Business Plan Research

So, I'm in my final month in my Masters' program, and I am in the process of making my business plan. I needed to get inspiration and education from somewhere, so I figured, "why not" and looked up some great business development professionals. The first one I looked up was a man by the name of Mark Zwilling.
He is the founder of Startup Professionals, a contributor to Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Business Insider, an advisory board member of numerous startups, and many other important business occupations.

In Zwilling's Top Ten Investor Turnoffs Around Business Plans, he mentions a few things that investors are looking for. One, is the executive summary. Investors will flat out ignore your business plan if it doesn't have an executive summary, which is quite obvious if you think about it. What's a business if you can't sum it up and give the reader some sort of perspective as to what he is reading? Another important component of a business plan is your grammer. As he said, don't embarrass your english teacher, because the second your prospective investor sees a period set where it shouldn't be, you can kiss that investment goodbye. Another important thing that the business owner must consider is whether or not his business plan is too wordy. Noone, not even investors, like gigantic word blocks, especially when the word blocks aren't needed for the business plan to work.

Overall, Zwilling's Forbes article was a delight to read, and if you didn't read it, here it is. http://blogs.forbes.com/martinzwilling/2011/02/04/ten-top-investor-turnoffs-around-business-plans/ . Now, there is another great business development professional. Well, professionals.

Jay Turo and Dave Lavinsky are founders of Growthink, one of the nation's biggest strategic advisory and investment banking firms right now. Within a 10+ year career, Turo has been advising dozens of middle market, corporate and emerging clients. His big-name clients included Porche, Deutsche Bank, McKesson, Infospace, Samsung, & Paramount Pictures, while his emerging clients include names such as Accelerant, C8 Medisensors, Dakim, DCIP, Free Conference, Fresh Games, Green Medical, Integreon, L3D3, Mobeze, MyPublicInfo, Nolatek, Ometric, Pocketsonics, Precision Time, Raise Capital, Recoup IT, Research Scientists, Sandel Medical, Spring Medical, Telverse, Thrombovision, XCOM Wireless, and Xorbent. Dave Lavinsky isn't the kid in this partnership, either. The man has developed over 100 business plans and has managed over 150 client engagements across all of  Growthink's practice areas.

Well, they both have offered their insight on what they think the key components of a successful business plan is. According to both businessmen, there are, like Zwilling, ten key components within a business plan. One is the executive summary. According to Lavinsky, "The Executive Summary must communicate to the prospective investor the size and scope of the market opportunity, the venture's business and profitability model, and how the resources/skills/strategic positioning of the Company's management team make it uniquely qualified to execute the plan.". (Lavinsky, 2011)

The next three component were company analysis, industry analysis, analysis of customers, and analysis of competition. The one keyword in all three of them was the word analysis. You must analyze as much as you can in order to convey to your investor the notion that you have a backbone and the business mind in order to turn profits. Then you have the marketing plan, a document that details how your business will reach their intended market. Key components of that include

• A description of the company's desired strategic positioning
• Detailed descriptions of the company's product and service offerings and potential product extensions
• Descriptions of the company's desired image and branding strategy
• Descriptions of the company's promotional strategies
• An overview of the company's pricing strategies
• A description of current and potential strategic marketing partnerships/ alliances

Next up are the operations/design and development plans. They detail the internal strategies to build everything from concept to reality. According to Lavinsky, you must be able to layout what functions are required to run the business, what milestones must be reached before the venture can be reached, and how quality can be controlled.

Then you have the financial plan, the management team, and the appendix. The financial plan simply lays out the profits and and revenue structure. Like the executive summary, if your investor doesn't know how you're going to make money, well don't expect anything to come from that meeting. The management structure demonstrates that your company has the human resources need to be successful. And finally the appendix supports the entire business plan. According to both Turo and Lavinsky, it is important to place financial projections in your appendix.

And there you have it. Some guys that I have read about and learned from. Hope my business plan is enough to convince investors now. 

 

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Design Parade 6

     This is another design festival that is awesome in every single way. Running from July 1 to October 2 (according to Designws), this festival contains a few notable designers (most of them up-and-coming). Established designers like Stefan Diez and Moustache made appearances. Stéphane Arriubergé and Massimiliano Iorio formed Moustache  a while back and their eccentricity is infectious. I love the way they take furniture design to a totally different direction.

And Stefan Diez is a designer who is well-versed in industrial design. He has his own studio in Munich and his clients include Authentics, Biegel, Flötotto, Merten, Moroso, Schönbuch, Thonet  and Wilkhahn, according to thonet.de. His work is isn't essentric, moreso, it's the little things that make the pieces that much more unique.

Diez (azuremagazine.com)

The most interesting things for me though are those young designers. It is always great to see something fresh and new, especially when it comes from a kid fresh out of college with their heads held high and all that jazz. The designers in question included: Emilie Colin Garros (France), David des Moutis (France), Jean-Baptiste Fastres (France),  Marc Ferrand (France), Max Lipsey (The Netherlands) Lea Longis (France), Caroline Perret (Germany),  Erasmus Scherjon (The Netherlands),  and Brynjar Sigurdarson (Iceland).

Now according to last week's post, three of the designers (Sigurdarson, Garros, and Fastres) won this year's edition of the Design Parade. Their designs were insane and the plaudits were certainly deserved. Here are the designs.

Fastres' Variations Upon An Electric Kettle; Photo by Véronique Huyghe

Sigurdarson's Tool Light; Photo by Véronique Huyghe

Award of the Public: Garros' Tension Collection; Photo by Florient Albinet

I have to say, I am not the biggest fan of Garros' Tension Collection. My favorite was the Tool Light. I find that Sigurdarson understood the concept of form and function with this thing, and it shows. Another thing that kind of attracts me to it is its simplicity. It looks like anyone can use this. Not to knock Fastres. His Electric Kettle designs are sick. I prefer the odder variants like the light blue one on the image above. 


Some of the guys who didn't get mentioned before were rock solid as well. For example, David des Moutis' Balance piece was outstanding. If you haven't seen it, you should, you'll be thanking yourself. Pauline Deltour's Office Accessories In Extruded Aluminum is also a really tricky and creative piece. Essentially the project was trying to study aluminum and how it implements extrusion (it's in the title), which in her words, allow for a section without limit in length and without any deformation. The actual place looked great. Here are some images from Designws.com.

Overall, this event looks like a winner. Expect me to be there next year!

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Some New-ish AutoCAD News

One, there's the news that you can submit your ideas to the AutoCAD Design Team. They are looking to start a new experimental website to gather more of your ideas and rank them by your voting. You can suggest ideas to change existing features as well, and view/vote on other ideas. This is a great way to build the AutoCAD brand in my opinion. There are some things that I've encountered some designers kinda irk about, so I can't see this failing. Here's a quote:

“Your suggestions help make AutoCAD (Mac & Windows) better, so let us know what would make AutoCAD easier to use, more enjoyable and help you be more productive.

The Design team might drop in from time to time to get inspired, and we may use the data submitted to help drive customer activities such as focus groups at our offices, AUGI CAD Camps,and events at Autodesk University.

If you'd rather more of a conversational approach check out the AutoCAD discussion groups at http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD/ct-p/8


The AUGI wish list forum is another great place to submit your ideas and vote on them http://augi.com/community/autocad/aut­ocad-wishlist/”

So there you go.

Next article...

I looked up an article regarding free DWG viewers. The first one is pretty cool. It's a Windows-only desktop application called AutoCAD TrueView. AThe first thing that I noticed was that not only could you view 2D and 3D DWG files but there were layer features, visual styles, measurements and print/plot of the full application. Another awesome aspect of this viewer is that along with AutoCAD 2012, you can also read DWG files from the early eighties, as a matter of fact, you can convert the files to work with other versions~!! According to the Between the Lines, the viewer also allows for one to create DWF and PDF files. Though it's 270mb, it's extremely powerful considering the promises.

For the mobile fans, don't feel left out. There's an app for you as well.

The application is called AutoCAD WS, a web/mobile-based DWG viewer with collaboration and markup. According to Between the Lines, not only can you run this application with any desktop with a browser supporting Flash, it is also available on mobile application on Apple and Android devices. All this requires in an internet browser (Chrome, Safari, Explorer, Firefox with flash). This also supports offline synching so you can take your drawing even when you don't have an internet connection. This app supports 2D DWG, real-time collaboration, AutoCAD integration, and unlimited file storage (AWESOME). In addition to editing and sharing in real-time with DWG files and you can also upload other file types like ZIP, Doc, and PDF as file storage.

(thanks goes to Between the Lines)

I know many colleagues who love to use AutoCAD, so I'll mention this to them!

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Yet Another Odd (as in cool) Tech Story To Discuss

So, after my Valve post, I looked up some other news. This bit of news is a day late, but it's still something I've been kinda waiting for.


Google Adding Search By Voice, Pictures

San Francisco (CNN) -- The plain Google search box will soon be able to handle more than taps on a keyboard. 

Google is bringing features pioneered on smartphones, like voice and image search, to its flagship product, the company said at a news conference here on Tuesday.

The speech-recognition tool began showing up as a microphone button on the right-hand side of the Google.com search box for some visitors on Tuesday. It will only be available on Google's Chrome Web browser for now, but Google executives say they hope other software makers implement the technology to support the feature.

Like on Android or the Google application for the iPhone, people can click the mic icon on Google.com, and say a phrase or question into their computer microphone.

The speech technology attempts to account for accents and context in order to transcribe the recording into text. This produced mixed results in my testing, speaking in plain English or with a faux Cockney accent.

The image-search feature will start rolling out in the next few days, said Johanna Wright, a Google search director. "Every picture has a story, and we want to help you discover that story," she said.

Image Search can, say, look at a family vacation photo and figure out where it was shot, or help explain images that become Internet memes, such as Lolcats. The recognition technology applies a bunch of Google's proprietary algorithms to photos, but facial recognition isn't one of them, executives said in an interview with reporters.

People using newer Web browsers will be able to drag an image file from the desktop onto the search box. Additional features are available to those who install the Google Toolbar in Firefox.

Google Instant, the immediate suggestions offered when a user is typing into the search box, will debut on Google's image-search section "in the coming weeks," said Google exec Amit Singhal.

To complement Google's quest for high-speed Web surfing, the company plans to roll out a feature called Instant Pages. It will sometimes load the top search result on your computer before you click on the link, so that the page pops up instantly once you do.

The feature will only be available in Chrome, starting with the beta version 

of the software later this week.

That many of Tuesday's announcements will initially only be available in Chrome limits their reach. In May, Google controlled 65.5% of the U.S. Web search market, according to comScore, but Chrome only had 12.5% of browser usage -- far behind Internet Explorer

and Firefox -- said research firm Net Applications.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/06/14/google.voice.search/index.html?hpt=te_r1

So, it took very little to get me interested in this article. So Google is essentially going to bring what smartphones already had (voice recognition) and add it to Google Chrome. This function is going to be fun to use, especially considering I primarily use Chrome. Voice Search will only be on Chrome for the time being, because obviously other software makers haven't implemented this yet. One question that has risen from this issue is whether or not British (more specifically English) accents will be recognizable with this new feature.

Personally, I would love if there was a search based on tone. There are some songs I hear sampled (mashup fan, here), and I can't get my finger on the title, nor can I get the lyrics. In that case, I only have what I hum, and if I could search via hum or something, it'd be cool stuff.

The Voice Search wasn't the only new thing that Google was introducing. The successful company revealed at a media event, that they will add new things on the image side of Google. Search by Images will allow for users to search for images when we either point at an URL on a web-based image or we take an image from our own finder window or what have you, and drag it down to the image box. For example, if I have an image of the Waterfalls sculpture, and place it on the Search by Images box, I will then see search results regarding Lloyd Frank Wright's famous piece of architecture.

Google Instant, which arrived last year, if I recall, was that kooky function in Google search that allowed for automatic recommendations right as you type. Well, Google has come through with an improvement over this. You see, even though you had automatic search recommendations, you still had to wait a while before the top image downloads. Google Instant fixes this problem, so that you can get a quicker load speed for your screen.

Overall, this is some stuff I'll be keeping a close eye on in the coming months, especially info regarding Voice Search.

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Steam (Now With F2Ps)

I'll be honest, I've been a tad bored as of late. Moreso, I'm in a bit of an "artists' block". I can't seem to come up with something good at the moment, so I'll post some news I found.

Valve Introduces Free-To-Play Games To Steam

Digital distribution outlet Steam has introduced free-to-play games to the service. The PC games platform, which is operated by Portal and Half-Life maker Valve, has kicked off proceedings with five “F2P” titles.


Those include Global Agenda, a massively multiplayer RPG about oppressive government bods on a frankly depressing 2155 Earth,Champions Online, a superhero-themed MMO from Cryptic, and Alliance of Valiant Arms, a shooty-bang-bang FPS set in war-torn Europe.

There’s also Spiral Knights, a co-op blaster with real-time changes to the clockwork world around you, and Forsaken World, a fantasy MMO that couldn’t look more like World of Warcraft if it tried.

All of the games are completely free to download and play. If you want, however, you can spend pennies and dollars here and there for “microtransactions,” buying virtual doodads, bonus costumes, experience bonuses and other features. It utilizes the same payment system that Valve uses to sell you ludicrously overpriced hats in Team Fortress 2.

Starting Wednesday, Steam will host a “F2P game of the day” event throughout the week, where each game will get a dedicated day with exclusive in-game content for players who try out the new titles.Spiral Knights is the first game to get a special day.

Free-to-play or freemium games have proved enormously popular in some Asia markets, where crazy levels of piracy make full-price titles almost impossible to sell. In the past few years, they’ve made their way to the West in the form of Facebook titles like FarmVille.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/06/free-steam-games/


So there's the article. I find this interesting, because well, I have a Steam account, and so does my brother. We both have always loved the publisher Valve for their Half Life series, and we continue loving the other series (Team Fortress 2, Portal, Left 4 Dead) too. Valve is one of the very few companies that I know of that acts as a developer and a publisher, which is kinda cool, I guess.


Their Steam service is essentially a digital distribution, digital rights management and multiplayer platform. Even though the site was created by Valve, there are big-name publishers who hold large catalogues, including 2k Games, Activision, Bethesda Softworks, Capcom, Eidos Interactive, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, ID Software, LucasArts, Namco Networks America Inc., Rockstar Games, SEGA, Sony Online, Square Enix, THQ, Ubisoft, and Warner Bros.


That's a pretty impressive lineup of publishers to choose from. I guess it was expected, but I was not expecting a Valve website to work hand-in-hand with other publishers. That's a thumbs-up in my book, because it gives the site a good outlook, while leaving the consumers happy with their insane Christmas deals. You can also download DLC (downloadable content) for your games and mods (stuff like outlandish weapons and levels).


There's also Steamworks, which according to my research, is a free development and publishing site. It pretty much allows developers to let their game work with the Unreal 2 engine, and experience the benefits of being a part of the Steam family of games. For example, let's say you developed a game. With Steamworks,  you can allow for matchmaking, anti-cheat technology, mictrotransactions (in-game economy), and a spot on the website. According to the site, It's distribution on your terms. I can't argue, since obviously, I haven't made a game yet.


Back to the story. I have noticed in the past that there were free games before. But not games that you would tag as Free-To-Play (F2P). They would normally be games like Half-Life: Lost Coast, Alien Swarm, or Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. You catch my drift, they're normally spin-off titles of other games, which is fine, but with F2P games, well, they are initaly titles like Spiral Knights, which unless I am misinformed, was not a spin-off to anything. Wait, neither was Alien Swarm. AARGH.


Still, I dig F2Ps (A.V.A looks awesome), and this can only be good news coming from a platform that allows indie gaming, and now F2Ps.

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What Have I Been Podcastin'?

     So, keeping with the "law" posts of this month, I will mention some podcasts I've been using to educate myself on the important terminologies within this complex world we've come to know as the legal world. Now, whenever I design something (in this case, I was making 3D textures), I listen to some ambient or some IDM music, like Aphex Twin or The Orb to keep my mind at bay all the while being a bit catchy. But  since I was yearning for a learning, I put on these podcasts. Let's see how they worked out.


     The first podcast I was experimenting with was the BP/G Radio Intellectual Property Podcast. I'll admit, at first, I did not like the format. It seemed as though it was just me listening in on someone else's phone conversation a'la wiretapping. I was expecting Ernest Grumbles to be (or sound like) he was at the station, whilst the man with whom he is interviewing is on the obvious "I'm at home, so I'm using my phone" format. That would have made a much better impression. Funny enough, however, as time went by and the introductions were done, the conversation became interesting. Ernest Grumbles asked an important question. What is the doctrine of Fair Use? Bill McGeveran mentions that the name doesn't always match the reality. He mentions that there isn't just one doctrine that deals with communication but there is a "constellation" of doctrines that come from tons of different places and cover different activities. The biggest one, he says, is the "so-called" fair use or the classic fair use defense for when you're using a word that has a dictionary meaning and you are protecting it against a descriptive terminology that is being "soaked up" by a mark so much that it can't be used by the people. He mentioned nominative fair use, and followed up with an example from my law class: the New Kids on the Block case in the early 90's. He said that if you are referring to the brand as a brand, that is nominative fair use. He also touched face with the first-amendment defense. Overall, this was a very informative podcast. I listen to the other episodes now. =)


     Next up is the Suffolk University Law School Podcast. I know, I'm not from there. However I feel it's best that if I don't know law, why not? I watched two very short episodes concerning visual artist protection. The first one talks about the Visual Artists Right Act of 1990. After finally joining the large copyright treaty, the Berne Convention, the U.S kinda had that feeling that it had to protect its moral rights, which, according to the host, is a bit alien to the way the U.S Copyright Law came about. He went to describe the U.S Copyright Law. "Derived from English Law, is an economic incentive. In Article I Section VIII of the U.S Constitution, the Copyright Law was meant to motivate authors to create work of their own. According to the U.S, if you allow creators, named authors in the Constitution, to get paid for their work by having a monopoly, the U.S will get more and better work. In other words, if a creator isn't paid for his/her work, their likely to become a Hair Dresser or something. If you allow them to create, this economic incentive will create new and better work. In Europe certain rights of Authors aren't economic but a natural right. In other words, in Countries that follow the French model of moral rights, the Author can protect against distortion and anything of that nature. The host mentioned that the moustache on the Mona Lisa would violate that right. In the U.S, he says, it may be a crime to do that, but it would not violate his rights as an artist. He also mentioned a case in France where the colorisation of a film had led to the violation of one's right as an Author. We don't have that mentality in the majority of this Country, apparently. Since the Berne Convention required adherence to moral rights, however, Congress passed the Visual Rights Act. It provides very limited protection to creators of visual works of art to claim authorship of the work to prevent distortion. He also went into recognized stature and what that dealt with. Short, but very informal.


     The second posting was centralized around a bill in Congress that Sen. Charles Schumer of New York proposed, that is titled The Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act. According to the host, historically in the U.S fashion design is not protected. Let's say you watch someone on the red carpet in a nice gown. You, being a copycat like myself, will go straight to your sewing machine and make one of your own. I can't steal the trademarks, per se, but I can "steal" the design. The host mentioned that there were two points of view. One, is that we already protect innovative design through Intellectual Property Law. On the other hand, it's hard to argue that Fashion Design isn't creative. Of course it is. Some people say that if we apply intellectual property protection that it will inhibit creativity. Essentially because the lack of protection will lead to a massive shock, and competition will slow down due to major fashion names having the ability to keep others from using a similar design. A very nice listen for those interested.


     And last but certainly not least, is one that really has nothing much to do with law. But an aspect of this can still be helpful. Design and Architecture is a podcast I listen to in my sleep sometimes. But many of the episodes are great. For example, this episode, which asks the question: When is a logo a no-go? Frances Anderton interviewed influential people within the branding world, like Sasha Strauss, a Branding Consultant, who mentioned the GAP logo change. He asked the question that most people ask when it comes to brands: When I think of GAP (in this case), I think of blue square and all caps. Now, I am very familiar with this. GAP felt that they needed to be more "contemporary" and "hip" and went with the "helvetica" look that everyone loves to do nowadays. They changed the lettering to title-case, and they shrunk the blue box and moved to the right corner. I personally thought that, like most changes, it wasn't needed. And Sasha's sentiments were essentially the same.
     
     He also nailed the point when he states that the reason many of these companies fail is that instead of revamping their internal organizational structure, they find it easier go for the quick and easier way to get a rise out of everybody: make a logo. Now, it does work...but not for long. As soon as people get over the shock, and start to think as to why they would do this (not coming up with an answer), they will drop it. Strauss also directs the listener towards the BP logo change. "BP" used to stand for British Petroleum. Now it stands for Beyond Petroleum. But, according to Strauss, if you look back into their books, a very small percentage (like .1%) had anything to do with anything beyond petroleum. Strauss also mentioned that most people do not remember logos off of the top of their head. He used Toyota as an example. We see the Toyota logo and we know what it is. But can we draw it? I can say that I cannot, in painstaking detail, remember a logo enough to accurately draw it. That's because the emblem or the logo is just the ignition switch for the brand. A fine point he states later on is that there is a difference between a symbol, a logo, and a wordmark. A logo could be a combination of things, like lettering. (Johnson and Johnson/Dell) Dell is a fine example, because it is a word that is also a construct of lettering. The "E" is curved on its side, giving it a unique look. Johnson and Johnson is a collection of letters in word form, which makes it a wordmark. The symbol is the stuff that, well, many people think that that is what all logos are. That shape. That color. That arc. The imagery. In my opinion, there's more to a logo than that. I've had clients say they needed a logo, and I'd feel something die inside =D Ahem.


A recent posting I've been listening to was from Ed Poll's LawBiz® Podcast. The episode was titled Technology: Is the bleeding edge needed to succeed?. Essentially so far, it's been talking about how technology can be a two-edged sword. But the guest was extremely informative on the topic, so I might have to read it again, haha.


     So, yeah. Just food for my thoughts I guess. If I misconstrued something, hit me a comment. I'm still learning this stuff and kinda took these guys at their word. They seemed educated.

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Three Design Lawsuits I've Considered Recently...

As a graphic designer, I feel that it's always important to check out some lawsuits to learn (and be entertained-ish) from. I have three (rather) solid examples of such cases.

Graphic Artist Files $1M Lawsuit Against Tapout Claiming Fraud and Design Theft

Essentially Justin Weber is a graphic designer from San Francisco, CA, who created the Tapout™ logo for the MMA company. In exchange for his logo, Tapout™ had to buy merchandise from Justin Weber's studio, MIA. Now, Tapout™ does not own any of Weber's designs. They simply compensated Weber by purchasing branding merchandise from his studio for resale. 50 designs later, after seeing the success that the logo bought the company, they opted to scheme their way out of working with Weber, by creating and selling merchandise without Weber's permission (and payment) whatsoever.

I liked this story, because it was during a time when I was just beginning to work with clients who needed prints and logos. Was definitely important.

Link - http://www.rfcexpress.com/news/article.asp?ID=3295

ESPN v. Quiksilver Inc: Lawsuit settles for undisclosed terms

Not knowing about Extreme Sports too much, I thought that this was pretty ridiculous. However after looking back and forth...it does kinda look similar. ESPN declared that Quicksilver violated a trademark. The issue is as obvious as anything if you look at both of the images. ESPN protested and complained to Quicksilver inc. over the use of the bold "X". However, Quicksilver spokesperson Joshua Katz stated that ESPN only contacted them once in the fall of 2007, and accused ESPN of not responding to Quicksilver's attempts to talk out the issue. Another surprising thing about this lawsuit is how good the relationship between the two companies were before this.

In essence, I have stopped using bold "X"'s.

Link - http://www.famouslogos.org/espn-v-quiksilver-inc-lawsuit-settles

Artist Sues The A.P. Over Obama Image

     This one hits closer to home because I love Shepard Fairey's work. He was being accused of copyright infringement, because he used an image of Barack Obama that was shot by a freelance photographer for The Associated Press. He filed a lawsuit against The Associated Press pretty much asking the Judge whether or not he is protected from copyright infringement and if it falls under "fair use". Julie A. Ahrens, associate director of The Fair Use Project and one of Fairey's lawyers, have staunchly defended the artist. "He should not have to deal with misguided threats from The A.P." Paul Colford, spokesperson of The A.P. stated that the agency was "disappointed by the shock filing by Shepard Fairey and his failure to recognize the rights of photographers in their works.". Another lawyer has claimed that all Fairey was doing was changing the photo into a totally different and new message.

Another lawsuit I found interesting, as both a photographer and an ink-and-wash painter.

Link - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/arts/design/10fair.html

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