Entrepreneur GPS: How To Navigate An Idea To A Multi-Million Dollar Company Sale.

Entrepreneur GPS - How To Navigate An Idea To A Multi-Million Dollar Company Sale.

By Brad Paul

Copyright 2015 Brad Paul

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Market Research Your Idea

Chapter 2 - The Patent Application

Chapter 3 - Marketing Your Idea - Tell Everyone About It

Chapter 4 - The Accelerator Program Application

Chapter 5 - Your Funding Strategy and Attending the Accelerator

Chapter 6 - After the Accelerator and Launching of Your Product/Service

INTRODUCTION

There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. We are living in a time like no other in our past, where an entrepreneur can take a simple idea to a billion dollar company sale in only a few years.

Here is what I am talking about; in 2015, Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer has no inventory, and Airbnb the world’s largest accommodation provider owns no real estate.

And here are some examples of astronomical deals that went down in 2014; Facebook acquired WhatsApp – a messaging Smartphone app for $19 billion; Apple acquired Beats by Dre – a company that makes headphones for $3 billion; Google acquired Nest - a company that makes thermostats for $3.8 billion. And the thing is, WhatsApp, Beats and Nest didn’t even exist 5 years ago

Let us take a quick closer look at Uber - Uber is a taxi booking Smartphone app. Uber has only been around for five years, and in 2015 Uber raised over a billion dollars in investment, giving itself a whopping $50 billion dollar valuation. Yes, that’s fifty billion with a 'b'!

If you compare Uber to General Motors (GM) you can begin to get a clear picture of the sign of the times. At the time of writing in mid-2015, Uber had a larger valuation than GM – GM’s valuation was only US$49 billion compared to Uber’s $50 billion. Now here is where it gets interesting; GM has 212,000 employees, whereas Uber has 45 employees (although there are around 300,000 Uber drivers, they are not classified as employees). GM sells 8 million cars and trucks every year. Uber doesn’t sell any products – it takes a commission on its taxi service. GM has 396 manufacturing plants and 21,000 dealers, whereas Uber has 90 offices.

This book is designed to teach you how to take a simple idea like Uber or WhatsApp and turn it into a multi-million dollar company in the shortest time possible. The unique feature of this book is its down to earth practicality. Here you are presented with simple, usable techniques, formulas and tasks, which you can easily apply - no matter what your background or skill level is. I urge you to study this book and apply the techniques and exercises outlined therein; and as you do, I feel absolutely convinced that you will turn your idea into a multi-million dollar successful company in a few short years.

Think of this book as your car GPS Navigation system, guiding you all the way to your final destination which is, ‘the multi-million dollar sale of your company’.

Not only will you find directions in this book to help you along the way to your final destination, but you will also be supported by a ‘driving instructor’. I have endeavored to explain the entrepreneurship journey, which you are about to embark on, in the simplest language possible – and that is why I have written in ‘Dave the Driving Instructor’. Dave’s voice pops up a few times a chapter to give you advice and tips in laymen’s terms, so you can get to your destination quicker - and safely. Here is Dave the Driving Instructor now;

DAVE THE DRIVING INSTRUCTOR SAYS;

Hi I’m Dave, put your seatbelt on, you are about to go on quite a ride.

WHAT TO EXPECT ON YOUR JOURNEY

In chapter 1 of this book we will show you how to take your idea for a test drive – it’s called ‘Market Research’. That means we will take you through some techniques to see if your idea has the potential to make you millions.

In chapter 2 we will show you how to write and submit a patent application to protect your idea. A patent will also give you confidence to tell others about your idea, without fear that someone else will rip it off and make millions out of it. You don’t have to submit your patent application, but going through the patent preparation process will help you get clarity and detail on your product/service. You can choose at the end of the chapter if you actually want to go ahead and submit the patent application to a registered patent office somewhere.

In chapter 3 we will show you how to build and publish an awesome website in a few hours for free or next to nothing. We will also take you through some basic branding, and help you build social media accounts. Finally we will show you how you can register a US company in a few minutes for $180.

In chapter 4 we will show you how to find an awesome tech person and/or serial entrepreneur to join your team. If you are already a tech person – great! We will help you find a business person/serial entrepreneur. If you already have a team ready to go now – awesome! We will also show you in this chapter how to get the most value out of your team.

In chapter 5 we will show you how to prepare for an Accelerator – this is an entrepreneur education type of program that usually goes for three months, and run in thousands of cities around the world. Accelerator programs help entrepreneurs speed up their success – hence the name accelerator. The best part about an accelerator is not the fact that you will learn all about entrepreneurship, or even that they usually pay you between $20,000 to $150,000 to attend the program (in exchange for a small piece of your company), the best part of an accelerator is the mentors and networks you build during the program. These accelerator programs have only been around for around 10 years, but in the short time that they have been around they have had some amazing success stories. One particular accelerator program run out of San Francisco called Y-Combinator has a portfolio of companies that have graduated from their program with total valuations of over $40 billion dollars.

Graduates of accelerator programs with in excess of billion dollar valuations include Dropbox, Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe and many others. These companies will tell you that their success would not be possible without going through an accelerator program.

In chapter 6 we will help you raise money for your idea. We will run you through the variety of options you have to raise money from accepting investments from Angel Investors or Venture Capitalists, through to crowdfunding and government grants. We will also show you how to get your first sales in chapter 6. Then at the end of this chapter, we will explain how to grow your company as quickly as possible, and help prepare you for an exit – that is the sale of your company.

So now that you have an overview of the places you expect to stop at along the way, would you like to know next how long this journey is expected to take?

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO COMPLETE THIS JOURNEY?

Total time to get to your end destination – the sale of your company for tens of millions, is roughly two to three years. To get started with, to complete all the tasks and techniques outlined in the first three chapters, it should only take you between two to four weeks.

When you hit chapter 4 things are going to speed up a little. But at the same time it will take you a little longer to get to the destination at the end of chapter 4. That’s because in chapter 4, all things going well, you will be attending one of those aforementioned accelerator programs.

So here are more details about how one of these accelerator programs works – and the formula is usually the same the world over, it doesn’t matter what city it is held in. To begin with you apply for an accelerator on a website where they are all advertised, it is a bit like applying for a job; you answer some questions and fill out some forms. If you get accepted into an accelerator, an entity (company, trust, person, organization) will pay you a sum of money (usually around $20,000, but can be up to $250,000) to participate in the program for a set period (usually 3 months). In return you give a small percentage of your company to that entity (usually around 3-8%).

So yes, you get paid tens of thousands of dollars to learn about entrepreneurship for a few months. And as we mentioned earlier, you will also get immersed in the local investment and business community with past successful entrepreneurs teaching you ‘all the tricks of the trade’. And all you have to do is turn up for three months, participate in the program’s activities and events, and sell a small percentage of your company. Just to be clear, you are not giving up part of your company here, you are selling a part of it in exchange for cash, and priceless mentoring and connections.

In an accelerator the past successful entrepreneurs are labeled ‘mentors’. Often these mentors have already completed all of the tasks and techniques we outline in this book. Many of the mentors have already sold their own companies for tens of millions of dollars too. Some mentors may not have sold their own start-up for large sums, but they may have risen to the top of the companies they work in. All of the mentors are keen to share with you that they’ve learnt from their personal journeys.

Once again here is the best part that we can’t stress enough - mentors are valuable not only for imparting their wisdom and years of experience on you, but because they are also generally well connected. They are often connected to the biggest ‘commerce movers and shakers’ on the planet. The mentors in accelerator programs are connected to the people that will help you get to your ultimate goal – the sale of your company for in excess of twenty million dollars. The mentors will help you raise investment capital for you if you wish, or they’ll introduce you to CEO’s of massive companies, or they might even introduce you to the Entrepreneurship royalty like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak or Sir Richard Branson. If you sign a mentor to your advisory team, they will also give you ongoing advice on navigating the details of making deals, securing funding, and everything else you need to do on your way to the sale of your company

The accelerator programs are also full of stimulating and engaging stuff like weekly dinners at mentors’ houses or workplaces; parties; pitch events; networking events; famous guest speaker sessions; public speaking courses, and so on and so forth.

We will go into more detail about the value of accelerator programs when we hit the accelerator program chapter in chapter 5.

DO I HAVE TO ATTEND AN ACCELERATOR PROGRAM?

The thought of spending three months full time in one of these accelerator programs, possibly on the other side of the world to where you live, may sound like a big commitment to some (accelerators are not held in every city on earth – well not just yet anyway!)

Perhaps you have a full-time job and there is no way you can get three months off to attend this accelerator. Perhaps you have a young family, and you can’t commit around 30-40 hours a week for three months to attend an accelerator. Perhaps you are a student now, and you only have six months left to complete your qualification, so there is no way you would stop your studies this far in, to attend an accelerator program.

Of course we are not telling you to give up what you’ve worked hard for in your life - you don’t have to attend an accelerator program if you don’t want to. However if you do want to get to your destination quicker, that is the sale of your company for at least eight to nine figures, then you will have to eventually give up whatever it is you do now, and devote yourself full-time to your company. By going through an accelerator program as your first step to a full-time commitment to your company, you will give your company the best chance of success.

To repeat - that full-time commitment doesn’t have to start until you get into an accelerator program. When you complete all the tasks and techniques outlined the first three chapters of this book, and after you begin to see some traction with your business idea, and after you get into an accelerator you will be ready to commit to your company full-time then.

By the start of chapter 4, after you’ve been accepted into an accelerator, you won’t need me to convince you that you should quit everything to focus full-time on your company - you will see this for yourself.

Without devoting yourself to an accelerator and to your company full-time you will have what’s called a 'lifestyle business'. If you only want a lifestyle business, then that’s fine. A lifestyle business might even make you some decent regular revenue, and earn you tens of thousands a year. Maybe your lifestyle business even runs itself with little effort from you. But if you want to scale your company to a multi-million dollar sale in the shortest time possible, at some point you will have to go at it full-time. But as we said, you don’t need to worry about going at your business idea full time until you get accepted into one of those accelerator programs.

And here’s another big thing you need to be aware of right away about accelerator programs - the accelerator program you attend should be in a start-up hotspot, and this could possibly be on the other side of the world where you live now.

By start-up hotspot, we mean a place where there is a vibrant investment and business community that supports start-ups. A start-up hotspot is also a place where Governments support companies with tax incentives, or funding programs or the like. Finally a start-up hotspot is a place where many companies have sold for eight to ten figures recently, and where there are lots of what is called ‘Unicorn’ Companies. A unicorn company is a company with a valuation of more than $1 billion. When someone came up with the phrase ‘Unicorn company’ about 20 years ago, there were only a small handful of companies with valuations over a billion dollars – hence the name Unicorn. Now there are hundreds of these Unicorn companies all over the world, but most of them are based on the West Coast of the United States of America. Unicorn companies are important for cities because it gives local investors and business people confidence in those cities to support and invest in other start-ups so they too one day can be a unicorn.

In addition to having Unicorns, investors, and big business movers and shakers, a start-up hotspot will have thousands of people immersed in the world of start-ups such as high powered lawyers, politicians and governments with support systems in place like grants, and tax incentive schemes. A start-up hotspot will also have high net worth individuals, and thousands of different companies of all shapes, sizes and backgrounds all trying to make a success of their ideas, just like you are doing now.

These start-up hotspots include almost anywhere in the United State of America, London, Israel, Germany and a few other places which you might not expect such as Chile, and Singapore.

By attending an accelerator program in area’s outside of these start-up hotspot zones, your journey is most likely going to take you much longer. Think of these hotspots like they are the Olympic games host cities – if you want to win at the Olympic Games you have to go where the Olympic games are held and compete in them right? Similarly, if you want to win in the Entrepreneur games you are going to have to go to where the Entrepreneur games are held (that is start-up hot spot cities) and compete in them.

Do you agree you are not going to win a gold medal at the one-hundred metre sprint at the Olympics by sitting at home on your couch, or competing in the race on Skype or teleconference? Then this also applies to Entrepreneurship.

Although we have fantastic tools to facilitate communications such as the internet, Skype, Wechat, Whatsapp, email, and Smartphone’s, the fact is the entrepreneur games are held every minute of every day in places like Silicon Valley, in London, in New York, and in Tel Aviv. And you have to physically be in these cities to compete in the games.

TO SUPPORT YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY, THE MOST IMPORTANT TOOL YOU’LL NEED IS THE INTERNET.

The Internet is the number one reason why we are living in such good entrepreneurial times. Without the Internet, companies would never be able to grow so quickly and get their massive valuations and exits, and make millions of people millionaires!

Perhaps you’ve heard that the best form of advertising for a product or service is called ‘word of mouth’. In the past, before the Internet and TV and radio, ‘word of mouth’ about a product or service spread slowly from village to village and city to city over a long period of time.

But hey it’s now the roaring twenty teens! Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and many other online advertising/social media agencies, essentially enable ‘word of mouth’ to spread like a virus online in minutes. So nowadays, the best products and services can grow rapidly and sell tens of thousands in a very short period of time.

If you don’t have regular access to the Internet, I might as well ask you to complete this entrepreneurial journey on foot. Can you imagine me asking you to go to New York, and enter Los Angele’s on the GPS navigation system on your Smartphone, and then tell you that you have to walk the entire way? How long do you think it would take you to walk? Do you think you would safely arrive at your destination?

Not only is the Internet going to be your vehicle on this entrepreneurial journey, but it is also going to be your best friend, sitting right alongside you in the passenger seat, supporting you all the way. The Internet is also going to be your mother, your father, your siblings, your teacher, your lecturer, and your mentor on this journey too. Whilst you are on this entrepreneurial journey, you’ll be able to ‘call them up’ at anytime for advice. Please do not be afraid to consult the Internet at anytime for advice and help about anything we raise in this book. For example if you want to see a current list of these start-up hotspot cities we mentioned earlier, then simply go to your internet search engine, and enter something like what are the top 20 start-up hotspot cities.

If we raise a topic or subject which you don’t know a lot about, then go to the Internet and look it up, and learn more about it. Use the Internet to learn and discover more, anytime, anywhere. Here is another example of how you should use the internet to support you whilst you are reading this book – in chapter three we will