Mike Will Downey

Investors are smart people. They are constantly looking for good investment opportunities. The best way to get the attention of investors is to come up with a really good, disruptive idea. Document it well, develop compelling strategies for taking it to market, and build a top quality management team with a blend of entrepreneurial enthusiasm and past success - all managed by a high-quality CEO with a track record of previous success. Investors are risk-aware, so you need to do everything you can to reduce the risk of your proposition. Prove the concept, develop your product, make a few sales. Create a happy pill for a survey contract for a few happy customers. The farther you can take the company without capital, while reducing risk and creating value, the better your chances of raising equity capital and the higher your evaluation is likely to be. Think like a Venture Capitalist, you must get inside their head and understand the frequent stumbles and pitfalls in business plans ...

Leadership can bring to mind a variety of people: A political leader, pursuing a passionate and personal cause, an explorer cutting a path through a jungle for his group to follow, a CEO developing his company's strategy to beat competition, a coach motivating his team to victory, and even the ultimate, unlimited leader our God above. Leaders have vision, passion, and determination. They make life exciting, inspiring, and set the direction for success.  Choosing a good leader is paramount to a successful company or franchise. Typically it's track record or proof of concept that are evaluated in choosing a leader. More importantly though, leaders must understand people, after all they are the chief psychologist. Communication is important because leaders have to deal with hierarchical systems - lawyers, accountants, managers, sales, marketing and business development. They have to hire and dismiss personnel. Leaders deal with spinning plates and are able at any giv...

Entrepreneurship is essential to business today. Successful entrepreneurs exhibit key elements, disruptive ideas, and creativity. This can be tapped into with focus. Successful entrepreneurs solve a compelling problem; they come up with a way of doing something that does not presently exist. They might solve a problem that has never been solved before. Or they might come up with a better solution than existed before. But “better” can’t mean “just a little bit better.” It has to mean “enough better to compel customers to buy the product.” The most successful entrepreneurs have a protected idea. They have an idea that cannot easily be copied by their competition. This might mean the idea is covered by patents. Sometimes it means that portions of the process are trade secrets and cannot easily be reinvented or reverse engineered. One way, or another, the company should have a sustainable “unfair competitive advantage.” Successful entrepreneurs have a product or service that customers will...

In my experience using social media, since it's creation, this is a bit of my advice. If you would like more info or to ask a specific question contact Mike Will Downey at mike@5IV0.com   Strategy Create a strategy with the specifics of your brand in mind.  These brief questions will help us to study your customer base and gear content targeted not only about your brand, but aspects of their life they care about that relate to what you do.  With proper planning you will release fresh, personalized content related to your brand and what you want people to associate with your business.  Mission statement. What are you are looking to accomplish with your blog? MS: To enrich the lives of teens and young adults through inspiration, education, and active style. What are elements from your brand that lead to specific topics that you want discussed on your Blog/Facebook/Twitter/etc? What content will stick with that will spark and keep the interest of...

Business Planning is a process in which you have to really hone in on your business and get to the point. This way investors, customers, employees, and partners can quickly understand your product or service. Below I will share my expert experience in starting, selling, and funding businesses, as well as writing business plans.   Start with a business plan summary. Make it simple. Don't assume anyone knows anything about your business or industry. Don’t get bogged down trying to describe products or technologies--if the risk exists, just talk about what the technology is used for.  Try to answer the questions in the outline crisply and directly.  In the beginning, there isn't time for long explanations.  People are busy and you want to capture their interest. You can elaborate later. Don’t exaggerate.  Be as factual as possible.  Be prepared to defend any claims you make if possible. Quantify claims whenever possible.  (Don’t say, “w...

What's a quick introduction about you? I graduated from Ohio University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Communications. I attended University of Denver University for a Masters in Business Administration and completed a one year business mentorship program at Harvard University. I have over 20 years experience running various businesses ranging from music publishing, event production, real estate management, and sports marketing.   I’ve been independent since I was 16, funded all of my schooling myself and struggled hard to run my businesses. Along the way, I learned many valuable life lessons that have helped me establish who I am today. What kind of a childhood did you have? Growing up in Granville, Ohio on a farm was not easy. I was bullied and outcasted because I grew up on a farm and had no fashion sense or much parental directions. I wore heavy, thick rimmed glasses and wore whatever my parents could afford, which usually meant, mismatched or do...

Investment Capital can seem like this elusive pie in the sky unless you come from a wealthy family, or have past success. On the contrary though, it's not that difficult to find, all you have to do is focus your efforts. First off you have to get your pitch down to a science. Many pitches fail because they answer the wrong questions. The right questions depend on the stage of your business - some are getting started with an idea, others have a lot of revenue already. Focus your pitch on the key questions for your stage of business. Most pitches don't answer the question that is being asked of investors, which is what is the investment and what's the return? You need to think like an investor. Not all investors think alike, but the hurdles are well known within the investment world. Investors want to know what their return divided by investment could potentially be. Risk is all around. You need to solve an important problem, be unique, have a sustainable competitive adva...