Advice for CEOs

Every entrepreneur looking for investors would like to find backers who have ample cash to invest and who also bring industry knowledge, savvy and contacts. But most entrepreneurs would prefer that their investors be relatively hands off, not inclined to interfere unduly in their business management process. How realistic is it to find such investors?

Bootstrapping is the traditional way to grow a startup and early stage company. It keeps equity in the founders’ hands and avoids having investors to answer to. But there is another side of the coin: not having enough working capital for marketing and other priorities to grow the company. How do companies that you know deal with the downside of bootstrapping?

A basic Human Resources best practice is to perform regular employee performance reviews. Larger companies devote significant HR resources to gathering, synthesizing and reviewing feedback from managers and then presenting the results to employees. They try to ensure that feedback is objective and not discriminatory or offensive. They strive to rationalize how evaluations relate to decisions on employee compensation.

At first glance, what could be more different than General Motors and the emerging growth and lower middle market companies that our firm, Newport Board Group, serves?

In earlier blog articles I have looked at issues confronting earlier stage and middle market companies as they traverse what Doug Tatum, our firm’s Chairman, called in his book of the same name: “No Man’s Land.” This is the phase of corporate evolution in which companies are too big to be small and too small to be big.

In several recent blog articles, I explained the distinctive advantages of the franchise business model. Entrepreneurs who have developed a localized, replicable business model should understand the option to franchise their business—especially because franchising has moved well beyond its traditional footprint in fast food, car repair etc. into a broader range of service businesses.