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.