Entrepreneurship Archives - Whangarei Accountants - Elevate CA - Tax, Xero, Business Development, Accounting

Was it debt or equity?

It’s unlikely there would be disagreement about this one, right? If a friend or family member has advanced cash to help your business through expansion or a cash flow glitch, it’s either debt or equity. It will always be obvious which, right?

Well not necessarily.

Here is a scenario that rears its head regularly – particularly in entrepreneurial ventures:

Your venture is in its early stages, and needs cash. You have exhausted your own resources – and the business is not yet an attractive proposition to the bank. Enter what many people call the “Three F’s” – friends, family and fools.

Your Auntie Margaret wants to help you out – and she generously agreed to advance $50,000 to your business. You graciously accept, bank Auntie Margaret’s cheque – and proceed down the rocky road to success.

Time goes on, and a few years later your venture may have been wildly successful – or otherwise.

Here’s what can happen next:

Just after you have successfully sold your business to a large competitor for several million dollars, you get the call from Auntie Margaret saying “Remember back when I invested in half your business? Well when do you think I can expect my share of the sales proceeds?”

Or in an alternative reality …

Just after you have closed the doors and liquidated the company after losing everything and grudgingly accepting that the venture was misguided or “ahead of its time”, you get this call from Auntie Margaret: “Remember back when I lent YOU $50,000? Well it’s gathered quite a bit of interest now – and maybe it’s time you started making me some monthly repayments.”

Either way, there has probably been a serious misunderstanding of the nature of the investment.

Friends and family are a major source of business finance – in fact US Angel Investor Bill Payne reports that in the USA, friends and family of business owners invest around US$60 billion per annum into businesses.

It is likely that a proportionate amount is invested into ventures by friends and family of business owners in New Zealand. And a characteristic of these advances is that they’re often not documented – and often the terms are not even agreed verbally, much less committed to paper.

So my message is this:

Make sure any investment by friends, families or fools is clearly documented – and that all parties are very clear about whether the investment is a debt or equity, as well as the terms of the investment. Is the investment a personal loan from Auntie Margaret to you personally – or is she lending money to the business? Does she expect her investment back if the business fails? Is there any interest payable? When does Auntie Margaret expect to see her money back? Has she invested in shares in the company which will see her rewarded if the business is succesful – but will see her walk away with nothing if it fails?

A one page signed agreement is often all you need to save a lot of anguish later.

Finland vs New Zealand

Here’s a question: What do New Zealand and Finland have in common? Both have a similar population. They are similar in size. Both have a single large city which accounts for a big chunk of the population – Helsinki is similar in size to Auckland with something over 1 million population. And neither Finland nor New Zealand is blessed with significant mineral riches. So what? [Read more…]

You get what you reward, right?

You get what you reward, right? Give a monkey a handful of nuts every time he jumps through a hoop, and he’ll jump through hoops all day. Compliment a young child every time they say “please” and “thank you”, and pretty soon you’ll have a well mannered kid. Give people massive tax incentives for investing in residential rental property, and before you know it that’s what is happening.

I’m hot on this topic right now, having just returned from Boston and seen firsthand what the American federal and state governments reward. Yup, entrepreneurial behaviour.

I had a coffee with a Kiwi guy in Boston on Sunday. He is an Auckland University graduate and has a very cool Life Sciences venture which might just change the way some aspects of mental health are managed. Potentially a big success story within a small niche of the US$2 trillion American health market. He is located in Boston with a staff of seven techies. The city of Boston pays the rent and utility bills for his offices, because they want to keep him from relocating to Cambridge City, 30 miles to the west. The federal government has stumped up serious six figure cash as an SBIR grant (not a loan) to fund his research and development.

The US machine bends over backwards to make sure his innovation stands the best possible chance of success. Why? Because if he succeeds – and if hundreds of others like him also succeed, then that is great for the American economy. Sure, some will fail. But for the Americans, investment in guys like him is a no brainer.

So if he had stayed in New Zealand, what would the same guy need to do to get massive government support for a venture? Yup, that’s right – he would probably be more incentivised by the system to get a salaried job, and then negatively gear himself into as many residential rental properties as his salary would allow. The benefits for him personally? Government subsidised wealth creation. The positive benefits for New Zealand as a whole? Absolutely zero.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissing the New Zealand political machine completely here. There are some great initiatives going on to encourage entrepreneurship – and I have blogged about some of them before here.

But what if the massive tax incentives (I don’t know what the total is, but I’m guessing in the hundreds of $millions annually) were removed from investment in residential rental property and redirected to NZTE’s budget in support of Kiwi entrepreneurial activity that stands a chance of dominating some niche out there in the wider world?

Why are we still so fixated on the old hand’s off market doctrines of “sink or swim” when even the free market Americans have long ago abandoned that ethos and seen that everyone benefits from nurturing entrepreneurial activity?

Fraser Hurrell is one of three directors of Elevate CA Limited, Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors in Whangarei, New Zealand.

Stiff Competition for Kiwi Entrepreneurs

I am writing this post somewhere over Nebraska, returning to Whangarei from a week at the Advanced Invention to Venture boot camp in Boston, MA. The AI2V was a sobering experience. Kiwi Entrepreneurs who want to take their innovation to the world are up against some rather stiff competition.

It’s not that American entrepreneurs are smarter or more tenacious or better educated than their Kiwi counterparts. That isn’t the case – Kiwis are great at coming up with innovative solutions to market pain.

Let’s assume you have a killer one-in-a-million idea. That means maybe four people in New Zealand are having the same idea. But the chances are, you’ll be the only one of those four to put the hard yards in to implement. We all know that great ideas are ten-a-penny, and what really counts is the ability and resources to turn that great idea into reality. So let’s say that only one in a hundred folk with your great idea will put in the massive effort required to make any great idea into a reality.

So chances are there will be three people just like you in the USA – folk who share your one-in-a-million idea, and are also part of the one in a hundred who will back themselves and execute.

No problem, right? Surely a Kiwi entrepreneur can compete with three Americans and come out on top? Maybe. But here’s what I have seen this week which makes it not that simple:

Government Incentives. The federal and state governments bend over backwards to help their entrepreneurs with support and cash. For example, the federal government doles out US$100 million each year to provide funding to small businesses with early stage ideas that, however promising, are still too high risk for private investors. State governments compete with each other with generous tax credits or benefits such as free office space to attract start-ups to their state.

Presence of Capital. The Venture Capital system is alive and well – and provides investment to early stage ventures that need cash to expand and dominate their target market. For example, despite the current decline in VC funding, the software industry alone received US$614 million (around NZ$1 billion!) VC funding in the first quarter of 2009.

Good People. The USA attracts the cream of talent worldwide. If you’re a start-up in the Silicon Valley or New England and need to hire a talented CEO or tech guy who knows the ropes and has done it before, that person will be available. Try finding such a person in Whangarei – or even Auckland.

Presence of Customers at Home. It’s trite but true to say that the US market is huge. The advantage is more than that; there is a culture amongst US corporates that is normal to purchase and deal with small companies. Often US corporates make a conscious decision to “outsource” their R&D by dealing with entrepreneurial start-ups in the course of developing leading edge solutions in their industry rather than maintaining an in-house team.

Of course, there are fantastic examples of Kiwi entrepreneurs taking on the world. But the competition is stiff and the playing field is not level. We’ll talk more about this.

Fraser Hurrell is one of three directors of Elevate CA Limited, Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors in Whangarei, New Zealand.

Something the Americans do Very Well

Here’s something the Americans do well; encouraging and nurturing the art of entrepreneurship that drives that countiy’s economic success. It’s part of the American culture. There are very good reasons why innovations stand a much better chance of making the transition to world class businesses when on American soil.

Entrepreneurs there are taught the skills to conduct critical and strategic thinking around their ventures. Mentors and coaches with genuine experience are available to help start-ups negotiate the road to commercialising their technology. There is a thriving venture capital system which exists to match investors’ funds with ventures with a winning team, a great idea and a plausible business plan. There is a huge domestic market. And the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation is celebrated.

New Zealand has a way to go if we are to create the sort of environment conducive to creating world beating businesses which the Americans enjoy – and which would edge this country up the OECD tables. Of course there are some great things happening in this space in New Zealand such as the Auckland Business School Spark Entrepreneurial Challenge – and the IceHOUSE Incubator. But this sort of support and encouragement exists only in pockets.

It is with all these thoughts in mind that I prepare to participate in the American entrepreneurial machine first hand next week. As part of the BrightMind LABS team, I have been invited to participate in the Advanced Invention to Venture (AI2V) sessions in Boston, Massachusetts starting Monday. BrightMind LABS have won a place at AI2V on the strength of winning the Global Best Social Impact Assessment at the Global Social Venture Competition in San Francisco in April. We will be the only venture at the AI2V from outside the USA.

AI2V is a great example of the sort of intensive boot training available to American entrepreneurial ventures. It is sponsored by the American National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, and is an intensive training camp for company founders who have committed to commercialising innovative technology in certain fields.

I will blog more about our experiences at the Boston AI2V, some of the key points we bring home with us – and how these can be applied to our clients to help their businesses succeed.

Fraser Hurrell is one of three directors of Elevate CA Limited, Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors in Whangarei, New Zealand.