Gram Evans Presentation

The presentation and exercise by Gram Evans was a very interesting hands-on team based approach to understanding various aspects of a business plan.  We were introduced to FWCAT (the Federal Way Coalition Against Human Trafficking), a non profit business, and had to make a mock business plan/canvas around their business based on a short description of how their business works.  He introduced us to the business model canvas, which is a chart containing nine boxes (Key Partners, Key Activities, Key Resources, Value Propositions, Customer Relationships, Channels, Customer Segments, Cost Structure, and Revenue Streams) that are filled in to help expand and create your
business plan.  What we found during the exercise is that creating a business plan for a non profit organization is even more challenging than creating one for a for profit company.  The point of the exercise was to help us to do something more difficult so that when applied to our own business idea it would be much easier.
After this exercise I started thinking about how my business idea would fit into this template and got hungry for ramen, and decided to change my business idea to a ramen shop in Graham, as the nearest one to my house is over half an hour drive away.  The location could be in the Safeway parking lot on the corner of 224th and Meridian, as there are many small shops in the strip malls in the area that could be used.  The materials needed would be all the materials needed to produce the ramen, including the appliances to cook it, and the food handler's card to be allowed to sell it, as well as the utensils to eat it with such as bowls, forks, and chopsticks.  There would also be costs associated with renting the property, and paying for the heat, water, and electricity bills if not included in the renting cost.

John Dimmer Presentation

The presentation by John Dimmer was very informative in learning about how finances work in a business.  He mentioned the 3 'C's of business, which are character, capacity, and capital.  He also a point to be sure to understand accounting before you start a business because of how important it is to a business that you at least understand what's going on with your money.  He said to be sure that if you start a business that you need to at least know the basics for each area of business so that you're able to know when your employee's aren't cut out for their position based on what they tell you.  For funding your business, he said to prefer to take "smart" money over "dumb" money, where smart money is money that comes with advice with the investor and dumb money comes from people who just invest and leave it at that.  The five steps of business are concept, start up, expansion, mezzanine, and exit, and you need money for each step.  He went over the types of funding a business can get, and what they entail.  Debt is funding from commercial sources such as banks or SBAs (but until you have something that's been profitable for at least 3 years you won't be able to get these) or private sources such as relatives or investors.  Equity is selling ownership interest in the business.  Hybrid is debt of preferred securities convertible to equity.  Other is things such as government grants, prize money, crowd sources, money from veteran's programs, and other sources.  He also talked about different types of businesses, such as Sub-Chapter S companies, Limited Liability Companies, and "C" corporations.

Amy Sallin Presentation

The presentation done by Amy Sallin was very informative for anyone in the class who wants to actually start their own business.  For most of the presentation she informed us about the 2015 University of Washington Business Plan Competition and what is required to enter and how each of the steps of the competition is done.  The competition has been running for 18 years now, and around 1800 teams have participated in the competition.  Teams have until April 6th to submit a 5 to 7 page executive summary online to be able to compete this year.
She also gave us some useful information about how a team(board) should be constructed, saying that its important to have a diverse team and that 1 person teams are not a recommended way to do a start up.  An important point she made that applies to both the competition and to starting up a real business and attempting to get funded, is that investors will in the team and not because of the idea.  Investors would rather fund an A grade team with a C grade idea than a C grade team with an A grade idea, because the A grade team is more likely to succeed with their idea and therefor has a better chance of paying returns.  Another small point she made was that if you are offering a solution to a problem, the solution has to be practical cost-wise (she said don't throw 5,000 dollars at a 500 dollar problem).