The Business Professor
Vision Statement in a Business Plan
What is the Vision Statement in a Business Plan? A vision statement is a written declaration clarifying your business's meaning and purpose for stakeholders, especially employees. It describes the desired long-term results of your...
The Business Professor
Venture Capital Method - Business Valuation
What is the Venture Capital method of business valuation? “Venture Capital Method” for determining a company's valuatio involves multiplying the company's projected revenue with its projected margin and industry price-to-earnings to...
The Business Professor
Venture Capital
What is Venture Capital? Venture capital is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or...
The Business Professor
Values Statement in the Business Plan
What is the Values Statement in a Business Plan? The values statement highlights an organization's core principles and philosophical ideals. It is used to both inform and guide the decisions and behaviors of the people inside the...
The Business Professor
Value Streaming Map - Explained
What is the Value Streaming Map? Value stream mapping is a technique — developed from Lean manufacturing — that organizations use to create a visual guide of all the components necessary to deliver a product or service, with the goal of...
The Business Professor
Value of Dividends Method - Business Valuation
What is the Value of Dividends Method of Business Valuation? This method relies on the idea that a stock is only worth what it will provide to investors in future dividends. If a business does not currently distribute dividends, the...
The Business Professor
Validated Learning in a Lean Startup
What is Validated Learning in a Lean Startup? This is the process of testing your assumptions and hypotheses about your product, market, and customers, and learning from the feedback and data you collect.
The Business Professor
TOWS Analysis
What is the TOWS Analysis? The TOWS analytis is a derivative of the SWOT analysis that focuses upon external threats and opportunities. TOWS and SWOT are acronyms for different arrangements of the words: Strengths, Weaknesses,...
The Business Professor
Total Quality Management
What is Total Quality Management or TQM? Total quality management consists of organization-wide efforts to "install and make permanent climate where employees continuously improve their ability to provide on demand products and services...
The Business Professor
Time to Market
What is the Time to Market for a startup venture? Time to Market (TTM) is the time it takes to go from an idea to a finished product. Sometimes you will come across the term Speed to Market (STM). In the context of startups, TTM is a...
The Business Professor
Term Sheet Provisions
What are Term Sheets? What are the primary term sheet provisions? A term sheet often covers four main categories: the deal economics, the investor rights, the governance and oversight, and the exit terms. A term sheet must communicate...
The Business Professor
Strategic Analysis and Developing a Competitive Strategy
What is a Strategic Analysis? How does strategic analysis lead to a competitive advantage? Strategic analysis drives out internal and external strengths and weaknesses that affect the organization's growth. It helps you identify the...
The Business Professor
Strategic Acquirer of a Startup
What is a Strategic Acquirer in a Startup? What is a strategic acquisition? Strategic acquisition is more concerned with ensuring that the merger fits within the expectations of the company's long-term plans for the business. To achieve...
The Business Professor
Stock Vesting Schedule
What is a Stock Vesting Schedule? A vesting schedule is an incentive program for employees that gives them benefits, usually stock options, when they have contractually fulfilled a specified term of employment with the company. The...
The Business Professor
Steps in Developing an Operational Plan
What are the Steps in Developing an Operational Plan? Operations plans are extremely specific, detailed documents that clearly define how a department or team can contribute to reaching specific company goals. They typically outline the...
The Business Professor
Stakeholder Analysis
What is Stakeholder Analysis? Stakeholder analysis in conflict resolution, business administration, environmental health sciences decision making,[1] industrial ecology, public administration, and project management is the process of...
The Business Professor
Special Employee Provisions - Term Sheet
What are the Special Employee Provisions in a Term Sheet? The parties often negotiate numerous employee-related provisions into the term sheet. These provisions serve as control mechanisms to either incentivize current management or...
The Business Professor
Small Business Investment Company (SBIC)
What is a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC)? An SBIC is a privately owned company that's licensed and regulated by the SBA. SBICs invest in small businesses in the form of debt and equity. The SBA doesn't invest directly into...
The Business Professor
Shipping and Logistics Functions
What are Shipping and Logistics Functions? Shipping is the act of physically transporting goods or materials between locations. Logistics, on the other hand, is the process of managing an intricate operation. Logistics is used in a vast...
The Business Professor
Self-Employed Contributions Act - SECA
What is the Self-Employed Contributions Act (SECA)? The self-employed pay Self-Employed Contributions Act (SECA) taxes on net earnings. SECA taxes also fund Social Security and Medicare. The self-employed pay both the employee and the...
The Business Professor
Registration Rights - Term Sheet
What are Registration Rights in a Term Sheet? A registration right is a right entitling an investor who owns restricted stock to require that a company list the shares publicly so that the investor can sell them. Registration rights, if...
The Business Professor
Redemption Rights - Preferred Shares
What are Redemption Rights attached to Preferred Shares? The right of redemption is the right to demand under certain conditions that the company buys back its own shares from its investors at a fixed price. This right may be included to...
The Business Professor
Public Offering - Exiting a Business
What is a Business Exit Event? How is a Public Offering a business exit event? An Exit Event is an event where founders and early investors can sell their interest in a company for cash. An exit can be an initial public offering (IPO) or...
The Business Professor
Protective Provisions - Term Sheet
What are Protective Provisions in a Term Sheet? Protective provisions are terms that allow preferred shareholders to veto or block specific corporate actions. Protective provisions can help protect the interests of minority shareholders...