Business: Angel Investors: 7 Online Business Plan Scams and 1 Real Deal

Angel Investors: 7 Online Business Plan Scams and 1 Real Deal

Written by MaryAnn Shank

We've all seen repparttar

hype: "We'll put your plan in front of thousands of investors!" "We'll write you an award-winning online business plan!" "Only $3,000 for thousands of investors to learn about your company!"

I cringe every time I see one of these ads. Vultures are preying on honest business people who want to fund their businesses. Here are some ways to spot them:

1. "Only qualified investors see your business plan." Yeah, sure. And who "qualifies" them? Have a friend try to sign up as an investor (that part is usually free). How is she "qualified"? Is there a background check? Does she submit a financial statement? Odds are that she will be asked to do nothing more than sign a statement that she has a certain net worth. That's no "qualification" in my book. So who are these "investors"? Who knows. One could be your strongest competitor. 2. "You approve anyone who sees your business plan." Okay. So what are you going to do to qualify repparttar 103194 potential investor? Are you going to run a background check? ask for ID? ask for tax returns? or just be so happy that anyone wants to see your business plan that you jump on repparttar 103195 idea? (That's how these scams get away with charging thousands of dollars -- too many entrepreneurs are desperate for funding.)

3. "It's only $500 (or $300 or $100) to register." What does it matter if it's free? If it is diverting your time and energy and resources away from finding a viable investor, it's not worth it.

4. "Your idea is great, but we need to put it into our format. This will only cost $800." Don't walk -- run from these guys.

5. "Your idea is so great that we want to invest $2,000 in it." (That's after you spend $5,000 to put it into "their" system.) Do I really need to comment on this?

6. "Talk with a satisfied customer, or 2 or 3." Here's this entrepreneur who just got $2 million in funding, and he has nothing better to do than sell repparttar 103196 web scam to you? Trust me, entrepreneurs who just get funded barely have time to eat, let alone talk.

Are Office Supply Super Stores Killing Your Business?

Written by Robert Short

Have you ever noticed how convenient those giant office super stores are? I mean we all use them. They’re on every corner out here in repparttar

suburbs of Boston. It’s Officethis or Officethat or something like Paperclips, you know, all repparttar 103193

major players. Well, I’ve recently realized that over repparttar 103194

past 10 years of prosperity that my small business has been paying a huge premium for this convenience. In repparttar 103195

past several months, as a result of repparttar 103196

recent economic downturn in our local economy, I have been doing everything I can to plug repparttar 103197

holes in our spending and trying to “trim repparttar 103198

fat” so to speak. Fortunately this is something that myself, my competition and other local business owners are not familiar with. We have all prospered and have rarely, if ever, worried about money.

One evening I was shopping with my family at Wal-Mart loading up on family stuff and I couldn’t help but notice that repparttar 103199 same 100ct (or very similar) manila folders that I paid nearly $7.00 for several hours earlier at Officethat were available at Wal-Mart at an everyday low price of $1.77. Now, I never claimed to be a genius but a $5.00 difference on a product that I buy 5 boxes of a month is a $25.00 a month savings. That of course is $300 a year. I quickly realized that I was on to something but I figured it was just a fluke. I had also bought a new water bubbler and a mini bar type refrigerator earlier and they both cost $149.00 each so I figured I would go and check out that aisle as well. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I found a water bubbler/mini fridge combo for only $99.00. Of course I bought it on repparttar 103200 spot and when I got back to my office repparttar 103201 next morning I repackaged repparttar 103202 fridge and water bubbler and back to Officethat they went with five boxes of manila folders and a few other overpriced items and I saved more than $225.00. Not too shabby. And to think that this was only one trip over repparttar 103203 past ten years. How much could I have been saving repparttar 103204 whole time?

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