Resumen Ejecutivo ¿mas importante que el Plan de Negocios?

Un post interesante de Mariano Ruani

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El resumen ejecutivo es una de las herramientas indispensables a la hora de buscar capital. De todas las partes del Plan de Negocios, el Resumen Ejecutivo es la parte mas importante. ¿Por que? Porque muchos inversores es lo único que leerán!!!

El resumen ejecutivo por si mismo no te conseguirá el dinero pero si puede evitar que lo consigas.

Si no es lo suficientemente atrapante, claro, conciso, probablemente no sigan leyendo. Y no se enterarán del fantástico equipo, de la espectacular oportunidad de negocios, ni de las detalladas proyecciones financieras.

El objetivo del resumen ejecutivo es lograr que el inversor siga leyendo, que se entusiasme. Si no logra acaparar la atención y el interés el plan corre un serio riesgo de ser descartado.

El resumen ejecutivo es importante pues será la primera impresión que tenga el inversor del emprendedor y su emprendimiento (si es que no lo conoció de la mano de un Elevator Pitch)


¿Que NO es el Resumen Ejecutivo?
El resumen ejecutivo no es una introducción.
El resumen ejecutivo no es un prólogo.
El resumen ejecutivo no es una breve descripción del negocio y sus productos.
El resumen ejecutivo no es un índice, no digas que hay un análisis de competencia dentro, incluí la conclusión (si es relevante).
El Resumen Ejecutivo no es una recolección de puntos interesantes.

El Resumen ejecutivo es un PLAN DE NEGOCIOS EN MINIATURA!!

El resumen ejecutivo no es un “cut and paste” del Plan de Negocios. Si bien el contenido se desprende del plan, la redacción debe ser clara y fluida. No deben ser párrafos aislados cortados de distintos lugares del Plan.

Tampoco es el lugar para hacer autobombo. El resumen ejecutivo es un documento de “venta” y por lo tanto debe ser tentador. Pero si te dejas caer en la tentación de exagerar o tomar solo los aspectos positivos, el inversor lo detectará y te jugará en contra. Perderá confianza en toda la evaluación del negocio. El resumen debe ser realista, todos los negocios tienen riesgos, no hay que negarlos sino saber como enfrentarlos.


PLAN DE NEGOCIOS EN MINIATURA!!
El resumen es un plan de negocios en miniatura por lo tanto debe tocar todos los aspectos importantes del negocio. Debido a la escasez de espacio habrá cosas que pueden quedar afuera, pero no debe ser ninguno de los aspectos claves, para cada tipo de negocio esto puede variar.

Debe permitir captar la lógica del negocio, su magnitud, la estructura necesaria para llevarlo a cabo.


El Resumen Ejecutivo como documento independiente
El resumen ejecutivo es parte del Plan de Negocios pero también tiene vida propia. Puede y debe ser un documento independiente.

Como parte del plan de negocios no debería exceder de una página y media.

Generalmente cuando se enfrentan a un inversor profesional, a alguien que ve cientos de negocios al año lo primero que le pedirá es el resumen ejecutivo. En una primera instancia no leerá el Plan de Negocios.

En Estados Unidos usan mucho el One Pager, Resumen Ejecutivo de una página que incluye todo. Acá tienen un ejemplo en inglés.
¿Ven que entra todo en una página?.;-)

En el Club de Business Angels del IAE, como un primer contacto les pedimos un Resumen Ejecutivo Ampliado. Debería entrar todo en 3 hojitas. Acá se pueden bajar el modelo en Word.

Incluye:

• Introducción: a la izquierda un cuadrito con socios actuales, industria, Alianzas, objetivos financieros, inversores actuales, uso de los fondos.
• Descripción del Negocio: Modelo de negocio y principales características.
• Historia de la compañía: hitos importantes desde sus comienzos, en caso de Start-up, como nace el emprendimiento y en que estado se encuentra.
• Dirección/Equipo: roles, experiencia y formación del equipo.
• Productos/Servicios: descripción, que los hace diferentes de los existentes, que necesidad cubren.
• Tecnología/Conocimientos necesarios: qué conocimientos son necesarios para este emprendimiento, con cuáles cuentan actualmente, como piensan acceder a los que le falten.
• Mercado: tamaño del mercado, principales características. Evolución y tendencia. Participación a alcanzar.
• Canales de Distribución: de que manera los productos llegarán al mercado objetivo.
• Competencia: fortalezas y debilidades de los principales competidores, que nos diferencia de ellos.
• Resumen de Proyecciones financieras
• Algunos indicadores: Monto de la inversión, Exposición máxima, Mes de exposición máxima, mes del punto de equilibrio, TIR (Tasa Interna de Retorno) del proyecto y TIR para el inversor
  

¿En que momento escribir el resumen ejecutivo?
Si bien es lo primero que leerá el inversor se debe escribir al final una vez que el Plan este casi listo. Debe incorporar todos los puntos importantes incluyendo las proyecciones financieras. Dejarlo para el final no quiere decir hacerlo a último momento y a las apuradas, hay que dedicarle el tiempo necesario debido a su importancia.


Please, revisar la redacción, la ortografía. No olviden que es la primera impresión que tendrá el inversor. No olviden que es un documento descriptivo sino de venta, pero que debe ser realista!

Are you an entrepreneur?

Les dejo un post para que opinen: ¿agregarian algun punto extra o bonus?, ¿sacarian alguno?

You might be. Inside you there just might be an entrepreneur waiting to tear out.

Here are the top 10 ways to know if you’re an entrepreneur. (And for those of you that are already entrepreneurs, you can nod your head as we go along…Or disagree with me! Or add your own points!)

1. You’re passionate. Passion counts for a whole lot when it comes to being an entrepreneur. Without it, you’re dead before you even start.
2. You’re always looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurs are opportunity-seekers. Everything is an opportunity. Failures are even an opportunity.
3. You always think to yourself, “I can do that better.” You might know nothing about the retail business, but every time you walk into a big box store you have a thousand ideas on how to make it a better experience. Combined with your eye for opportunity, you can’t help but believe there’s a better way of doing things.
4. You want to live your work. Work isn’t a means to an end. It isn’t a way of collecting a paycheck and going home. You’re dreaming of something more than that, where you can live and breathe work. Not because you want to work more, you want to work smarter. You want your work to mean something. You want to experience something more than shuffling to the office at 8am, leaving at 5pm and forgetting what happened for that day.
5. You’re dreaming miles ahead while focused on what you’re doing right now. You’re a dreamer, but not a daydreamer. You’re dreaming a plan ahead while working constantly at achieving success on the details today. You’re a big-thinker but you don’t lack the ability to focus on details. Accomplish the little tasks is moving the ball forward for you…towards the big dream.
6. You’re an ego-maniac. You look at your boss and shrug. You know things could be better, and you believe strongly in your own abilities. You’ve got a big, healthy ego. It’s not unwarranted, but it’s not proven just yet either. Still, ego is important - because it’ll help you take risks, power forward and succeed.
7. You’re prepared to say, “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.” Your ego doesn’t preclude you from admitting that you don’t know something. Too many people fake their way through life, or duck their head when they don’t know the answer. Your response is to jump into it, learn what you can, move quickly and get some damn answers.
8. You’re a strategist. You’re not just thinking about tomorrow. You’re thinking much further ahead than that. This is a trait you share with a lot of people - career ladder-climbers and “cover your ass” employees. The difference is that you’re also a dreamer, and strategy + dreaming is very powerful indeed.
9. You’re a builder. You like to create things. You don’t care about recognition, praise from your boss, awards and money as much as you care about building something remarkable, and having others enjoy it and benefit from it.
10. You want control. You watch the world spin, shake and bumble around you and want to harness that more. You watch your boss and co-workers shuffle around each and every day and you want to rattle some chains. You want control. Seth Godin calls them torchbearers. You want to bear the torch.

How To Generate Targeted Site Traffic Without Search Engines

Les dejo algo de informacion que encontre por ahi, esta es mas que interesante para leer detenidamente y tener en cuenta, sobre todo para promocionarse y ahorrar plata.

“If search engines were never invented or they ceased to exist tomorrow, how would you build traffic to your website in a searchless world?”

That’s the first question each of us search-addicted webmasters should ask ourselves every morning. While search is really hard to beat in terms of cost-of-traffic and its targeting, don’t leave these other options out of your Web Promotion Playbook. Learn how to thrive on the Internet without having to worry about the unpredictable algorithm changes of search engine algorithms and you’ve created a truly defensible audience.

In no particular order, each of these methods of engaging the Internet will deliver to you targeted, monetizable web traffic:

1. Blogging. There are a hundred good reasons as to why you should be blogging, but in terms of building a web audience, the two best reasons are A) It gives you near immediate time-to-market with your message and B) It’s a great way to put a face behind your message. Popular blog services like Technorati can deliver great traffic. If we take our search engine blinders off, blog search engines are now reaching high enough adoption rates to send over great traffic, too. Ok, search blinders back on. Don’t forget to be an active and valuable commenter on the blogs of other key influencers in your business.

2. Podcasting. I don’t have any specific stats on podcasting, but just ask yourself, “Do I or anybody I know listen to podcasts?” I’m betting the answer is, “Yes!”, and the number is higher than it was a few years ago. Like blogging, Podcasting is a great way to control your message and bring it to market quickly.

3. Link buying. Search engines turn up their noses at link buying, but I have been buying links long before they were used to juice link popularity scoring. A good link can deliver tons of targeted traffic. Some Wikipedia links deliver way more benefit from their traffic than they ever did from their link authority. See: Text Link Ads.

4. TV Buys. It turns out TV time really isn’t that expensive in local markets. Check out Spotrunner. You can buy great air time for a whole lot less than you probably expected.

5. Web Directories. This is how the Internet used to be organized and the genesis of Yahoo. While most fly-by-night directories won’t ever send you enough traffic to merit the fee, take a look at Aviva Directory’s List of the Strongest Directories. Work your way down this list and you’ll see targeted traffic.

6. Ad Networks. One of the things I always try to do is buy ad inventory on any pages that rank above me. Many of the most trafficked sites on the Internet sell ad space or let ad network services like AdBrite or IndustryBrains resell the space. There is gold in some of them hills!

7. Online Forums. Like web directories, online forums can trace their history back to the earliest days of Internet traffic. But like blogging, it’s a great way to personalize your interaction with your audience while building traffic.

8. Social Media. Aside from search engines, this is the motherload of traffic. Whether you’re building a large Myspace and Facebook presence, establishing yourself as a thoughtleader on linked in, or seeing your content promoted on Digg, Netscape, and Reddit…this is probably the largest yield of any audience building effort

9. Email List Rentals. This is a huge driver of traffic in the B2B and direct marketing worlds. If you can get the right cross section of traffic in a list, it’s very profitable. Just make sure the provider of the list is in compliance with all the laws regarding this activity.

10. Webinars/Video. Webinars just might be the hottest audience building tool in the B2B world. Like podcasting, you can really go the extra mile in personalizing the message and interaction with your audience. Video communities like YouTube are a great source of traffic. What the audience lacks in buying intent, it makes up for in the ability to take your content viral. See: LonelyGirl15.

11. Online Press Releases. Maybe the oldest and most resilient of the traditional media promotional tools, the online version is also effective. You’d be surprised how many news outlets rely on newswires. Take advantage of that through online press release agencies like PRWeb.com.

12. PR Firm. A PR firm won’t pull a rabbit out of a hat, but the good ones are amazingly good at creating inertia behind your product or service. Their Rolodexes will make it easier to do everything else on this list.

13. Event Media Sponsorships. If you are a news blogger…or your site can pass as a news site…this is an amazing source of traffic and branding that most online publishers have overlooked. Just about every major conference, seminar series, or symposium is looking for media sponsorships. You’ll get a valuable link on the event website plus you can market to eventgoers with other materials in the registration bags, booths at the show, and email blasts. The results of doing this in the B2B world are nothing short of amazing.

14. Sponsored Reviews. There are a million bloggers out there who are looking for topics to write about and get paid. The concept of the sponsored review was designed by firms like ReviewMe and PayPerPost to solve this problem. Many of the Technorati Top 100 blogs can send you thousands of visitors.

15. Syndicate Your Content. There are thousands of other businesses out there who are unable or unwilling to create their own content. For example, many Fortune 500’s display third-party content to aid their audience in buying decisions. There are also a ton of article sites with active audiences and/or good traffic. Make sure you require a link back to your original source, though. You know…to establish canonicalization for those search engines we are trying to ignore.

16. Streaking. I may only be halfway joking here because I don’t think I knew about Golden Palace before a dozen of their best Brits went Frank the Tank on various sporting events I had the misfortune of watching. If there’s any chance I can convince just one web marketing team to adopt this strategy, this is me hoping that ends up being the folks who handle Jessica Alba’s online promotion. That is one server crashing I can guarantee.

Like me? Hire me!

Les dejo una encuesta de Fortune Small Business para tener en cuenta: que es mejor, o que habría que hacer, la verdad es que no sabría decirles. Todavía no tengo empleados y mis socios fueron elegidos por skills, diversidad y por tener un común denominador (se podría decir: likability).

Espero que les sirva, y cualquier comentario que tengan al respecto, suma. Creo que es uno de los puntos en los emprendedores suelen tener menos experiencia.

Willy Loman was right: It's important to be well-liked. At least that's the finding of a recent survey by NFI Research, which found that managers at small businesses are more likely to make hiring and promotion decisions based on personality than on such insignificant factors as, oh, skill level.

When hiring and/or promoting in your business, which of the following do you rely on?

Personality/likability: 64.8%

Skills: 58.6%

Track record: 53.9%

Knowledge of your organization: 18.8%

Diversity: 14.1%

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Web 2.0: Top 25 Apps to Grow your Business

Encontré este articulo sobre aplicaciones web 2.0 para emprendimientos. Algunas de las aplicaciones recomendadas las conozco, son útiles y fáciles de usar, las otras no se. Me resultó interesante la aplicación de "peer to peer lending", prestamos entre pares.

Aqui tienen el link y el artículo:

http://www.avivadirectory.com/entrepreneur-apps/?p=3

Are you doing a good job meeting the needs of your small business? Keeping a good handle on finances? Networking? Do you have a system for organizing your marketing strategy? Do you even have a marketing strategy?

If you are running a small business, you know that to be successful you need to be a jack-of-all-trades. The smart way to manage everything from company finances, to client relations, to marketing, is to use the right tools – tools that are simple enough that they won’t require you to spend a lot of time and money you don’t have setting them up.

In this guide we cover the 25 best web2.0 applications for entrepreneurs who are looking for simple, cheap, and effective solutions to solving some of the tasks facing their small business or startup. The 25 applications selected were chosen both on the basis of their usefulness for the individual small business manager as well as their effectiveness in providing community support and networking opportunities for users.

Finances, Money Management, Payments

You’re in business to make money. However, if you can’t manage your finances, payments, and assets, you’re going to find that expenses start to creep up, financing runs short, and your ability to plan for the future is nil. Thankfully, the following five apps are designed specifically to help you manage your finances. With these apps, you’ll know where every dime is spent and what you owe at all times, allowing you to start planning your company’s future rather than always trying to play catch up.

1. Prosper.
   
   Got a business idea but little or no capital? Prosper is a new type of peer lending service which brings individual lenders and small business borrowers together. Each loanee creates a profile, describes what the loan will be used for, and what interest rate they are able to pay. Lenders indicate how much they are offering, at what rates, and who they want to offer sums to. So your loan may come from multiple sources, or a single person. Alternatively, if you already have a group of investors you already know, such as friends and family, Prosper manages the transaction’s lifecycle for you. Regardless of whom you borrow from, Prosper takes a small percentage for managing each loan. For the entrepreneur looking for alternative financing, peer lending can be a great solution. The only downside, however, is that everyone knows your business, literally and figuratively.
2. Dimewise.
   
   Dimewise lets you record your purchases/expenses and categorizes them. Then, when you’re wondering where the heck last month’s budget went to, you can produce a pretty pie chart showing you exactly what you’re spending your money on. You can also set recurring expenses as well as track balances in one or more accounts, which will make it easier to predict what your future months’ total expenses will be. Of course, you could do much of this with a spreadsheet, but Dimewise lets you do it from anywhere with a web browser, and saves you the time of setting up macros.
3. NetworthIQ.
   
   NetworthIQ, winner of an SEOmoz web2.0 award, will help you keep track of your company’s finances as well as your personal net worth. It also includes a fun tool that lets you compare your income to other entrepreneurs of the same age or industry, so you can keep track of your company’s success relative to your peers.
4. Wesabe.
   
   Wesabe goes a step further than both Dimewise and NetworthIQ by integrating its financial organization and planning tools with your bank account. This allows you to complete a monthly accounting report and simultaneously use that report to manage and pay your bills. In addition to this added function, Wesabe also serves as a meeting point for other entrepreneurs to discuss financial advice. While this application won’t be robust enough to meet the needs of larger companies, for small startups Wesabe can serve as a one-stop finance resource.
5. Instacalc.
   
   Whether you’re rolling in the dough or just squeaking by, every entrepreneur has to crunch the numbers. There’s no easier tool to do long financial equations than instacalc, which will also give you a variety of charting options to display your figures. And if you need to go beyond basic algebra, calcoolate will help you add up all your moola in ways that would make your calculus teacher proud.

Timesheets, Invoicing, Billing

For a small business to succeed, managers need to maximize the amount of time they spend on developing the business, and try to minimize the time they spend on mundane tasks like creating timesheets and invoices. The following three web2.0 apps are all designed to help you cut the time you have to spend on these mundane tasks while simultaneously increasing your company’s accuracy and effectiveness in doing them.

6. FreshBooks.
   
   FreshBooks is an app designed with the web-based entrepreneur in mind. Not only does the program let you bill clients via email with professional-looking invoices, but clients can also pay you online via PayPal, Authorize.net, and other options through FreshBooks. The wide range of invoicing options is certainly enough for most small business owners, and because the generated billing reports the application generates can handle imported data, FreshBooks will work well with your current billing system.
7. Harvest.
   
   If after a long work day you often find yourself trying to wonder what exactly you did with all your time, both you and your small business would probably benefit from some time tracking. GetHarvest offers ten reasons why you should use their time tracking solution, including professional quality reports, Internet-based access, daily data backups, and privacy. Perhaps the most important feature is the application’s ability to analyze the hours worked by your entire staff, thus enabling you to identify company-wide inefficiencies.
8. SidejobTrack.
   
   SidejobTrack is billed as a software tool for the part-time independent contractor. If your startup involves providing services for a number of different clients, this all-in-one finance app is ideal for you. With SidejobTrack you can organize all the various jobs and services you’re performing, send estimates, do invoicing, tax reporting and even manage projects.

Communication and Collaboration

A common ingredient in every small company’s success is teamwork and communication. We’ve got both covered here with five web applications designed for conferencing, voice communication, text chat, team/project management, live customer support, and workspace sharing.

9. Campfire.
   
   The much celebrated product company 37 Signals has a suite of award-winning tools for collaboration and productivity: Campfire for group chat, Basecamp
   for collaboration and project management, and Backpack for organization (calendaring).Among these, the most useful tool for small business owners is Campfire. The application offers password-protected chat rooms to which you can invite clients, vendors, colleagues, and employees. These secured rooms are an excellent place to conduct negotiations that may involve sensitive company data without fear of having that information compromised.
10. Meebo.
    
    If you’ve used any of the text chat IM clients such as AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, or MSN Messenger (aka Windows Live Messenger), you’re aware of one fundamental problem: they don’t play nice together. If you have one contact on one IM and another contact using another service, how do you stay accessible to both of them? You could open a whole group of IM clients and chew up your free RAM memory, or you could use Meebo as a web-based bridge. For online companies where an increasing amount of business is conducted over IM clients, making yourself accessible to everyone through a bridging app like Meebo can mean the difference between success and failure.
11. Userplane.
    
    Userplane offers a suite of communication and conferencing tools, the most useful of which is called Presence. Presence is the new hot niche tool in telecom, be it over the Internet, cellular networks, or the good old regular telephone system. The technology allows a communication system to “know” where a user is and to reroute calls and messages accordingly to the specific device he is near. For those entrepreneurs who work from home, the office, and the road, this app is really helpful.
12. ConceptShare.
    
    Of all the above conferencing and collaboration solutions, none of them is suited for creative live interaction, such as having multiple people in different locations designing artwork or editing a document. ConceptShare solves the need for having a way to collaborate on a project in real-time by providing a creative workspace where employees can add to and modify graphic presentations. Changes made on the artwork or web design are even tagged by contributor, so different filtering combinations will allow your team to look at a variety of different filtering options.
13. Near-time.
    
    Near-time offers collaboration tools including group calendars with event and activity tracking, private shared weblogs, author pages, categories and tagging, and more. Near-time is designed specifically for small businesses, work groups and professionals, which no doubt includes the collaborative entrepreneur.

Organization

As a small business owner you don’t have the luxury of having a personal assistant to keep you organized. But just because you can’t afford to devote hours or dollars to staying on top of things, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. The following three apps are designed to help you quickly and easily keep track of deadlines and schedule your work week so you can focus on the most important task, building your business.

14. Google Calendar.
    
    There are numerous web2.0 calendaring applications out there, including CalendarHub, Planzo, and spongecell. But what sets Google Calendar apart from the rest is its ease of setup and use. With Google Calendar you can quickly set up multiple calendars for different projects or clients, as well as link up to public calendars which can help you stay synched with your client’s activities. And for the entrepreneur on the go, Google Calendar even lets you check on your schedule from a mobile phone through SMS messaging.
15. Remember the milk.
    
    Have you ever tied string around your finger to remind yourself of something but then forgot what it was?Remember the milk can help you and your company remember all of the days important details. The app will let you set and receive reminders via email, SMS and IM. And to minimize the total number of apps you’re running independently on a daily basis, Remember the Milk even works as an add-on to Google Calendar.
16. Neptune.
    
    Neptune is the ultimate in practical planning. This web2.0 application won a spot on this list primarily because of its ease of use and simplicity. It’s a GTD (get things done) type of to-do list application with multiple project folders and drag and drop task reordering. Neptune also sends you email each day reminding you what your most urgent task for each defined project is. And for those of you daunted by the idea of having to go in and constantly update your to-do list, Neptune will even allow you to set up events and reminders simply by mailing items to your personal inbox.

Networking, Social Spaces

While big companies can afford just wait until contacts come to them, as a small business owner you have to go out and make your own opportunities. That means being proactive about developing relationships with people in your niche and finding new ways to introduce yourself and your company to prospective clients. The two apps in this section are designed to help you to be more effective at professional networking.

17. LinkedIn.
    
    LinkedIn is the new, hot, de rigueur networking tool for professionals and entrepreneurs. It builds on the concept of six degrees of separation, which says that every human being is connected to every other human being through at most 6 people. Entering into a network means being able to take advantage of business opportunities, asking for, or offering advice, and letting people in your network know about your projects. The best part? You’re connected to everyone that your direct connections are networked with. That means that you can quickly expand your contacts and develop your professional reputation with minimal effort, since you already have something in common with the other person (a common contact).
18. Ning.
    
    Ning is easily one of the most unique web2.0 application sites out there. Ning takes web2.0 to a whole new level by letting you build your own networking and social space. The plug-n-play social space creator will allow you to create your own community space for other entrepreneurs and potential clients in your niche to communicate and share ideas. With hundreds of pre-fabricated modules no programming is needed to get the space up and running making it just the sort of marketing boost your company needs.

Content Creation, Office and Productivity Tools

No matter the service or product that your startup company sells, you are going to need to maintain accurate records if you want to stay productive and steer clear of legal issues. But since you’re already strapped for time, recordkeeping is often one of the first dropped tasks if a small business doesn’t have a good plan in place to make sure that it gets done. In this section we cover four of the best web-based apps to help you take notes, write documents, preserve records, and create spreadsheets. When used correctly, these tools will minimize the time it takes you to make and keep hard copies, records, and backups so that you will actually follow through and get them done.

19. Zoho.
    
    Zoho has one of the most well-rounded offerings of web-based tools for the entrepreneur/ business person, including an Office Suite (Writer, Sheet, Show, Wiki, Virtual Office), Productivity Tools (Projects, CRM, Creator, Planner, Chat), Polls, and website monitoring. One of the most useful applications, however, is Zoho Challenge, which lets you test and evaluate job candidates using a combination of multiple choice and descriptive questions. Candidates can then be emailed results for one or more tests. Perhaps the best feature is Zoho Writer, a superb web-based replacement for Microsoft Word. Zoho Writer’s only limitation is its own popularity, which has been known to cause slow server response times. By using a web-based writing program, your employees and clients will be able to access their work at any time without the need for email attachments.
20. ThinkFree.
    
    ThinkFree calls itself “the best Online Office on earth.” Their suite of apps includes ThinkFree Online, Server, Desktop, and Portable. Of these numerous tools, the two most useful for entrepreneurs are ThinkFree Online, a document management and sharing application, and Desktop, a Microsoft Office compatible word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tool. Together, these two tools will allow small business owners and their employees to access a project no matter their location.
21. MyStickies.
    
    Does your business involve online research, but keeping a pad of paper and a pen handy for notes seems arcane to you? Or maybe you’ve made the cost-effective choice to try to make your company paper free. Whatever your reason, MyStickies is one of a number of digital sticky note apps (among others are stikkit, jotcloud, sticky tag, and webnote) available to you to quickly record short notes. In addition to putting post-its on your desktop, MyStickies will also let you put digital stickies on a particular web page so that when you return to the page later on, you won’t need to spend time trying to remember where you were in your research.
22. EyeOS.
    
    If your company would benefit from having multiple employees having access to the same documents, images, and programs, but they’re spread around the world, a shared online operating system might be the answer. EyeOS, one of the new breed of web-based “operating systems” is one of the best options available. EyeOS is Open Source and can either be downloaded and installed to your own server, or run off their public server. Once EyeOS is setup, anyone with the correct username and password can access the “desktop”, no matter where they are located. That means that if you and your employees are frequently working off the same data or tools, EyeOS may be the ideal application for your company.

Promotion, Marketing, Sales and Support

Fortune 500 companies have entire departments devoted to branding, marketing and supporting their products. For the small business owner, however, you need to replace all those departments and still have time left over to meet the other needs of your company. As the face and driving force behind your startup, it will be largely up to you to get your product in front of new customers, control the way it is perceived in the market, and answer questions from potential clients. The following four Web2.0 apps are all designed to maximize the effectiveness of your time by helping you promote your product and provide customer support.

23. Veetro.
    
    Veetro is designed to be a one-stop organizational and promotional application for small businesses. It offers a wide range of tools from invoicing and project management to customer support.The most useful aspect of Veetro, however, is its emphasis on client development and sales. With built-in lead tracking, email marketing, customer support and direct advertising functions, Veetro is an excellent tool for small businesses that are making a push to expand their client base or break into a new niche.
24. eBay.
    
    eBay is the classic early web2.0 application because of it’s pseudo-social network reviewing system. For small businesses trying to generate buzz, selling a few early product examples on eBay is a good way to get your product out early without a lot of overhead cost. In fact, some people legitimately make their living selling products full-time on eBay, though it’s not necessarily as easy as all those $97 e-books would have you believe. But if you’re an entrepreneur with volume purchasing and drop-shipping experience or just looking for some pre-launch exposure, eBay might be perfect for you.
25. Qoop.
    
    Qoop, there it is. When it comes to promotional/ advertising efforts for your small business, Qoop is an excellent resource as it allows you to create calendars, posters and other “memorabilia” with your company’s logo added. Qoop goes beyond sites like cafepress by taking numerous web2.0 photo sharing sites and networks including photobucket, webshots, and flickr and mashing them up. So if you have, say, a flickr photostream, you can create custom calendars using your images. Qoop has also partnered up with sites like blogprinting and fundprinting to outsource volume printing.
26. Bonus App: YouTube.
    
    Don’t underestimate the value of YouTube to a business, especially because of its pseudo-social network and category tagging. Real estate agents use YouTube to post video walkthroughs of properties they’ve listed on their website. Other web2.0 applications in alpha and beta stage post screencasts of their “secret” software to create some buzz. The innovative entrepreneur will come up with some way to utilize YouTube or similar sites such as revver to promote their business. If new media advertising doesn’t work for your company, you might want to promote via traditional TV through spotrunner. Spotrunner lets you pick pre-shot footage snippets to mashup, and then finds you budget ad spots with TV stations across the USA.

Being an entrepreneur has always been a high risk/ high reward venture. This year, more than 50% of new startups will close up shop before they reach their first anniversary. And while you cannot control things like market fluctuations, being smart about how you spend your time and energy can dramatically improve your company’s chances of success. This article has introduced you to 25 of the best Web 2.0 applications, all of which are designed to help you organize, control and promote your company, so that by working smarter you can maximize the chances of your startup’s success.

Los 10 mitos de los emprendimientos tecnológicos

Les transcribo un resumen de los 10 mitos de los emprendimientos tecnológicos, pero les recomiendo leer el post completo. (versión completa: español, ingles)

Mito #1: una idea brillante te hará rico.
Realidad: Una idea brillante no es necesaria ni tampoco suficiente para el desarrollo de un negocio exitoso, a pesar de que no está demás.

Mito #2: Si construyes, vendrán.
Realidad: No solo hay que hacer algo excelente. Sino que el resto del mundo se debe enterar que existe y le tiene que gustar. Hay que comunicarlo y hacerlo bien. Y no solo por hacer el mejor producto el cliente lo aceptará.

Mito #3: Si no proteges tu idea, te la robarán.
Realidad: A nadie le importa un comino tu idea hasta que no llegaste a ser exitoso, y en ese momento ya es demasiado tarde. Incluso si existiera la posibilidad de cruzarte con alguien que se entusiasme con tu idea, si ese alguien es al menos un poco inteligente, se te unirá y no intentará atacarte (Y si no son al menos un poco inteligentes como para ver eso no importa qué decidan hacer) .

Mito #4: Lo que tú piensas es importante.
Realidad: Nada importa que tú y todos tus amigos piensen que tu idea es la mejor desde la aparición de la pizza cortada en porciones (salvo, obviamente, que tus amigos sean lo suficientemente ricos como para constituir la base de clientes de tu negocio). Lo que importa es lo que piensan tus clientes. Es natural asumir que si tu y tus amigos piensan que la idea es buena, entonces millones de personas en el mundo también pensarán que es buena; a veces resulta así, pero no es lo usual.

Mito #5: Los modelos financieros son falsos.
Realidad: No existe forma de saber con seguridad cuánto dinero obtendrás de tu emprendimiento, o cuánto te costará llegar al mercado. El motivo por el cual se desarrollan modelos financieros es para hacer una verificación de la realidad y convencerte a ti mismo de que existe la posibilidad de que la inversión sea rentable. Si haces los cálculos y descubres que para llegar al punto de equilibro necesitas una base de clientes diez veces mayor al mercado que en la actualidad se conoce para tu producto, entonces, seguramente debas considerar las cosas una vez más.

Mito #6: Lo que sabes es más importante que a quién conoces.
Realidad: Lo cierto es que es más importante a quién conoces que lo que de hecho conoces. Esto no quiere decir que ser inteligente y conocedor no sea útil. Saber “qué” por lo general es un medio efectivo para que te presenten a los “quiénes” adecuados. Y hay un motivo lógico detrás de esto: las decisiones comerciales son horrorosamente complicadas. No existe persona que pueda acumular todo el conocimiento y la experiencia necesarios como para abarcar el amplio rango de decisiones a tomar por sí solo; por ende, los empresarios eficientes delegan gran parte de la toma de decisiones en otras personas. Y cuando eligen en quién delegar, su primera opción siempre será personas que conocen y en quienes confían.

Mito #7: Un doctorado quiere decir algo.
Realidad: Lo único que un doctorado dice es que no eres tonto y que tienes la voluntad suficiente como para lidiar con todo lo necesario para lograr obtener tu título de maestría en algún lugar. En la práctica, el hecho de tener un doctorado se relaciona negativamente con el éxito de un negocio. Esto se debe a que la estructura de recompensas en lo académico es casi exactamente opuesta a la estructura de recompensas en el mundo de los negocios.

Mito #8: Necesito $5 millones para comenzar mi negocio.
Realidad: Salvo que estés construyendo hardware (en cuyo caso definitivamente deberías volver a pensar qué estás haciendo) seguramente no necesites capital inicial. No necesitas mucho capital inicial, pero lo que sí necesitas es tener ganas de trabajar mucho. Tienes que lograr que tu idea brillante de sus frutos; nadie lo hará por ti, nadie te dará el dinero para contratar a otro para que lo haga por vos. El motivo es muy simple: si tu no crees en el potencial comercial de tu idea lo suficiente como para renunciar a tus tardes y a tus fines de semana para lograr ser dueño de una porción mayor, entonces, porqué crees que otros deben creer lo suficiente en tu idea como para arriesgar su dinero, el que con tanto esfuerzo ganaron.

Mito #9: La idea es la parte más importante de mi plan de negocios.
Realidad: La idea es casi irrelevante. Lo que importa es 1) quiénes son tus clientes; 2) porqué comprarán lo que vendes, 3) quién forma parte de tu equipo y 4) cuáles son los riesgos.

Mito #10: No tener competencia es bueno.
Realidad: Si no tienes competencia seguramente sea porque no hay posibilidad de hacer dinero. Hay seis mil millones de personas en el planeta y es muy poco probable que ellos hayan dejado un nicho del mercado rentable totalmente sin explotar.

Mito bonificado: Luego de la OPA (salida a bolsa), seré feliz.
Realidad: Si no disfrutas del proceso de iniciar un negocio, entonces es probable que fracases. Es mucho trabajo y te destruirá si no lo disfrutas mientras lo haces.

Todos estos mitos se pueden resumir prolijamente en un corto pero inteligente slogan: es el cliente, estúpido. El éxito de los negocios no se basa en tener una idea brillante. Ideas brillantes hay una cada cien. Los negocios implican tener una buena idea y reunir un equipo para que la transforme en un producto y lograr llevar ese producto a los clientes que quieren comprarlo. Es así de simple. Y así de complicado.

Ronda de Inversores - Capitalización de su emprendimiento

Algunos consejos que me pasaron (al algún momento del armado de solopasajes.com) y fueron de gran utilidad.

Cuando armen su estrategia para la ronda de inversión tengan en cuenta: el capital que van a necesitar hoy, cuantas acciones o cuotas y cuantos votos están dispuestos a ceder. Pero sobre todo, y algo que la mayoría de los emprendedores no tenemos en cuenta: analicen el largo plazo, y definan cuanto capital van a necesitar en una segunda ronda de capitalización. Estos son puntos que hay que definirlos antes de aceptar la propuesta que reciban.

Otro dos consejos: si tienen una SA, armen bien su estatuto societario, utilicen acciones clase A y B, y sobre todo, contraten o busquen asesoramiento de abogados y contadores que sean realmente buenos. Esto podrá tener un costo mayor (y generalmente la plata no es algo que sobre en los start-ups), pero ellos serán su mano derecha, y en gran medid, los responsables de que ustedes se puedan concentrar en llevar adelante su emprendimiento y alcanzar el éxito, sorteando la menor cantidad de inconvenientes en el camino.

Si quieren mas datos, o tienen dudas al respecto, mi experiencia esta a su disposición. Agreguen un comentario a este post, y podremos compartir experiencias y mas información al respecto.