Investor and Advior Blogs

The following came from Guy Kawasaki's blog (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/01/take-the-entrep.html):

Scott Shane of Case Western recently published The
Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors,
and Policy Makers Live By. In the book, he bursts many of the
bubbles of entrepreneurship in America. Says he, “People start
businesses based on the myths we tell ourselves about entrepreneurship and then
are hurt when confronted by reality. Investors believe these myths and invest
money and they’re disappointed when they don’t hold true. Policy makers make
policy based on these myths and then wonder why the economy isn’t growing with
all these entrepreneurs now in it.” If you think you already really know the
scoop about entrepreneurship, try taking his test. If
you score less than 80%, maybe you should buy the book. I scored a whopping
40%.

Studies in the article find that we are interrupted as often as every 11 minutes, with an additional amount of time spent on returning to the task, picking up where you left off and refocusing. Even though we all work towards a "groove" or a "zone" to produce quality work that feels rewarding, it is becoming harder and harder to do so in this self-inflicted world of NOW and immediate gratification. So what’s the solution? Here are the articles specific actions you can take now to minimize interruptions later: 1. Group similar tasks into blocks of activities in order to reduce the time lost to switchover. Do your budgets, your phone calls, your drawing, your contract reviews, etc., at one time rather than switching between them. 2. Establish meeting “corridors” – essentially office hours when you’re available to meet with colleagues. During emergencies people can disturb you, but this will reduce the non-urgent interruptions. A company I know has a totally open floor plan, with low cube walls and no privacy. They've found a simple solution: each person has two paper signs. A green sign says "open," which means they're available to talk. A red sign has a time written on it – in other words, "do not disturb until ___ o'clock." Also consider setting up standard check-in periods during the day for the people with whom you interact the most: when they know they’ll get to see you for 10 minutes each morning and afternoon, they’ll be more willing to wait. 3. Set “service level agreements” that support your work. With e-mail in particular, there’s an assumption that because a message can be sent and received immediately, it must be answered immediately. And, in fact, we’ve trained people to expect instantaneous response. But more often than not, people don’t really need an immediate response. They need a predictable response – within a few hours or within the day. To address emergencies effectively, set up a “white list” for certain people, and an e-mail rule that notifies you when those people send you a message. Better yet, have people use the phone for urgent issues. After all, if the issue is that critical and time-sensitive, asynchronous communication tools are not the best option. 4. Turn off the automatic e-mail alerts in Outlook and Lotus Notes to reduce distractions. Even if you don’t respond to an e-mail immediately, the very act of reading (or hearing) the alert fractures your concentration. Learn to deal with e-mail in blocks – once or twice a day is ideal, four times a day if you must. 5. Set Blackberry boundaries. Just because you can check your e-mail any time and anywhere doesn’t mean that you should. As with your desktop e-mail, aim for predictable, not immediate, response. Set specific times at which you check your Blackberry and communicate this schedule to your staff. Making these changes can be disruptive, so it’s important to inform clients and coworkers in advance. And while these new ways of working may seem odd and cause friction at first, in the long run, they’ll make you – and your team – more productive.

After posting "Financial Models for Underachievers: Two Years of the Real Numbers of a Startup" about the two years of actual costs of Redfin, many people asked for a generic version of the financial model that Redfin used to project costs. Here it is! Redfin used this model over the past two years, but beyond the costs already disclosed, the numbers are all fictitious. Also, unlike last week, the values aren’t actual data-points but formulas and formats that calculate them.

Glenn’s point isn’t to make a statement one way or the other about Redfin’s business or to even give you a crystal ball for seeing whether you’ll succeed. A model, after all, doesn’t drive demand or serve customers; it only helps you count up the beans if you do. We’re posting this model because its basic structure might help other entrepreneurs who don’t know where to start.

Here’s what you’ll find in the model:

* Earnings, capital expenses and cash balance summarized on a single page.
* Ratios of revenue and profits to employees and program expenses.
* Assumptions called out so investors can easily evaluate dependencies.
* Assumption-driven formulas, so changes to the assumptions propagate through financial statements.
* Unit economics isolated on a separate page: for Redfin, this is how much profit each real estate market can generate.
* Charts of headcount growth, cash balance, earnings segmentation, revenue segmentation.
* Hiring detail with headcount and salary sums for each department.

The model also contains a few Redfin-built, custom Excel functions:

* Counting the number of employees in a department, by counting the number of times a department value like “Engineering” appears in a column.
* Summing the salaries of employees in a department, by adding up salaries for each employee where the department value for that employee equals a value like “Engineering.”
* Calculating how a Redfin market grows in revenue-capacity to reach maturity, and then grows more slowly thereafter.
* Calculating the number of support personnel needed to accommodate demand, and when those support personnel start. This allows us to update the staffing projection automatically when we change demand assumptions.

To get the custom functions to accommodate changes in the assumptions, you will have to set Excel’s macro security to “Low” (Tools | Macro | Security | Low). The file does not contain any malicious macros.

From: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/10/glenn-kelmans-f.html

In this issue

• Message from the CEO

• Company News

• ECJC Workshops

• Welcome To ECJC!

• Kansas Women's Business Center Classes

• Upcoming Events

• Looking for Flexible Office Space?

Company News
Urigen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Initiates URG101-104 Phase II Pharmacodynamic Clinical Trial for Painful Bladder Syndrome/Interstitial Cystitis -
Urigen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (URGP.OB), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development of treatments for urological disorders, has initiated a double-blind, placebo controlled, cross-over study to investigate URG-101 as a treatment for acute symptoms of painful bladder syndrome/interstitial cystitis (PBS). For complete story, click here.
WallSt.net Interviews Urigen Pharmaceuticals' CEO, Bill Garner -
Bill Garner, Chief Executive Officer of Urigen Pharmaceuticals (OTCBB: URGP) (www.urigen.com), updated the investment community in an interview with www.wallst.net. Topics covered in the interview include an overview of the company, its therapeutic development programs for urological disorders, growth strategy, recent press releases, market opportunities, and upcoming milestones for investors to watch for.
To hear the interview in its entirety, visit http://www.wallst.net, and click on "Interviews." The interview can be accessed either by locating the company's ticker symbol under the appropriate exchange on the left-hand column of the "Interviews" section of the site, or by entering the company's ticker symbol in the Search Archive window.

*****************************************************

KTEC invests $1.8 million in start-up firms -
The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp. invested $1.8 million in 2007 in start-up companies it thinks will provide high paying jobs and advance the commercialization of break-through technologies in Kansas, according to a report released today.
Several of the companies receiving KTEC funds were:
Innovia Medical LLC -- $150,000. Innovia makes medical products under the brand EarCheck. The devices detect middle ear fluid, a key sign of infection in children.
Urigen Inc. --$100,000. Urigen, based in Kansas City, is a pharmaceutical company that focuses on urology and women's health products.
Ventria Bioscience -- $500,000. Ventria, based in Junction City, is a bioscience company focused on producing plant-based ingredients for products used in human health and medicine.
KTEC president and chief executive Tracy Taylor said KTEC is focused on helping technology companies that have the potential for significant returns. Companies must match KTEC investments with 150 percent of the amount granted and submit an application and business plani that demonstrates the project has the potential to produce substantial results for the Kansas economy.

******************************************************

Bioscience projects earn grants -
The authority announced Tuesday that three companies in northeast Kansas - including one in Lawrence - had been selected for the investments, using money from the estimated $580 million the authority is slated to receive over 15 years to encourage and promote bioscience projects and research statewide.
Receiving grants:
KC BioMediX, a De Soto-based company whose devices help premature babies feed orally, $150,000. The money will be used by the company to commercialize its technologies, which have been developed at KU.
Innovia Medical, a Lenexa-based company, to help take its EarCheck product to market, $650,000. The equityi investment is designed to help the company get the FDA-approved product into the hands of physicians, parents and others to help rapidly detect ear infections in young children. Click here to read the complete article.

****************************************************

KC Chamber, Kansas centers join for international business course-
The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce's World Trade Center is partnering with the Kansas Women's Business Center and the Enterprise Center of Johnson County for an international business course for executives. Complete story at http://www.bizjournals.com.