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ABC's for... / Actions / Entrepreneurs / Investors / Portal News — No Comments
28
Jul 09

Free Ebook: 12 Insider Secrets to Raising Capital

This is very cool, and also time sensitive.  I wanted to let you know about this right away.

On Friday, I spoke with Dave Lavinsky, co-founder and President of Growthink. If you don’t know Dave, he is a major “guru” when it comes to raising capital.

(Dave and his company Growthink have helped over 2,000 clients raise over $1 Billion over the past decade, and he has also taught over 250,000 other entrepreneurs how to raise funding).

So, anyway…in August, Dave is organizing a virtual Capital Raising Bootcamp to help entrepreneurs like you raise money to grow your businesses. And, as part of this program, he put together a really cool report called “The 12 Insider Secrets to Raising Capital.”

Here’s the neat part – I asked Dave, and he said I could share this report with my readers for FREE. So here it is:  12 Insider Secrets to Raising Capital – Download Now.

Being an “insider”, I already got my copy and was really impressed at how much good, useful info Dave was willing to give away for free.  So, I figured you’d like a chance to see it too.

I think you know how this stuff works.  The free report is great – really valuable stuff you can use right away.  If you get the report, Dave will also send you a few more emails inviting you to take the capital raising course, too. My recommendation is, if you want to raise capital for your company, take the course.

Yours Truly,
Mark

P.S. A month ago, I took another course from Growthink called “Dave’s Ultimate System for Raising Venture Capital”.  That was an amazing course.  Look, there are a lot of capital raising “gurus” out there, and I always take the time and expense to test drive anything that might give you a leg up when it comes to capitalizing your company.  I am 100% satisfied with the course I took.  Dave told me this new “Bootcamp” course includes all of information I got and a whole lot more, especially in the area of super-early stage capital, which is the hardest to raise. So, definitely check out the free report. I got a lot of great new ideas just from the free report.  Here’s the link again – 12 Insider Secrets to Raising Capital – Download Now

P.P.S.  I know business capital raising can be really challenging.  I’ve been studying it and doing it myself for nearly a decade now.  So, I just wanted to throw in another special offer – if you end up taking Dave’s course, I’ll also give you 3 half-hour personal capital coaching sessions myself, on top of all the good info and personal attention you’ll get from Dave.  Just let me know.

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1
Jul 08

Types of Green Investment Products

When most people think of investment products, they think of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds they can buy from a stock broker. For people interested in the green economy, it is crucial to understand that these “retail” products represent only a small fragment of the range of investment types.

This chart shows the full range of equity type investment products that match the stage of development of a green business, or most any business for that matter:

Stage
Risk to Investor
Potential for Financial Gain
Potential to Change Paradigm
Available to General Public
Seed Extremely High Extremely
High		 Extremely High No
Expansion Very High Very High Very High No
IPO High High High Limited Access
Public Stock Moderate Moderate Moderate Yes
Mutual Fund Lowest Lowest Lowest Yes

More and more people are interested in green investing for its potential to shift today’s environmentally destructive paradigms, and to produce the kinds of enormous gains possible in a rapidly expanding new sector. However, as you can see, the earliest-stage investments most likely to create this paradigm shift and produce super-sized profits also hold the most financial risk. Or do they?

When financial risk is defined in conventional terms, early stage investing is indeed too risky for most people. Those of us who think environmentally, however, tend to consider a wider range of risks. To us, destruction of the biosphere is a risk that makes traditional financial risk seem small by comparison.

Yet, in our daily actions, we are also bound by today’s societal norms. Try as we may, we continue to adhere to “the system” in one way or another. Most of us can’t afford to risk our financial status in society to invest for a better future. This has left the field of funding green startups to a small group of super-rich venture capital investors (see article from Jul-Aug Fast Company). Unfortunately, as wealthy as they are, the combined assets of these new “green angels” are quite small compared to the billions and billions of investment dollars needed to address today’s most pressing challenges in a timely fashion.

What is the answer?

Fortunately, there are many ways to reduce the risk of early-stage green investing to make it more suitable for the vast numbers of potential green-minded investors in the general market. This opens the possibility of mobilizing far more money for early-stage environmental business strategies. U.S. green consumers alone control an estimated $2 trillion to $4 trillion of investment assets. A lot of that can be brought into play if the public can be presented with properly-designed, early-stage green investment products.

Unfortunately, thanks to financial laws designed to make markets safe for average investors, creating these mass-market early-stage green investment products is a complex and expensive process. Today, no such investment products exist in the marketplace. Earlier this year, Iron Leaf Capital canceled their initial public offering after spending nearly $1 million to develop what would have been the first green start-up fund for the general public.

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24
Jun 08

What is an Investment Product?

Recently, I wrote about the financial ROI of Green Investing. Let’s drill down further…

In finance, an investment is a “thing” you buy with money for the purpose of getting both getting your money back, and getting more money in the form of “interest”, “capital appreciation” or both. This “thing” is a piece of paper called an Investment Product, also known as a Security.

The sale of securities is one of the most highly regulated industries in the U.S. The government agency in charge of these regulations is called the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The two main types of securities are Equity and Debt.

When you buy an “equity” investment product, you are purchasing a share of ownership in something. Let’s say you and a friend want to buy a rental property, and you agree to split the purchase cost, the ownership, and the profits 50/50. You then hold 50% of the equity in that property. The agreement you write up spelling out this ownership agreement is a type of equity security. Wall Street stocks are another form of equity security.

If instead, a bank loans you money to buy the property, you have actually sold the bank a debt security. The bank provides you with an amount of money, and you agree to pay them a certain amount of Interest plus pay back the original money (principal) over time.

In debt securities, the “buyer” of the debt product (in this case, the bank) doesn’t own the underlying asset, be it a company, property, etc. However, debt securities are often “secured” by the right of the lender to take property away from the borrower should the borrower fail to pay back the interest and the principal. Some debts are secured, and some are unsecured, and this factor influences the risk/reward picture. Wall Street bonds are another form of debt security.

Previously published at GreenOptions.com

ABC's for... / Entrepreneurs / Investors — 1 Comment
17
Jun 08

ROI of Green Investing, Part 2

In my last post, I talked about the ecological and social outcomes one might wish to support via green investing. But what about the financial return on investment (ROI)?

Financial ROI (profit) is vital to green investing. This can sound jarring to green-minded folks because for quite a long time, the profits of most businesses have come at the expense of human and ecological health. Yet the underlying system holds much promise. I’m seeing a new generation of green businesses that align profits and green objectives to create powerful engines for economic transformation. These businesses are building the reality envisioned by a previous generation of green non-profit leaders.

Financial ROI is important because it impacts the rate and scale at which this new reality can unfold.

Let’s say two companies are offering comparable solutions to protecting native forest habitat. The company with the higher ROI will most likely have the financial capacity to scale-up their solution, resulting in more forests being protected per investment dollar.

ABC’s: What is Financial ROI?

Financial ROI describes the comparative monetary return of different investments. For example, a bank certificate of deposit paying 4% annual interest will return $4.00 of profit for each $100.00 invested.

In the stock market, the term “price to earnings ratio”, or “P/E” for short, provides a shorthand description of this relationship between the amount invested and the ROI. In the bank CD example, you would have to pay $100.00 (the price) to get $4.00 of earnings (a.k.a. “profits”), or a P/E of 25. All traded stocks are rated by a “trailing P/E” — the current price divided by the previous 12 months’ earnings.

To a green investor, the combination of green values, social values, and the financial ROI, come together to make the complete case for making a particular investment.

Previously published at GreenOptions.com

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12
Jun 08

New Feature: “Ask Mark”

My favorite activity these days is coaching and advising ecopreneurs, investors, and green leaders on how to shorten the path to their objectives.

Having founded several green businesses and non-profits over the past 25 years, I’ve accumulated a ton of experience on starting, growing, and capitalizing green enterprises, and producing results via a broad assortment of strategies and leadership paradigms.

Now, I’m offering my coaching and advice for free, “Dear Abbey” style, via this blog. To get the ball rolling, I invite you to submit your questions or topics to me via email.

Note: I’m now a columnist for GreenOptions.com, a leading green blog network. This article is reprinted by permission from them.

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10
Jun 08

ROI of Green Investing, Part 1

Green investors often refer to the “triple bottom line”:

  • What are the social benefits?
  • What are the environmental benefits?
  • What is the financial Return on Investment (ROI)?

The first Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds avoided companies that made cigarettes, supplied the military, or did business in South Africa. This new approach was called “negative screening”. Later on, SRI investment companies started including environmental screens.

The next logical step beyond negative screens is to assess the proactive “good” being accomplished by the company in which one is investing. What result is the company being responsible for?

Some green investors suggest selecting companies that will “make a lot of money” against the backdrop of climate change or other major issues. While this is a first step, something more is needed. I propose a new approach called the “Ecology Benefit Index”.

What makes an investment ecological? The starting point is to focus on ecosystems. To me, the biosphere as a holistic living unit, comprised of subsystems like air, water, land, and energy. For each subsystem, I want to know:

  1. What are the indicators of health for that system?
  2. What are the specific challenges facing that system?
  3. And what are the clear and measurable goals that we would want to attain to assure the health of that system?

Science has advanced to the point where today, an investment can be rated according to such an “Ecology Benefit Index”. This index can then be used to help investors select companies that can most directly and effectively help protect, restore, and enhance the vitality of people and the biosphere.

Originally posted at GreenOptions.com

ABC's for... / Entrepreneurs / Investors — 1 Comment
28
May 08

What is a green investment?

In my last “ABC’s” post, I opined about what constitutes a “green” business. Now I want to start looking at “green” investing.

What is an investment? This is such a vital question. There’s a lot of fluff around this term. In the broad use of the word, an investment is anything you put out today in the hope of gaining some benefit later. For example, you might “invest” your time and money planting tomatoes today in the hopes of eating them later.

In business, the word “investment” has a precise meaning. An investment is the point where the interests of an entrepreneur intersect directly with the interests of an investor. The investor moves money (energy, status) into the account of the entrepreneur to support the entrepreneur’s leadership and goals, and to “invest”, to get something back later – not only good deeds, but more money than was provided.

The amount of money that comes back later is called the Return on Investment, or ROI. In finance terms, to be precise, money given without any hope of financial return should be called a gift.

So if you give money to a green charity, you are hoping for a return of good, but not a return of money. If you provide money to an green entrepreneur, you are hoping for both – good deeds and a good return of money. For the purposes of my ABC’s column, a green investment is something that aims to do a lot of good for the environment, like a green charity, but also holds strong potential to provide a financial ROI.

The contract that commemorates a financial investment of money in a for-profit business is called an “investment product”, or even more precisely, a “securities offering document”. These terms provide the foundational understanding of finance, the specifics of how and why a businesses might raise investment capital while complying with the laws that shape the very flow of economy.

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6
Apr 08

What is a green business?

If the ecological value set can create profits, what then is a green company?

At the EcoSector Portal, I like to showcase and help grow companies that expand the understanding of ecology and produce outcomes coherent with this value set.

In the end, it is not my definition of ecology that matters – the ultimate right to make that assessment exists in the collective mind of society. But perhaps I can influence that thinking a bit here…

Let’s look at Wal-Mart’s recent steps forward into the ecological value set. The story was first reported in the August 2006 edition of Fortune magazine. In March 2008, Wal-Mart announced the formation of a The Cleantech Accelerator Project in partnership with the Cleantech Group to recruit business partners for Wal-Mart that can help them achieve the following objectives:

  • generate zero waste
  • be supplied by 100% renewable energy
  • sell products that sustain resources and the environment

buy book“Generating zero waste” in itself reflects a highly evolved ecological understanding. The idea is laid out beautifully by green architect Bill McDonough in his book “Cradle to Cradle”.

Does this make Wal-Mart a “green” company? My short answer is, “not yet”.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say I put in a fair amount of energy (successfully) fighting Wal-Mart’s attempt to knock out a farm and build a “supercenter” in my home town. For the moment, I want to set aside all the reasons I would fight such a proposal again, and instead look at certain fundamental issues that relate broadly to the notion of green business.

I say Wal-Mart is “not yet” a green company, because their primary mission is “not yet” to protect the health of the biosphere. In Wal-Mart’s own words, their mission is “Saving people money so they can live better.” This statement doesn’t reflect what I call an “ecological value proposition”.

So, Wal-Mart is “not yet” a green company because they are not yet driven by an “ecological value proposition”. However, they clearly have become a top-tier consumer of environmentally designed goods and services, which significantly distinguishes them from other major corporations. This is a form of leadership.

For them to become a green company in my view, I would like to see their mission become “Assuring the health and vitality of people and the biosphere”. Inside of this new mission, Wal-Mart’s core task, conveying goods to consumers, would become a way of producing this new outcome. By following ecological design, their products will naturally cost far less as the huge volume of waste that considered conventional today is continuously filtered out of their supply chain. So, they don’t need to give up their old mission to add this new one.

As a green investor, I’m much more excited by the companies Wal-Mart is hiring to provide the goods and services and design the strategies they are using to achieve their sustainability goals.

For example, wearing both my investor and environmental hats, I would much rather own shares of stock in Blu Skye, the consulting firm that sold Wal-Mart on the idea of going green in the first place. Now there’s a green growth company. They are in the business of shifting people’s mindset and their method involves providing consulting services that realign corporate cultures to the ecological value set. Here’s what, to me, makes Blu Skye an exciting green business:

  • As a small company, Blu Skye’s potential for fast percentage growth is much larger than Wal-Mart’s – this potential for growth is what matters to investors.
  • Because they can influence company after company, Blu Skye can create vast ecological progress in society. This appeals to my sense of environmental leadership.

Unfortunately, most people can’t purchase shares in Blu Skye because the company, like most other leading firms in the Eco Sector, does not have publicly-traded stock.

Should you add Wal-Mart to your green investment portfolio? The question is worthy of consideration for green-minded investors who may not be able to invest in the privately-held green companies Wal-Mart is hiring to achieve their sustainability objectives. Here’s why…

  • First, once the ecological value set penetrates peoples’ minds, it tends to influence day to day decisions in a way that unfolds and expands over time. The seed has clearly been planted at Wal-Mart, and is taking root. It is simply now a matter of time until Wal-Mart publicly acknowledges that it’s primary mission is to take care of the planet.
  • Second, in pragmatic investment terms, Wal-Mart is going to make a hell of a lot of profits by following ecologically derived business strategies. For example, on March 2008, they announced a new prototype store that uses “up to 45% less energy than their baseline supercenter”.

Personally, I wish Wal-Mart would just stop building new stores – the very act of building new stores is among Wal-Mart’s most environmentally destructive activities. But compared to what is considered “normal” business in the world today, cutting energy costs by 45% is a big deal environmentally. And it also can create a lot of future profits for them. Via ecological redesign, similar savings are available across their entire range of business costs. Wal-Mart is so huge that every new step in the direction of ecological values can produce very significant growth in profits.

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4
Apr 08

Ecological Capitalism, Part 3

In short, the for-profit businesses with the strongest ecological values can be the most profitable, and can provide the most benefit to the health of people and the biosphere.

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30
Mar 08

Ecological Capitalism, Part 2

Over the last century, a lot of people, especially Americans, have become conditioned to think that environmental leadership is the realm of charities. Environmentally-minded people, and others interested in social values such as peace and equality, tend to habitually consider that charities are “good” and corporations and businesses are “bad”.

This acculturated point of view, when held and repeated as a “fact”, maintains a static, built in conflict between change advocates and the mainstream culture. This communications gap prevents environmentalism and the notions of ecology from becoming widely accepted by society.

Today, there are thousands of green businesses formed by environmentalists who are ready to try using the full range of financial tools and conversations available to for-profit companies in new ways, so they can break free of the cultural constraints to progress that come from viewing protecting the environment as a charity project.

Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of corporations are taking pride in their environmental policies and track records, and promoting this on their websites. While these companies deserve praise for taking steps forward, there is something still missing in society that a company would make their environmental record something to crow about. If we could imagine a future where all environmental issues are solved, no corporation would take special pride in their environmental achievements, just like no corporation today makes a big deal that they have a telephone system in place.

Fortunately, we now have some success stories that demonstrate how environmental values can become ubiquitous. The organic food industry provides the most obvious example. What makes a person choose to purchase an “organic” apple instead of an “industrial” apple? You can’t really see the difference at arm’s length. Perhaps you can taste the difference. But the real difference is a matter of cultural training. Those of us who purchase “organic” food have simply been trained that it is better for us than industrial food.

In the organic food business, like most other green businesses, this cultural training creates the primary financial value of the green product or service. This suggests that the more a green company can afford to teach ecology and environmentalism to the public, the more profitable that company can be, and the more progress it can achieve for the health of people and the biosphere.

The economy can become very dynamic as we move away from static notions of environmental good and bad and toward the notion of ubiquitous environmental understanding. During this dynamic phase, enterprises that understand that green education equals capital will emerge as the new economic leaders.

Until now, the job of teaching culture about the environment has been held by charities. Now, as it is becoming clear that this training creates a real monetary value in society, the role of educating society about nature and the environment will shift more and more to for-profit companies who have the financial tools to provide mass-education and to profit from the financial value created by that cultural training. Some green charities might want to take note, and jump on board before they become artifacts of history.

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