The best entrepreneurs and executives at fast-growing companies have the ability to move efficiently and profitably from ideation to execution, and then from execution back to ideation and then back to re-focused execution. And they do so regarding all aspects of their businesses -- marketing and sales, operations and finance.

Most entrepreneurs and managers of companies seeking outside capital vastly underestimate how long it will take them to successfully complete a financing. Here's the reality check: in our experience, we've seen that, on average, a company and a management team seeking financing should budget between 500 and 1000 work-hours to the capital-raising process, spread out over a 6 month time period.

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Can be read here at - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/10/ten-questions-1.html - all aspiring entrepreneurs should take in this advice - in general Guy's blog is one of the best (if not the best) out there re venture capital, entrepreneurship, and technology.

Entrepreneurs and managers of startup companies and small business often under-value the "root" value of their enterprises. Similar to how a car, if it simply runs no matter how poor its condition, has a baseline value, so does a business.

Continue to be of the belief that the cooling of the real estate market will be a positive for the private equity/venture capital markets - see very similar market conditio

There are three traditional valuation methodologies utilized in determining the worth for a private company.

They are:

A fundamental metric in measuring the value of a business is the degree to which it can generate recurring, repeat profitable revenue from its customers. From businesses as diverse as wireless data providers to potato chip manufacturers, the ability of a business to both consistently predict its future revenue streams and retain its existing customer base on an ongoing basis have traditionally been considered "holy grail" metrics of business value.
The unique structure of business in the 21st century, however, make building recurring revenue business models uniquely challenging:

With financial headlines dominated by the recent declines in the stock and bond markets, a creeping sense of economic foreboding has entered into the thought and decision-making processes of managers across the corporate spectrum.

If history is any guide, last week's stock market correction, driven by liquidity concerns in the real estate sector, may signal (counter-intuitively, perhaps) continued strong activity in the emerging and middle market company investment arenas. Here's why: