I have said it a million times since learning the lesson myself in
a failed entrepreneurial effort a couple of years ago, the CEO of
any entrepreneurial venture must understand the importance of
managing cash flows and how to use cash flow analysis for the
strategic growth of the company.
Trust me, I am all into the Six Sigma approach of throwing a couple
of innovators together, rolling out a v1 product as quickly as
possible, and slowly scaling the company from hobby phase to a
successful...
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Your friendly neighborhood litigation attorney at Alerding Castor
Hewitt, LLP with a final post for the year to all of our business,
Indiana internet litigation, and technology law
clients. Saturday, December
25th will no doubt be a date of celebration in many
homes. As you spend time with your
family, remember how special the day is and all of the changes that
have taken place in the last 20 years.
Some of you might wonder what I mean exactly. I’m not referring to Christmas. And for those...
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It has been said a million times already on this blog – a CEO,
especially one which is seeking funds from private equity
investors, needs to understand finance. Often a basic
knowledge of sources and uses and cash flow analysis is enough, but
in many early stage investment rounds, savvy investors expect the
CEO to know the company's internal rate of return (IRR) - and
why it matters.
I meet many entrepreneurs who have served as VPs or middle managers
before embarking on their entrepreneurial...
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Next week I am moderating the plenary panel at TechPoint’s
Innovation Summit entitled
Funding Innovation.
Check it out:
TechPoint
Innovation Summit
Also check out the
sponsors page. I
counted today, and
nine Alerding Castor
Hewitt clients are sponsors of the Summit. That is
awesome.
This year’s panel members represent private equity investors, angel
investor groups, successful entrepreneurs and grant funding
organizations which look for funding and investment opportunities
in Indiana...
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I guest lectured at Purdue’s Entrepreneurship Capstone course again
last week. I love it – for an hour I talked about my
experience in entreprenuerial law, business law and funding law to
Seniors in Purdue's entreprenuership concentration program on
issues consider when structuring a new company. Honestly, I
thought I had them bored out of their minds (yes, there was that
one Greek letter wearing frat guy who was asleep about 10 rows
back), but I was impressed when we got to the Q&A time...
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Alerding
Castor Hewitt, LLP is a law firm that does a
substantial amount of legal work with clients in SaaS law and as
technology legal counsel. So much so that we were asked to
contribute to
Corporate Blogging for Dummies, a
best practices book that our friends Douglas Karr and Chantelle
Flannery were approached to write.
As a law firm that utilizes blogging to reach our current and
potential clients, the Alerding Castor Hewitt, LLP website was
featured as an example within these pages....
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I was reminded today of something told to me by a friend last
year:
Good people who are smart
ask good questions
Bad people who are smart ask bad questions
Good people who are not smart ask bad questions
In business we are always looking for answers – but what we
really want are good answers. Today the issue is never
whether we have enough data (we arguably have too much), it is
whether we can properly utilize that data to make better
decisions. I see this especially in my Internet Law /...
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This
morning I attended the
Techpoint event: What it Takes
to Lead a Successful Entrepreneurial Venture Today and was
reminded of some fundamental leadership qualities that I see in
many of the successful business owners we work with as a business,
entrepreneurial and information technology law firm.
Speaking today were Daniel DeHayes, a Professor Emeritus of
Business Administration with the Indiana University Kelley School
of Business and Delphia Croft, the Managing Principal of...
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The post below is fantastic. It is by Michael P. Alerding,
CPA (my business partner's father) at his accounting firm's new
blog site. He gave me permission to re-post it here (thank
you Alerding & Co.). Check it out:
Alerding & Co. BlogWhat Happened to Business
Ethics?
By: Michael P. Alerding, CPA
Every time I get a contract to sign, I find it almost impossible to
spend the time reading the fine print and trying to understand all
of the future implications of the agreement. As my son,...
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One of my favorite movie scenes is from
The Jerk.
Navin Johnson is working at a carnival guessing peoples
weight. He is talking to Frosty, his boss:
Navin R. Johnson:
[bleakly] I've already given away eight pencils, two hoola dolls,
and an ashtray, and I've only taken in fifteen dollars.
Frosty: Navin, you have taken in fifteen dollars
and given away fifty cents worth of crap, which gives us a net
profit of fourteen dollars and fifty cents.
Navin R. Johnson: Ah... It's a profit deal. Takes
the...
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 23, 2010
Contact: Lainey Scheetz
317.403.9012
lscheetz@alerdingcastor.com
ALERDING CASTOR HEWITT, LLP CLIENT NAMED 10TH FASTEST GROWING
PRIVATE COMPANY IN INDIANA FOR THIRD TIME
Indianapolis, IN – Iasta, the leading provider of eSourcing
software and solutions, was titled as the 10th Fastest Growing
Private Company in Indiana for 2010 by the Indianapolis Business
Journal (IBJ). A third time honoree, Iasta boosted its
three-year growth rate at 134 percent.
The report...
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There is a great article in the July-August edition of the Harvard
Business Review entitled
The Early Bird Really Does Get the
Worm. The article summarizes a study which found a
correlation between "morning people" and career
success. This is based on a number of traits which are
commonly found in morning people.
Traits
Agreeable
Optimistic
Stable
Proactive
Conscientious
Satisfied with Life
Being a morning person, of course I loved this! Most days I
am the first in the office. I love getting...
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Be
prepared: I'm going to get on a bit of a soapbox. I
read a recent article at WSJ.com entitled "Using Social Networking
as Legal Tool" (
Linked Below). There is
nothing wrong with this article. It very succinctly and
pleasantly explains how certain law firms are using social
networking and the Web to find clients for high-value plaintiff
cases. And I don't disagree with that approach. As an
attorney posting on a blog, I too hope to use social networking to
get business, and would be...
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I'm going to cheat a little on this. I read a great blog post
by Jeff Ready over at the McStartup blog (www.mcstartup.com).
The blog post is all about the importance of radical
innovation. I have a place in my heart for radical innovation
because I believe that in the legal community, we are the radical
innovators. ACH strives after its goal to be an information
technology law firm, a venture capital law firm and a business law
firm, but we go about it in a way that is radical to many...
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Your friendly neighborhood technology counsel here: So,
Mexico recently passed a new data protection law. On April
27, 2010, Mexico passed the Federal Law for the Protection of
Personal data, which is likely to be signed into law by the
President in the near future. This law not only allows for a
mind-boggling $1.5 million penalty for violation, but it also
applies to the private sector. Private and public entities will
need to protect themselves from privacy litigation.
This law is much akin...
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Your
friendly neighborhood technology counsel here: As you likely
know, my goal is to become THE Indiana technology lawyer;
however, technology is not my only area of interest. Like
many of the folks at Alerding Castor Hewitt, technology law
is a passion, but we all strive to be a full service law firm for
all businesses. Thus, in addition to tech stuff, I also
litigate matters for several banking and business clients.
And, as any good lawyer does, when I see changes in the law
that may...
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I recently read a summary of a lecture on applying the seven deadly
sins to software development. The sins are:
|
Lust
|
Obsessive or excessive thoughts
|
|
Gluttony
|
Over-indulgence, over-consumption
|
|
Greed
|
A sin of excess like lust and gluttony, but in reference to
wealth
|
|
Sloth
|
Laziness, indifference, apathy
|
|
Wrath
|
Uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger
|
|
Envy
|
Resenting another because they possess something you do
not
|
|
Pride
|
Excessive love of self
|
The idea is not to sell products leading to the sins themselves...
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Your friendly neighborhood
technology legal counsel here to discuss with you the hidden
dangers lurking in your unassuming (and unread) terms of service
agreements. Janet Croswell, one of our fabulous tech lawyers,
posted back on February 10, 2010 about the pitfalls that businesses
face related to the clickwrap agreement (here's a link for those
playing along at home
blog.alerdingcastor.com/blog/alerding-castor).
Now for those of you scratching your head and wondering what a
"clickwrap...
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There is a good
article on the Mercury News Blog today on
How dot-com
start-ups have changed 10 years later. The article
addresses the maturity of both technology companies and
US private equity investors over the last decade. It is
an interesting read.
There has been a lot of activity in angel investor groups and
venture capital investments in Indiana technology companies over
the last few months.
2010 has definitely started with a bang at
Alerding Castor Hewitt where we have helped five...
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Congratulations
are in order to Brian Hewitt, the newest parter of Alerding Castor
Hewitt, LLP, who was recognized this week as one of Indiana's 2010
top 50 Super Lawyers.
Brian concentrates his practice on estate, trust,
and guardianship planning, administration, and litigation; and
mediation and business law.
He is a Certified Estate Planning and Administration Specialist, a
Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and a
member of the Probate Litigation Committee of the...
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