Tag: invest

Cities To Seek Investors

On March 6, 2019

Global city investment profiles vary from country to country and from city to city. Entrepreneurs targeting establishing business startups should look for the right investment ecosystem where their entrepreneurial creations and ideas can be easily realized. For such aspiring entrepreneurs, establishing contacts with investors who can finance their businesses is an important part of the process of setting of the entrepreneurial career. In such cases, business networking platforms are highly important as they give an entrepreneur an opportunity to meet investors with different aspirations, missions, and visions. Here are some of the global cities where entrepreneurs can find enthusiastic investors.

New York City

The city of New York is abuzz with capital. It hosts investors with high capital power and is home to some of the fastest growing companies. New York is also home to some of the important technologies that can help power up entrepreneurship. Investors enthusiastic to put their money into new inventions are therefore in plenty in New York.

San Francisco

The city of San Francisco is home to Silicon Valley, one of America’s richest conglomerations of entrepreneurs and investors. San Francisco attracts a rich wealth of ecosystem of entrepreneurs and investors. In particular, the city provides aspiring entrepreneurs who have new visions for revolutionary ideas the opportunity to meet potential investors.

London

According to City Lab and Pitchbook, London is ranked as the 8th most venture capital city around the world. London’s investment and startup spirit are therefore quite high in ways that have attracted new investors who have a liking for technological startups.

Santiago

The city of Santiago in Chile is famed for being home to startups that are otherwise backed by the government and the private sector. Investors partner with the government to provide funding for accelerator programs that power up award-winning inventions. An aspiring entrepreneur will, therefore, find Santiago highly suitable for pitching their tent in search of the otherwise readily available capital.

Beijing

Beijing in China has become China’s important tech zone where aspiring inventors get an opportunity to attract investors. Beijing, home to thousands of tech establishments, is also home to Asia’s technology revolution and regularly hosts thousands of entrepreneurs who showcase their creations in search for funding. The city is also home to aspiring investors, not only from China but also from Asia and other parts of the world including the US.

Strategies to Yield the Highest ROI’s

By Tom Leydiker

On February 5, 2019

In Blog, Entrepreneurship, Finance

Yielding high returns on investment is every business owner’s dream. To get a good return on a business investment, the business owner must implement the right strategies. In addition to having a good business plan and implementing it effectively, business owners need to undertake certain practices and strategies to yield the highest return on investment as hereby outlined.

Hiring the Right Workers

Workforce in a business is one of the biggest resources that should be rightly utilized. The business owner must, therefore, hire the most talented and dedicated workers who share in the company or the business’s vision and mission. Investing in hiring the right persons qualified for different tasks within the business gives the business owner a good foundation upon which to pursue the realization of high return on investment.

Training Workers

Training workers on the specific tasks they need to undertake within the business gives the business owner the capacity to achieve the highest possible return on investment. The training should be customized to individual workers’ tasks and should be progressively done from time to time to equip their workers with essential competent skills.

Diversifying Investments

Irrespective of the area on investment that a business has ventured into, the business owner should come up with additional investments that offer quick and high returns on investments. Investment avenues such as the stock markets and dividend-paying stocks are an effective strategy that a business owner can utilize to maximize on return-on-investment. Proper research, however, should be conducted before making such an investment diversification move to avert potential losses.

Evaluating Risks

In businesses, risk-taking is an essential part and parcel of day-to-day operations. As a business owner, understanding the various risks that the business faces is an important strategy that helps in contingency planning. Risk evaluation gives the business owner the ability to minimize such risks that would otherwise minimize return on investment.

Giving Employees Benefits and Incentives

To maximize on the dedication and workforce resource utilization, business owners must think outside the box on ways they can utilize to motivate employees. Offering incentives and benefits is a great way of motivating workers to deliver optimal results for the business. Incentives and benefits such as health insurance covers, paid vacations, flexible workplace policies, and performance-based appraisal system helps motivate workers to work hard.

Attracting The Right Set Of Investors

By Tom Leydiker

On November 26, 2018

In Blog, Finance

When a person is able to find a good investor for their startup, it will help them get off to a good start. Knowing how to pitch and attract investors will ensure that they find the right match. Here are five tips that will help an individual give a strong pitch to an investor:

Short And SweetInn

Often, the best ideas are the simple ones. When a person is creating their pitch, it should be short and sweet. Of course, their products or services need to be innovative as well.

It’s best to stay away from technical details when a first pitch is given. Typically, an investor will have experience in the space and quickly understand the significance of the proposition being made. It’s also best to keep minor details about the company private before an investor decides to sign on.

Telling A Story

Storytelling is one of the best ways to pitch to an investor. People love stories, and they’ve been successfully used for thousands of years to pique people’s interest and get them emotionally involved.

The key is to make a story enjoyable and not too convoluted. A person can use the story to help make them more likable, which can help build trust.

Utilize Philanthropy

In many cases, investors have been involved in some type of entrepreneurial role in their business life, and typically, entrepreneurs are more likely to donate to charities.

It feels great when a person is charitable, and it makes them look good. By aligning a business plan with some type of charity during the initial stages of a business, it sets up the possibility of networking with investors who view giving to charity as a positive thing to do.

Use Confidence And Practice

When a person acts confident when they’re giving a pitch, it’s going to help an investor see them as someone who is sure of themselves. This helps create trust and confidence in an investor.

It will probably take time for a beginner to find the correct balance of aggressiveness. They definitely don’t want to come off as someone who is desperate.

Sealing The Final Deal
Once a person has given their pitch and become established as a trustworthy and accessible individual, it may help if they can prove that it works. If an investor sees that their service or product is actually viable, it should help the investor make a decision.

A Stock-Trading App That Wants To Take On Wall Street

By Tom Leydiker

On July 6, 2017

In Blog, Finance

tom leydiker -a stock-trading app- blog header

Millennials tend to prefer their services condensed into an easily digestible experience. They crave this experience, just as they romanticize sleek, streamlined innovation, and they swarm to whichever service best captures such sentiments in a fast-gratifying, affordable package. Today’s industry shakers capitalize on the millennial demographic by trimming unnecessary costs and accessories; companies such as Netflix and Uber allow their service to speak its own merit by framing it as no more or less than what it is, no-strings.

Robinhood, an experimental finance app, seeks to reproduce the success of its predecessors by offering features which follow a similar pattern of simple affordability. The app was created in 2013, a passion project of Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, who sought to spread their enthusiasm for technology and the stock market by building a service that eases millennials into the trading game.

What separates Robinhood from the likes of ETrade, Charles Schwab, and other online brokerage services is its $0 commission policy. Once users pass an initial application process, they can buy and sell stocks free of any additional fees, which “allows all those people who were underserved by the previous generation of products to get started much sooner and with smaller amounts of money,” according to Tenev. This idea of uninhibited trading appeals to younger investors who might be dissuaded from rival services due to heavy fees.

Robinhood’s stripped down, accessible interface poses another attractive perk to novice investors. With the touch of a screen, users buy or sell stocks at market value; through Robinhood’s ultra-navigable interface, they can also make stop-loss orders, limit orders, and stop limit orders. By omitting more complex trading tools and sanding down the basics, Robinhood attempts to curb the stock market’s intimidation factor and paint trading as a hobby that is not only lucrative, but entertaining.

Boasting a net worth of $1.3 billion, $176 million raised in funding, and over two million users, Robinhood appears to have cornered the previously untapped millennial demographic. Despite its breakaway success, the app still faces challenge on the bottom line. Providing a valuable service at no user cost is done at the expense of profits, which could compromise Robinhood’s ability to expand its functionality in the future.

“With ultra cheap trades comes insanely thin margins, if any at all,” comments Blain Reinkensmeyer, Head of Broker Research at StockBrokers.com, “which means compromises will have to be made somewhere, whether it is customer service, tools, or research. There is a reason why traditional brokerages all charge high rates but combined house tens of millions of overall ‘happy’ clients.”

Robinhood’s answer to its profitability pitfalls is a $10-per-month paid subscription service called Robinhood Gold. It offers additional features, such as the ability to trade before and after hours. Equipped with this business model, Tenev believes his app now walks “a clear path to profitability.”

4 Changes To Make For A Better Financial Year

By Tom Leydiker

On March 22, 2017

In Finance

tom leydiker 4 changes to make for a better financial year blog

We are constantly setting new goals for ourselves. While these goals differ immensely from person-to-person, we create these goals for ourselves in order to better certain areas of our lives. The most common goals are primarily health-focused – losing a certain amount of weight, eating a more balanced diet, exercising at least three times every week. But one area that should be at the forefront of more people’s attention is a focus on financial success.

Finances also happen to be the area that most individuals don’t know how to traverse. The answer to your financial success does not solely rely in risk-taking and huge investments. There are a few strategies that you should implement first in order to build a strong foundation to grow upon as you continue to expand your financial understanding.

You have probably heard these strategies before, but they are important because they work. Your financial success is contingent upon your personal habits and behaviors, so making these changes this year will help you to lay out a successful financial future:

Create A Budget (Or Optimize Your Current One)

Having a budget is essentially having an organizational tool that helps you track your finances over the course of the year – and they are not as daunting to create as many people make them out to be. But a successful budget is not one that remains static. It will require frequent changes that are dependent upon your income, the changes in monetary amounts that need to be dedicated to certain monthly expenses, and to account for any financial emergencies. Be as detailed as possible because your budget is what will help you control your finances. It provides you with physical evidence of where you can afford to cut back in order to save more money.

Put Money Into A 401(k) Or IRA Plan

One of the worst things that you can do for your financial future is to put off placing money into a retirement savings account. Do not wait until you are older to begin saving for life after employment. The sooner you start saving, the more time you have to accrue a more substantial amount of money. If your workplace offers 401(k) plans to their employees, make it a goal to contribute the maximum amount possible every year – or at least as much as you can afford to in order to still live comfortably. If you don’t have access to a 401(k) plan, look into getting an IRA plan set up instead.

Learn How To Invest

It’s inspiring to read the success stories of individuals who took a risk with investing to have it pay off beyond their wildest imagination. But risky investments may not be a good strategy for a beginning investor. Save these types of investments once you have more experience and more stable funds. When you first start out, be consistent and talk with a professional to ensure that you are making decisions that are both safe and wise.