"And the beat goes on..."

You know when you start something and it's like you're looking down a long tunnel that keeps going down and around and you never see the end?  That's what the business plan seemed to be doing, going on and on and on... Wait... what if we added this ... No, what if we added that..."You know for just a few more dollars we could use that special paper I was telling you about".  Like I said before, we were building a HOUSE and all these fantastic add-ons kept snowballing and I must say that I was the main culprit. I was working with these two meticulous, inventive, articulate graphic designers who kept coming up with idea after idea and I would hem and haw about how much it was going to cost but at the same time I was saying..."Yeah, that's great!... We can do that ... I love that!!" I became a drug addict, looking for a fix and coming back for more and more. It was down right... pitiful.


But, you know what?... We did it, yup, we did. I now had a beautifully conceived, meticulously produced, detailed, eye catching Anteal Business Plan (Yes, we can't forget the Name, can we?). It is in the details and the subtle artistic nuances that I believe people and potential investors will appreciate and realize that this same attention to detail and all the other finer points will be carried throughout the conception, design, construction, layout and implementation of Anteal.




So, here is a photo of the front cover and the pictures, of course, don't do it justice but you get the idea. The steel pylons with the copper cables will be the main garment hanging system throughout the store, as it was in B.NY.

This is the back cover which is an image of an art piece that

Anthony Schmidt (an artist and an incredible window dresser),  our Art Director had made. I thought it was very appropriate. 

 This is the center page that opens up to a cloud list of my celebrity clients who were very supportive of B.NY. and I am sure they will be of Anteal, as well.







Here is an example of the layout of all the pages, each with a different graphic image, as a header, across the top of the page. 








So, there you have it, The Business Plan!


It took five to six months ,maybe two months longer than I had planned, but still that had set me back in the whole scheme of things. Now it was time to look for investors, friends or family and angel investors that would be interested in partnering with me in this venture. This was a whole new education for me, where do you look for investors, how do you get an introduction to them or the angel networks, do I even think about Venture Capitalists? These were just the beginning questions that I had, so back to Google and start researching the whys and wherefores of fundraising... fun, huh?


Well, there are articles and numerous articles, opinions and How-to's, all about the best way to approach investors and the kinds of investors available. Basically, there are three types of investor pools;  Friends and Family, Angels and Venture Capital.


For small start-up seed money, it is usually the Friends and Family that you start with because they know you and trust you and usually will not demand a large return but you have to be careful because it has to be treated as a business, not a friendship. They have to know the downfalls, that all best intentions aside you might fail and everyone will lose. It is a gamble, however you look at it, and they should not invest unless they realize there's a chance that they might lose their investment.


Then there are the Angels  (according to Wiki) "who are affluent individuals who provide capital for a business start up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. A small but increasing number of angel investors organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share research and pool their investment capital."


Last, but not least is Venture Capital which (also from Wiki) "is an individual or specialist organization that invests in new companies at a later time than angel investors - when the company has existed for a while, has gained some clients or gathered a trustworthy group of executives. It can also be a type of private equity capital typically provided for early-stage, high-potential, growth companies in the interest of generating a return through an eventual realization event such as an IPO or trade sale of the company." 


There you have it, a rather simple definition, I hope, of the three types of investors that I could approach. Obviously, Venture Capital is not what I need at this time primarily because Anteal is not that big of a start-up and most VC's are interested in an investment minimum of more than one million and usually more, plus they want majority control, a very large return and an exit in two -four years. Currently the primary fields of industry that VC's invest in are, of course, the tech and software industry which are generally high-potential and high growth and can yield a large return. I think I'm being realistic in ruling them out at this stage of the game.


My focus will be on the first two, Friends and Family and Angels, and now I had to figure out a strategy to accomplish this means to an end.


That I will leave to the next time...