largesse. This is how we all “Fund the World Forward”.

Simply register a free listing or subscribe to the Funding Roadmap, post on the Marketplace, then let the networking begin!

Protecting Crucial Business Information in the Face of Natural Disasters

On March 15, 2011, In Business Plan, By joe

The awesome destruction of the Japanese quake reminds us once again that natural disasters can strike at any time. As Katrina made so clear, small business owners are vulnerable to the loss of critical information needed to apply for FEMA and SBA backed disaster loans. The Funding Roadmap provides instant access to this data on the cloud. The need to painstakingly reconstruct lost information slows the rebuilding process, sometimes by years. Savvy entrepreneurs and consultants can now utilize this technology to remove these this obstacles.

We have no influence over Mother Nature but we do have the ability to diminish the amount of pain and suffering that follows in the aftermath of her wrath. When time is of essence and deadlines loom to return applications for recovery dollars, the Funding Roadmap can help speed access to capital quickly and assure the long term survival of vulnerable small businesses. Funding Roadmap securely stores every necessary fact and document for instant access by SBA and FEMA reviewers, to fast track the funding process.

Please watch the linked video and see how easy it is to take advantage of this crucial technology.

View mini-webinar video: http://ginormous.web.officelive.com/FundingRoadMap.aspx

Tagged with: Business Planning on cloud • protect business data during disasters

It’s not just about money anymore- Funding Roadmap helps leverage your social media networking to add valuation and credibility to your startup.

On February 14, 2011, In Business Plan, By admin

Startup pages are popping up all over Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube. Gone are the days of writing a business plan then hoping some friend of a friend will discover you and make an investment or introduce you to an angel or VC. Today’s social media gives you a means of demonstrating market support to investors through the fans, followers, and friends who support your innovative business ideas and the developments and progress you’re making along the way. Investors are looking for a groundswell of excitement, a fan base, potential traction, and you can show it to them through Funding Roadmap.

Now you can demonstrate this support to investors in real time. With tens of thousands of twitter followers, credible linkedIn business associates or the enthusiastic comments left on your facebook page, investors can see that you have the ability to influence and inspire potential customers. The involvement of your team with other respected business leaders, mentors, and associates is reflected in social media and helps to bolster confidence among potential investors and lenders.

Helping you capitalize on the power of social media is just one the of the ways the Funding Roadmap –a web 3.0 business planning and due diligence platform on the cloud- can provide transparent information so investors and bankers can make better informed and faster funding decisions.

Networked human capital has become an asset category like any other and can be considered in the valuation of your company. We make it accessible as a click-through for our subscribers to use as part of a truly transparent and complete presentation to investors and lenders on what you have accomplished on the way to realizing your goals. By integrating these networked groups into our cloud based reporting system, reviewing investors and lenders can immediately view a company fan page, youtube video or twitter or linkedIn page as part of the discovery and due diligence process.

Take advantage of Business Planning reinvented for Web 3.0

Explore it here: http://fundingroadmap.com/

Try it here for free: http://www.fundingroadmap.com/free-trial.php

Are business plan templates, PDFs and workbooks more confusing than informative (and do they effectively help fund and launch businesses in today’s information environment)?

On September 16, 2010, In Business Plan, By admin

With Funding Roadmap’s reinvention of the traditional business plan, (including templates and other arbitrary structuring tools), entrepreneurs, investors and lenders are now able to work and present in a cloud-based “smart” environment to plan, collaborate, share, evaluate –and fund- their plans and ideas.

Funding Roadmap is a virtual business plan and due diligence reporting system with video streaming for elevator pitches or other information. It integrates with loan applications and is accessible anytime from anywhere. The Funding Roadmap also provides an ongoing working plan, helping entrepreneurs to run their businesses with the objectives established during the planning process, updatable with ease as the enterprise progresses.

Our multiple choice platform provides comprehensive, compliant information and unique structuring guidance for the entire business planning and due diligence process in a transparent online format only available in the patent pending Funding Roadmap, but which can be private labeled and distributed through any website. Once completed, entrepreneurs use it to present to friends and family, angels or VCs or to be discovered online by investors globally, and also serves as part of their submission for an SBA or other small business loan.

Funding Roadmap compliments business start-up curriculum and courses and business planning books, but is much more efficient, effective and user friendly than the templates and workbooks that usually come with these classes or are available online. Those alternatives require students and entrepreneurs to redo their entire plan into other formats or software like Power Point, excel, and Word to eventually create a presentable document. Then they are challenged to find investors to send or present it to while it sits on a shelf collecting dust. Then just when they get that rare opportunity to show it to an investor they realize it’s outdated and needs a major overhaul. This process is crippling innovation and access to capital for so many talented entrepreneurs with their brilliant ideas who end up on the sidelines when our country and economy desperately need them in the game, launching successful businesses and creating jobs.

Funding Roadmap’s live virtual nature is a boon to coaches, instructors, mentors, SBA, SCORE, SBDC and Chamber personnel who up ‘til now have been conduits for these templates, PDFs and how-to workbooks. These business development and counseling professionals understand the challenges of planning and funding new businesses, and welcome the flexible and confidential collaboration and application opportunities: online, over the phone or one-on-one.

We can file a patent online, we can file our taxes online, it’s time to plan a business and get access to capital online.

http://fundingroadmap.com

Tagged with: Business Coaches • Business Plan • Business Planning • Collaboration. Entrepreneurs. online platform • Startups

Grassroots Financing: Expanding the friends and family funding circle

On September 10, 2010, In Business Plan, Innovation, By admin

This Yes! article http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/bypass-the-bank-local-investors-for-local-businesses
by Stacy Mitchell illustrates ways to fund new businesses that are supported by local communities, but not by their local banks. Some of these entrepreneurs are expanding the envelope of what constitutes friends and family, and coming up with unexpected ways to raise tens of-thousands of dollars. Others are sourcing their supplies from the surrounding area, thereby building synergies and loyalty.

The Funding Roadmap planning platform is the perfect vehicle for sharing an entrepreneur’s vision within an expanded circle of support.

http://fundingroadmap.com/

Tagged with: community financing • Entrepreneurs • friends and family

Startup Funds Come Mainly from Friends and Family

On August 27, 2010, In Business Plan, By admin

As the WSJ has reported in this piece (Keeping capital close to home The Wall Street Journal (8/6)), there are good reasons to look for funding in friendlier terrain:
1. Banks aren’t lending. Even with SBA guarantees.
2. VCs and Angels often want too great a return and too much control. Entrepreneurs may want to develop their business more fully to be in a better bargaining position for when they go to these sources.
3. Friends and family are more likely to be in the corner of “their” entrepreneur.

Using friends and family money creates perhaps even more of a moral imperative to plan and manage funds responsibly. Whether friendly investors are demanding or not, the entrepreneurs should be fully prepared to succeed through sound planning.

Time and again, small loans or investments have created seemingly disproportionate numbers of jobs. See this article about the impact of SBA “Express Loans” made through Sams’ Club: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/business/05loan.html in which entrepreneur Michael Golata secures $10,000 and is able to hire three people.

In 2009 there were approximately 7.8 million millionaires, and 1 million “ultra high net worth individuals” with assets of more than $5 million in the U.S. Certainly it is time for these people to stop sitting on their hands and seek out the investment opportunities in their communities and in their fields of interest to benefit themselves and the economy.

We need to usher in an era of activist investors concerned with the bottom line, yes, but also with the well-being of their communities and the growth and health of the American economy. Startups Across America is a free state-by-state interactive map of potential investments for friends and family –and other- investors. Visit at http://startupsacrossamerica.com

Funding Roadmap is the cloud-based business planning tool that takes advantage of the connectivity, collaboration and networking abilities afforded by current technology. Look at and Subscribe to this groundbreaking platform at http://fundingroadmap.com/

When the going gets as weird as it is now, entrepreneurs and investors need to find each other and get going. Together.

By Reinventing the Business Plan, Funding Roadmap Sets a New Industry Standard in the Clouds

On March 26, 2010, In Business Plan, By admin

“I’ve seen thousands of information technology innovations,” said Richard Caruso, “and as an Ernst and Young ‘Entrepreneur of the Year,’ an annual competition judge, creative finance entrepreneur, and developer of Mentorsphere, I review countless executive summaries and business plans. Through this process I’ve encountered probably every variation in business plan templates, formats, technologies, and technical service providers. Unismart Capital Software’s Funding Roadmap Business Plan and Due Diligence Reporting System is a standardized, focused plan development approach and I see it as having the potential to become the next basis for business planning, due diligence, and collaboration.

I look forward to working with Ruth Hedges and the entire PELT100 Pilot Project UnleashPA with the Innovation America team, as we incorporate all of the revolutionary technology provided by www.Mentorsphere.com, www.Fundingroadmap.com, and the Adreamz Institute.”

The Funding Roadmap is setting a new industry standard with their reinvention of the business plan. Ruth Hedges, Unismart Capital Software CEO says, “We realized the limitations of the business planning model, looked at the accelerating social networking environment, and the lights went on!” Now the Funding Roadmap is being promoted by the Intuit Small Business Community, the SBDCNet and Start-up Weekend, whose founders Marc Nager and Clint Nelson are enthusiastic: “Here is an awesome way to collaborate with your peers while aligning your strategy, setting goals and finalizing your vision.” Users are now located in countries around the world.

Back at the turn of the 21st century, during the dot com heyday, the Unismart Capital Software group, then an incubator down the street from Idea Lab in Pasadena CA, was helping entrepreneurs get up and running, and find some initial working capital. In the process of assisting people with their business plans, offerings and infrastructure, they were struck by the limitations and arbitrariness of the generally accepted business planning format

Worse, many creative, passionate idea people didn’t know enough about business to realistically structure their visions, and the people who invested in them didn’t’ know how to properly evaluate the propositions. Business plans themselves were either over-simplified daydreams, or ponderous static tomes built upon dubious suppositions and hard to navigate. Then the bubble burst, leaving a world of would be dot-comers and investors washed out.

By then, the Unismart Capital Software group had started addressing these problems by creating the Funding Roadmap platform, “a vehicle that can serve a variety of passengers,” says Hedges. “Because it’s easy and fast, it helps entrepreneurs at any level of development to create sound, realistic proposals, benchmark their steps and keep it current. Because it’s cloud-based, professionals, partners and mentors can collaborate effectively anytime from anywhere. Because it’s licensable, it can be adopted as a custom branded platform by banks, investors, start-up and business networks and organizations.”

So while big-time investment behavior was speeding us toward the cliff and the fall of 2008, Unismart Capital Software was refining its technology and rendering the old way of doing business planning obsolete.

“Now we find our country held hostage by a paralyzed investment and lending community,” says Hedges, “validating the urgency for a business planning transformation: into a standardized, comprehensive and compliant online reporting system where reviewers and institutions large and small can analyze and process applications for funding much more efficiently.”

According to Raj Date, executive director of Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, there will be a lending shortfall for small businesses of as much as $250 billion to $500 billion as the economy recovers. Mr. Date projected small businesses will likely begin feeling the crunch by mid-year, and it will last for the next two or three years. “The demand for working capital is going to increase, and it’s exactly at a time when nobody has the finance company or bank capacity to be able to provide it,” he said. Total lending by U.S. banks fell 7.4%, the steepest drop since 1942.

“We’ve seen that investors and lenders can’t efficiently process the demand for capital with old paper and template business plans, which reinforces their tendency to go with people they already know. Or more often with no one at all, crippling innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit necessary for an economic recovery.” says Hedges, ”just because we have the steepest drop in lending since 1942 doesn’t mean we should be using business planning processes like we still live in 1942.”

“But our SBA and GAAP compliant virtual platform changes everything,” Hedges continues. “Now entrepreneurs can build and maintain a live virtual document, they can share it globally, it’s immune to natural or everyday catastrophes like hurricane Katrina or the loss of your laptop, and it’s a green way to conduct the process –no paper.” Funding Roadmap also provides a virtual marketplace where subscribers can post their proposals and stream their passion and excitement in a video elevator pitch, allowing for controlled access, viewable on mobile devices, with the ability to broadcast to (or be discovered by) a global pool of potential investors and partners. Its Due Diligence Report saves many hours of expensive closing time. Hedges adds, “The platform opens up possibilities for funding and collaboration in ways old fashioned business plans could never do and allows us the privilege and honor to bring our technology to organizations across the country and participate in projects like the PELT100’s UnleashPA Pilot Program in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

Tagged with: Business plans • Due Diligence Reporting System • Entrepreneurs • information technology • Small Business