Serial entrepreneur, technology consultant and all around smart guy Ron Kornfeld visited the Entrepreneurship and Technology class today and gave an excellent overview of business planning for technology companies.It is no longer required text for the class given the date it came out, but Cracking the New E-conomy, which was released in 2000 is still recommended reading. Written during the heady days of the dot.com boom, it may prove to be even more valuable as we head into some difficult economic times, when creating your own business may be the answer to being employed.
Ron was featured in the book, and is mentioned right off the top of Amazon's review of it.
The college-like text covers everything from software costs and international distribution to backing out of a deal and creating a fiscal-year forecast. Ron Kornfeld, founder of Harmonetrix, a Seattle-based business incubator, wrote a section on creating a business plan.
"The biggest challenge, really, with going from an idea to a real company is eliminating delay, is not having false starts," said Kornfeld, whose former company, Normandy Partners, worked with Internet start-ups....." -- Seattle Times, March 8, 2000
I have been an advocate of an update to the book, and went as far as to put a proposal together for the next iteration. At one point there was discussion of putting it online (after an update) on the WTIA's web site.
Ron did it one better and went over the business plan section with us personally. Since I wouldn't do him justice, I will simply link to the business plan template that he provided to the class.
Thanks Ron.
Additionally, here is a link to a CNN article today that talks about entrepreneurs like Dean Kamen, and mentions their value in the current economic climate.
No comments:
Post a Comment