SDR Ventures Sponsors Corporate Growth

SDR Ventures was proud to be a sponsor of the 8^th annual Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference (RMCGC), held March 17 and 18 in the Denver Tech Center.

The day and a half conference is the preeminent gathering of business executives in the Rocky Mountain region.   The conference featured three keynote speakers and robust panel discussions.

Keynote speakers included Howard Behar, founder and former president of Starbucks, author and journalist Fawn Germer, and Keith McFarland, former corporate executive and award winning author of Bounce.

A panel discussion on Valuation featured SDR’s own Don Van Winkle. Don was able to share from his unique perspective as a former business owner and operator on the importance of valuation and how it ties to both capital access and transition.

The Denver chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) hosted the conference. The Denver chapter was named chapter of the year in 2007.

Attended by nearly 600 people, the event was extremely well received. About 150 corporate executives attended, as well as a large number of private equity and intermediary participants.

The number of private equity firms that attended the event, as well as their enthusiasm, was a positive sign to participants about the amount of investment dollars currently on the sidelines, waiting for a deal.

The conference was a great celebration and coming together of the Denver business community. It was an opportunity to compare notes, hear stories from the front lines and celebrate corporate growth.

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SDR Ventures Now a Licensed PeerSpectives Facilitator

SDR Ventures has long believed in the value of peer learning for entrepreneurs. There is nothing that can replace what is gained by learning shoulder-to-shoulder with other business owners. This has been the basis of our Performance Exchange Groups.

Now, we are excited to announce our partnership with the Edward Lowe Foundation as a licensed facilitator of PeerSpectives, a unique peer sharing initiative. SDR is proud to be the first PeerSpectives facilitator of its kind in the Colorado market.

The Edward Lowe Foundation was created by Edward and Darlene Lowe in 1985 to champion entrepreneurialism as a key driver of the free market system. PeerSpectives is an initiative of the foundation, aimed at strengthening entrepreneurial communities through roundtable peer learning.

As a facilitator of PeerSpectives, SDR Ventures is now trained and supported by the Edward Lowe Foundation in starting and running a roundtable for 2nd stage businesses in Colorado. We envision this roundtable as an applied financial boot camp, focused on preparing CEOs to be dynamic and beneficial members of the entrepreneurial community.

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US Leading Indicator Continues to Rise

The US Leading Indicator rose for the eleventh straight month in February, providing a positive sign that economic recovery will remain strong through 2010. The growth did slow in February, indicating that we may see the recovery level off in 2011. The Indicator usually leads industrial production by 13 months, so it’s not likely we’ll see this slowdown until next year.

Source: Institute for Trend Research

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$500 Billion Lending Shortfall

In a recent article posted on eBusinessTweets, Raj Date, executive director of Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy indicates that there will be a lending shortfall for small businesses of as much as $250 billion to $500 billion as the economy recovers.

Mr. Date projected small businesses will likely begin feeling the crunch by mid-year, and it will last for the next two or three years.

“The demand for working capital is going to increase, and it’s exactly at a time when nobody has the finance company or bank capacity to be able to provide it,” he said.

The $500 Billion question: Where do businesses turn if they are unwilling or incapable of waiting two or three years to receive appropriate funding?

The $500 Billion answer: The Private Capital Market.

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5 Rules of Better Business

As a long-time entrepreneur, I’ve endured my share of highs and lows in business. The analogy that running a business is a lot like being on a rollercoaster is dead on, as you never really know what direction work will take you. Throughout my topsy-turvy business journey, I’ve discovered five critical things an entrepreneur should never do:

1. Believe bigger is better. When selecting a public relations firm, it may seem natural to assume that bigger firms with hefty fees and impressive client lists are a good bet for entrepreneurs. But, you could make out better by selecting a smaller, hungrier firm that will be as eager to have you as a client as you are to have their services. That’s the lesson Amilya Antonetti of Soapworks learned when she hired a big public relations firm to help turn her all-natural, soap-based home cleaners into a national brand. The big PR firm devoted its attention to its bigger clients and generated no results for Soapworks. Instead, it sapped several years of the company’s cash growth. Amilya later found a younger, more aggressive firm to handle her account, one that got her the results she craved using cost-effective marketing, consumer and corporate education, and guerilla techniques.

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Trading Shovels for Spoons

This article has been sitting on my desk for about a year. I read the article every two to three months and decided to share it on our blog. I find it a refreshing reminder of the role of capitalism for real economic growth, as opposed to the crutches that Washington is able to provide.

In his Wall Street Journal column, “Missing Milton: Who Will Speak for Free Markets?” author Stephen Moore offers a defense of Friedman economics. An excerpt:

At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”

This is especially poignant at a time when the current administration enjoys casting blame for the financial crisis on Milton Friedman’s ideas, when in fact Friedman spent his career warning us against the very type government meddling that caused the credit and housing bubbles to begin with.

Moore points out that Friedman’s theories propelled us through the 80s, 90s and mid 00s with unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. He argues that the federal government will never match production like the free market does, simply trading shovels for spoons to create more false jobs.

True economic growth must be the responsibility of the free market and entrepreneurial-minded people everywhere.

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SDR Ventures Presents Pet Industry Webinar Series

Over the past several months, SDR Ventures has hosted a series of webinars focused on the pet industry. SDR’s pet industry expert, Carol Frank, delivered the webinars to members of the American Pet Products Association (APPA).

The first webinar, given on November 17, 2009 was titled, “Sourcing Financing in Difficult Markets: How to Obtain the Capital you need for growth.” The webinar focused on key actions business owners in the pet industry must take in order to secure capital.

The next in the series, “To Sell or Not to Sell, That is the Question: Taking the Mystery Out of Selling Your Business,” was given on December 8, 2009. This presentation outlined keys and common pitfalls for pet industry business owners interested in selling their businesses.

The last webinar in the series, “The Basics of Pet Business Valuation,” was hosted on January 14, 2010 and received the highest attendance. This webinar took business owners through a series of steps necessary to build their company’s value.

SDR Ventures is the first investment bank to pioneer a specialty in the pet industry. Prior to joining SDR Ventures, Carol Frank launched three companies in the pet industry. Having then sold her own business, Carol has first hand experience in company valuation as a business owner and operator.

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