E+Trends

Dogs can wear a SNIF Tag to help their owners make new friends; now pet owners can return the favour by using Dogtree, a social networking site designed especially for dogs.

Australian Dogtree is a free service that aims to help dog owners find playmates and walking friends for their canine companions. To search for doggie friends, human users can simply enter their postal code; more advanced search options are also available, such as breed and size. Either way, the result is a list of other suitable canine members in their area. Once they find some that seem like a good match, dog owners can invite them through the site for a playdate or meeting. There are currently almost 600 members on Dogtree, and most elect to use their dog’s photo and name as their username on the site.

Need we say more? Now that social networking has covered most of the developed world’s human population, niche applications are coming fast and furious—and even extending to some of mankind’s best friends. Cats may be less amenable to the social networking experience, we suspect, but how long before this comes to other sociable species? Advertisers of related products: get ready, or get involved!  >>

Top 10 social networks for entrepreneurs

Looking for a job? Consider creating your own. There are a number of social resources to help you connect with other entrepreneurs and get your business ideas off the ground. Here are the top 10 social networks for entrepreneurs. Each helps entrepreneurs succeed by providing them with the guidance, tools and resources they need to setup their company and gain exposure.  >>  

Computer makers prepare to stake bigger claim in phones

The computer industry has hit upon its Next Big Thing. It is called a phone.

Emboldened by Apple‘s success with its iPhone, many PC makers and chip companies are charging into the mobile-phone business, promising new devices that can pack the horsepower of standard computers into palm-size packages. The companies are also shifting gears because their technological feats of the last two decades — smaller laptops with faster chips to deliver snazzier graphics — no longer impress consumers, who increasingly find their three-year-old computers adequate for everyday tasks. “The action is really with the smartphones where everyone is competing to cram the most features into a phone,” said Linley Gwennap, a veteran chip industry analyst and head of the Linley Group. “I think of PCs as just kind of boring these days.”

The new smartphones promised by PC companies will, among other things, handle the full glory of the Internet, power two-way video conferences, and stream high-definition movies to your TV. >>  

Local economies seek own revival

Brandon Thibodeaux for The Wall Street Journal

Some are taking the traditional route of cutting corporate taxes. Others are trying all sorts of ideas: Paying residents to shop in local stores; giving real-estate brokers bonuses for bringing tenants to empty strip malls; reducing fees on new development; even critiquing local restaurants and giving owners feedback on how best to bring in customers.

Here in Carrollton, just north of Dallas, council members have dipped into a budget surplus to create as many as 250 temporary jobs paying $8 to $10 an hour. Hiring will swing into gear this week for shifts planting trees, painting fire hydrants and sprucing up Little League fields.

“I have no grand designs that we’re going to solve the world’s economic problems,” says City Manager Leonard Martin. “But there’s got to be something we can do to help some of our people.”  >>  

McKinsey maps the world’s innovation clusters

How innovative is your city? McKinsey Digital has released a new innovation study of the world’s leading cities, grouping them into one of four different categories — “hot springs,” “dynamic oceans,” “silent lakes,” and “shrinking pools.”

The most innovative cities are “dynamic oceans,” while the “hot springs” are the types of cities with a lot of economic momentum, but in need of a little Creative Class infusion to make them even more vibrant and diverse. In the chart above, Silicon Valley stands alone as the dominant innovation cluster in the world.

While it’s not a real stretch to see Silicon Valley as the dominant “dynamic ocean” of innovation in the world, who knew that Kiel, Germany and Miyazaki, Japan are among the hottest up-and-coming innovation clusters in the world? (In fact, there’s a whole handful of Japanese cities that made the cut as “hot springs” of innovation) And, conversely, that New York, Chicago and Philadelphia are “silent lakes” of innovation? By some measures, even the Twin Cities are more vibrant than their East Coast counterparts.  >>  

10 rules from the Incompetent Educational Leader’s Handbook

1. Regard any new idea from below with suspicion, because it is new and because it is from below.

2. Insist that people who need your approval to act first go through several other layers of management to get their signatures.

3. Ask departments or individuals to challenge and criticize each other’s proposals.

4. Treat problems as a sign of failure.

5. Express your criticisms freely and withhold your praise (that keeps people on their toes). Let them know they can be fired at any time.

6. Control everything carefully. Count anything that can be counted, frequently.

7. Make sure that any request for information is fully justified and that it isn’t distributed too freely (you don’t want data to fall into the wrong hands).

8. Make decisions to reorganize or change policies in secret and spring them on people unexpectedly (that also keeps people on their toes)

9. Assign to lower-level managers, in the name of delegation and participation, responsibility for figuring out how to cut back, lay off or move people around.

10. Never forget that you, the higher-ups, already know everything important about this business.

http://www.onepine.info/pkant.htm 

Get Smart(er)

Taking stock of the best places for entrepreneurs to learn.
Fresno State listed as a “school on the entrepreneurship vanguard.” 

Entrepreneurs are known for gaining inspiration from unexpected sources. Some even get it from a lump of Play-Doh. The Entrepreneur for a Day program that Springfield Technical Community College in Massachusetts brings to local elementary schools is about hands-on experience at its most tactile—and juvenile. As part of the program, kids team up to build a business based on items they design with molding clay. It’s the kind of experiential learning that so many entrepreneurship education programs are emphasizing to foster big ideas and big results.

From two- and four-year undergraduate programs, to post-grad and executive education courses, to one-off workshops and strongly pedigreed, high-end curricula, the common denominator for top-notch entrepreneurship education programs is firsthand experience—putting participants in the trenches to nurture an entrepreneurial idea from start to finish. There’s still room for conventional classroom lectures and textbooks, but today, the focus is on getting out and doing it with guidance from peers and experienced mentors.  >> 

Has entrepreneurship become cool?

Of course we like to think so, but it’s nice to see that The Economist feels the same way.

About twice each month, the self proclaimed “authoritative weekly newspaper focusing on international politics and business news and opinion” publishes ‘special reports’ that provide an in-depth focus on a specific topic. In the March 14, 2009 issue, entrepreneurship was under the lens for the first time with “Global heroes: A special report on entrepreneurship.”

Of special interest to policymakers in the U.S. will be the section, “The United States of Entrepreneurs” that leads with the following: “For all its current economic woes, America remains a beacon of entrepreneurialism.”  >>  

Ultracheap Nano to hit India’s streets in July

The world’s cheapest car will retail for just over $2,000 and can be yours — if you live in India and are very lucky — by July, Tata Motors said Monday.

The Nano, a pint-sized vehicle designed to make car ownership accessible to millions of the world’s poor, finally goes on sale in India next month. Whether it will revolutionize the global auto industry — or turn around its manufacturer’s fortunes — has yet to be seen, and other automakers will be watching closely to see how consumers respond to the car. So will environmentalists.

“We can do what most countries felt could not be done,” Ratan Tata, chairman of the sprawling Tata group of companies, said at a launch ceremony Monday, as the swelling strains of the theme song to “2001: A Space Odyssey” died away in the warm night.

“Nothing is really impossible if you set your mind to it,” he said. “What we have done is given the country an affordable car.”

And, he pledged to go to Europe and America soon, with safer, cleaner but still ultra-cheap Nanos for the developed world.  >>  

A MIT’s AgeLab growing old is the new frontier

Jacob Wamala, an MIT student, shops while wearing an AGNES suit. (Michele McDonald/Globe Staff). By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff / March 23, 2009 

In a laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there’s a suit of clothing that can make anyone feel ready for Social Security.

It’s called the Age Gain Now Empathy System, or AGNES, a navy-blue jumpsuit laced with braces and elastic bands and topped with a white MIT hard hat. Exercise physiologist Rozanne Puleo helped a team of mechanical engineers develop AGNES. The goal: To teach engineers in their 20s and 30s how to design products that are easy for people in their 70s to use.

“There hasn’t been one person who’s put on this suit who hasn’t said, ‘Wow, I didn’t know opening a package could be this difficult,’ “ Puleo said. “You can be somewhat empathetic, but you really never understand.”  >>  

E+Help

E+LAUNCHES

Sittercity takes care with Series A funds

After first launching its Web site during the last recession, Sittercity Inc. has secured $7.5 million in Series A funding to continue to expand the reach of its online care service

TopSchool makes grade with $7M

TopSchool Inc. has raised $7 million in new financing led by New World Ventures, which is hoping to recreate a “highly successful” investment in the company founders’ previous venture.

SuperSecret funded to launch tween game

As marketers look to catch the attention of the growing tween demographic, investors are turning to start-ups that make the group their focus. SuperSecret Inc. is the latest company to score funding for its tween-focused product.

E+Resources

How two friends built a $100 million company 

Childhood friends Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan didn’t set out to reinvent an industry. But the combination of modern design and eco-friendly ingredients has made Method Home, the company they founded in 2000, into a $100 million behemoth.

The story behind Method’s now ubiquitous bowling pin-shaped containers of soap and dishwashing liquid is more than your typical bootstrapping saga. Think soapy concoctions mixed in bathtubs, drained checking accounts, and a business that barely squeaked through the dot-com bubble. Here’s how Method did it.  >>  

E+Knowledge

Innovation: The five disciplines for creating what customers want

By Curtis R. Carlson and William W. Wilmot
As CEO of SRI International, Carlson has consulted with hundreds of organizations on becoming more effective and profitable. He has distilled that experience into a thorough treatise on the innovation process. The book cites dozens of examples of innovative ideas brought to fruition by innovators from Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs. It outlines, in workbook fashion, the critical decision-making process—the Five Disciplines of Innovation—required to think innovatively along with the quantitative tools that one needs to become an innovator, regardless of one’s profession. The authors deliver this in easily digestible outlines of what Carlson believes to be a tried-and-true process of how companies can effectively innovate. Tips for jump-starting the creative process, a brainstorming method based on why office mates chat around a water cooler, and how to create a value proposition along with understanding market and customer needs are all addressed in a readable, easy-to-understand tone. Weaving in stories of companies that have successfully innovated, such as Dell, with those that haven’t, such as Polaroid, the authors offer a well-reasoned approach to innovation.  

Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die

By Chip Heath, Dan Heath
Unabashedly inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling The Tipping Point, the brothers Heath—Chip a professor at Stanford’s business school, Dan a teacher and textbook publisher—offer an entertaining, practical guide to effective communication. Drawing extensively on psychosocial studies on memory, emotion and motivation, their study is couched in terms of “stickiness”—that is, the art of making ideas unforgettable. They start by relating the gruesome urban legend about a man who succumbs to a barroom flirtation only to wake up in a tub of ice, victim of an organ-harvesting ring. What makes such stories memorable and ensures their spread around the globe? The authors credit six key principles: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. (The initial letters spell out “success”—well, almost.) They illustrate these principles with a host of stories, some familiar (Kennedy’s stirring call to “land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth” within a decade) and others very funny (Nora Ephron’s anecdote of how her high school journalism teacher used a simple, embarrassing trick to teach her how not to “bury the lead”). Throughout the book, sidebars show how bland messages can be made intriguing. Fun to read and solidly researched, this book deserves a wide readership.  

The dip: A little book that teaches you when to quit (and when to stick)

By Seth Godin
Yet another easily digestible social marketplace commentary from the blogger/author who penned Purple Cow and Small is the New Big, Godin prescribes a cleverly counter-intuitive way to approach one’s potential for success. Smart, honest, and refreshingly free of self-help posturing, this primer on winning-through-quitting is at once motivational and comically indifferent, making the lofty goal of “becoming the best in the world” an achievable proposition-all you need is to “start doing some quitting.” The secret to “strategic quitting” is seeking, understanding and embracing “the Dip,” “the long slog between starting and mastery” in which those without the determination or will find themselves burning out. As such, Godin demonstrates how to identify and quit your “Cul-de-Sac” and “Cliff” situations, in which no amount of work will lead to success. Godin provides tips for finding your Dip, taking advantage of it and becoming one of the few (inevitably valuable) players to emerge on the other side; he also provides guidelines for quitting with confidence. Quick, hilarious and happily irreverent, Godin’s truth-that “we fail when we get distracted by tasks we don’t have the guts to quit”-makes excellent sense of an often-difficult career move.  

E+Capital

Small business loans criticized

President Barack Obama is set to release a plan Monday raising the federal guarantee on small-business loans up to 90%, but a study by Congress’s watchdog agency contends that insufficient oversight is in place for that program.

The Small Business Administration’s “credit elsewhere” program lends to small businesses that can’t otherwise get credit, such as through conventional loans from private banks.

Hundreds of banks provide loans under the program, formally known as 7(a), with the federal government currently guaranteeing between 50% and 85% of each loan, up to $2 million.  >>

TheFunded releases list of blacklisted VC companies

TheFunded.com allows entrepreneurs to express their opinions and views of venture capitalists and venture capital companies. TheFunded recently unleashed a list of venture capital firms that were banned from the leaderboards. The top 13 suspicious reviews were:
1. Alsop Louie Partners
2. Bay Partners
3. Benchmark Capital
4. Clearstore Venture Partners
5. DFJ Mercury
6. Flybridge Capital Partners
7. GrandBanks Capital
8. Greenhill SAVP
9. Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
10. Milestone Venture Partners
11. Partech International
12. US Venture Partners (USVP)
13. VantagePoint Venture Partners

Adeo Ressi, founder of TheFunded said that the reasons for VCs to be added to the list is because of threatening TheFunded, pressuring CEOs to write positive reviews about their VC companies, and failing to make newer investments.  >>  

Try, try again, or maybe not

Noah Berger for The New York Times. William H. Davidow, a venture capitalist, says he would want to know why an entrepreneur’s last deal failed “and what the person learned from it.” 

If at first you don’t succeed, it doesn’t matter that you tried.

That seems to be the message of a working paper prepared recently by a team at Harvard Business School. The study found that when it comes to venture-backed entrepreneurship, the only experience that counts is success.

“The data are absolutely clear,” says Paul A. Gompers, a professor of business administration at the school and one of the study’s authors. “Does failure breed new knowledge or experience that can be leveraged into performance the second time around?” he asks. In some cases, yes, but over all, he says, “We found there is no benefit in terms of performance.”

The study looked at several thousand venture-capital-backed companies from 1986 to 2003.  >>  

Shake-up at Sequoia

Venture-capital star Sequoia Capital, the backer of companies like Google and Cisco, last year laid the groundwork for a big expansion. But the firm has lost at least two of the key people it hired to make that happen, raising questions about whether Sequoia will proceed with its plans. Earlier this year, Michael Beckwith, who was hired by the Menlo Park, Calif., firm to launch a hedge-fund type vehicle investing in public stocks, left Sequoia. Now, Forbes has learned that Eric Upin, the former chief investment officer for Stanford University’s endowment who joined Sequoia last year, has departed for another job.

A Sequoia spokesman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. But a woman who answered the phone at Upin’s office at Sequoia said “he no longer works here.” Upin’s biography is no longer posted on the Sequoia Web site.  >>

E+Notes

Four top entrepreneurs talk about business plans, loneliness and the passions that drive them

What makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur? Is it a lonely adventure? Are mentors important?

These were some of the issues that four prominent entrepreneurs discussed in a panel discussion last year — part of a series of Insight Exchange breakfasts hosted by The Wall. The panelists were:

STEVE DEMOS, co-founder and chairman of Next Foods Inc., which sells a line of stomach-soothing probiotic juice products. Previously, Mr. Demos spent decades struggling to educate consumers about soy before his company, WhiteWave, hit the jackpot with its Silk soy milk.

MARION FREIJSEN, co-founder and chief technology officer of E.Factor, which aids entrepreneurs by providing a virtual platform for the sharing of ideas and experiences.

TOM SCOTT, chairman of Plum TV, which operates local television channels in historic, affluent markets such as Aspen, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. Mr. Scott was a co-founder and chief executive of Nantucket Nectars, which was sold to Cadbury Schweppes for about $100 million in 2002.

MARK KERN, co-founder and chairman of Red 5 Studios Inc., an online-videogame maker. Before starting Red 5, Mr. Kern was the team leader on the popular multiplayer online game World of Warcraft.

Here are edited excerpts from the discussion:

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (WSJ): What separates entrepreneurs from the rest of us? Steve, you plugged away for 20 years with soy, trying to find a way to make a product that people would buy and understand. You say that the first 20 years of your life doing this were hell and the last eight years were fantastic. But you still stuck with it for almost three decades. Can you explain what it is inside you that makes you do that?

STEVE DEMOS: I have a different passion and drive in business, maybe, than some. And it had to do with delivering a message. I have the ability to operate in business effectively and efficiently with an idea, and bring it to life. But there was a mission of convincing people to eat lower on the food chain and thus promote all types of philosophies and beliefs. So when you are committed to delivering a message, time is irrelevant. It is the fanaticism that drives you forward. This time, with Silk, it took quite a long time to find that winning combination and convince 15 million homes to buy Silk. We ended up doing that.

WSJ: Did you ever think about giving up, in those 20 years? 

MR. DEMOS: You have to challenge your sanity at some point, in saying, I’m trying to change human habit. I’m trying to get people to look at something radically differently than they ever did before. And I used to say I was hitting my head against a brick wall for 20 years and the wall gave in. And that’s really, I think, true.

So I doubted it a lot, but at the very root of what we’re doing, the product was good for everything it touched. So I doubted my tenacity, sometimes, but not my product. Not my mission — never with the mission.

WSJ: A well-known marketing blogger made the point that the product that you set out to create is often not the product that you end up with, and that the ability to be flexible and to roll with that is just critical to making sure your business survives.

MARION FREIJSEN: I totally agree with that. I think for us, E.Factor started out as a book. We launched a book last year called “The N Factor,” and we were writing a second book, which was aimed at entrepreneurs and talked about entrepreneurship. We launched a little Web site just to get us some information and ask peer entrepreneurs what they thought, and they started getting really enthusiastic about the Web site. So we kind of dropped the book; it’s on the shelf gathering dust, right now. And we morphed the whole idea and we keep morphing it. And I’m sure there’s an evolution ahead of us. You have to keep listening to what people want and adapt your product to that, whatever the product is.

TOM SCOTT: I think that there’s a set of principles that evolve, too, but I think they are the most important thing. In our case, we had something called, “The Quality Juice Evolution Solution,” and that was: If you can make a product better, you make it better just because you can make it better. That’s a principle. What the effects of that are going to be, I don’t know the answer. None of us really know the answer.

But one way to look like a genius is to have principles, because when you have principles, you don’t know how the dots are going to connect, going forward. But when you look back, they connect really well. So you look back and it’s like, look how smart I am. And you’re not that smart, it’s just you had a set of principles that sort of guided you in that direction. 

There was a time early on at Nantucket Nectars, where it was perhaps the third year, and we were so afraid to throw it all away — the bottle, the cap, all this stuff. We threw the logo out. We thought the logo was untouchable, and it wasn’t. It just wasn’t.

And we finally threw it all away and from then on, we always said we’re willing to throw it all away. And that really created a freshness to it. So I guess my answer is, if you can really focus on evolving those principles and believe in them and practice them, products will evolve even more and it will get that much better.

MR. DEMOS: I think an entrepreneur’s responsibility is get you to the playing field and then listen very carefully to the consumer, because they’re really telling you what to do. I think, as an entrepreneur, I see trends but not specificity. And I look to the market to help me hone and fine-tune the specificity. Remember, I spent 20 years making the most hated food in the U.S., which is tofu, but we ended up on a rocket ship called Silk Soy Milk.

What you don’t know is in between those two products there were 200 other products. And we were basically dialing through products to determine where will the consumer show up to eat lower on the food chain.

MARK KERN: I think it’s not just about adapting to your consumer and adapting to your marketplace. In my industry, you work with a lot of creative talent and they come on board, initially, for the vision that you hold out to them. But eventually they need to have contributions to that vision as well.

So you start out with your vision but it really has to morph and include everyone’s vision on the team, if you want to continue to [attract] the best talent to your company. And you do have to listen to them. You may be very stubborn because you started this thing and you think it’s got to be this way. But listen not just to your consumers, but to what your internal talent is telling you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: What is your personal mission beyond money, beyond success measured arithmetically?

MR. DEMOS: I think for me, personally, business is all about fulfillment, not achievement. I think achievement accompanies fulfillment, but not the reverse. So we really, honestly weren’t focused on the money because that was going to be the fait accompli if we fulfilled our mission. Meaningful purpose is probably the highest order of use of my consciousness that I can think of. 

MS. FREIJSEN: I totally agree. I think it is about personal fulfillment. We started this whole venture because we believed that there is a lot of focus on entrepreneurs but there isn’t a lot of value that is being offered to those entrepreneurs, and we want to stimulate and enthuse youngsters, as well as people who have already gained some spurs in doing business, to help each other. I think the power of the group is what we’re all about, to gather all that information that lives in your minds. And one of you will have a piece of knowledge that will help somebody else. That’s what we’re all about. It’s passion.

WSJ: And you did it after being entrepreneurs yourself, and seeing the void.

MS. FREIJSEN: Right. Exactly. Being an entrepreneur is a lonely business. I had an entrepreneur turn up at an event. He was almost in tears. He said, this is so great. When I talk at home about my business, my wife only cares about what income I bring in and the rest of my family doesn’t understand. And here I can talk to people who are like me.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You’re talking about collaboration and learning from each other. I’d like to hear something you’ve learned this morning, listening to each other.

MR. KERN: What I learned today is that I’m not alone. As other people have mentioned, you do feel very alone when you’re out there. And it’s always great to connect with other people who’ve been through this before and know exactly all the pains that you’re going through. And it’s another key reason why you’ve got to keep that small-business channel open, because the challenges are so different and people need to connect. That helps you keep going. That really does.

MR. DEMOS: I think it’s reassuring to know that we’re not nuts; that we actually are all talking about the same thing, from different sides, or facets of a jewel. And it’s encouraging to realize it doesn’t matter whether you use the same verbiage as I do, or not. The same drive, the same underlying themes, the same ways of doing things. Those things are reassuring because as entrepreneurs you really are out flapping in the breeze. You’re trying to take an idea from your brain and manifest it in front of you so you can see it, touch it, kick it, whatever you want to do to it. And I think that there is a reassurance in realizing that there’s many, many different paths, but we’re in the right current.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I just wanted to kind of follow up on the whole theme of this being a solitary endeavor, and being an entrepreneur. How have mentors affected your journey? 

MR. DEMOS: I never had a mentor. I feel like the orphan. I was taught a couple things from a few people I met along the line. But I have reversed that. I guess every generation wants to complete what it was missing, and I actually felt that, possibly, my business career would have been a lot easier, because I never took a business class in my life. So there are a few gaps out there, and mentoring would have helped. So I’m trying to do that back with young entrepreneurs that I identify, that meet all of my philosophical criteria. Maybe I can help them not skin their knees.

MR. KERN: I didn’t really have a mentor either. I think I’ve drawn inspiration from different people, but I’ve kind of always recognized that everyone has different strengths. And so what I try to do is — and this is for my products as well — draw those strengths out from all these different places and combine them in the best way I can, in the best combinations I can. But that does contribute to that loneliness feeling out there.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: How much does your business today resemble the business you would have described in your original business plan? And to what extent did you even start with a formal business plan?

MR. SCOTT: I believe in a business plan. It is the one thing you know you will not be. It’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen the way you think it’s going to happen. But it’s good to know that and it’s good to know, sort of, what to react to. And it’s good to have a guidepost, and it’s good to hone it as you go along. You just keep getting better and better at it.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page R2, February 23, 2009 

How a franchise works

Business franchise systems for goods and services generally work the same way. The franchisee, an independent businessperson, contracts for a complete business package. This usually requires the individual to do one or more of the following:

• Make a financial investment in the operation

• Obtain and maintain a standardized inventory and/or equipment package usually purchased from the franchisor

• Maintain a specified quality of performance

• Follow a franchise fee as well as a percentage of gross revenues

• Engage in a continuing business relationship

In turn, the franchisor provides the following types of benefits and assistance:

The company name. For example, if someone bought a Burger King franchise, this would provide the business with drawing power. A well-known name, such as Burger King, ensures higher sales than an unknown name, such as Ralph’s Big Burgers.

Identifying symbols, logos, designs, and facilities. For example. All McDonald’s units have the same identifying golden arches on the premises. Likewise, the facilities are similar inside.

Professional management training for each independent unit’s staff.

Sale of specific merchandise necessary for the unit’s operation at wholesale prices. Usually provided is all of the equipment to run the operation and the food or materials needed for the final product.

Financial assistance, if needed, to help the unit in any way possible.

Continuing aid and guidance to ensure that everything is done in accordance with the contract.

Entrepreneurship: Theory|Process|Practice | 8th Edition Pg. 163. Donald F. Kuratko. Copyright 2009 South-Western Cengage Learning. Mason, OH 45040