FundingUniverse connects qualified entrepreneurs to banks, investors, and other funding sources. We'll blog here regularly to provides tips, resources, and updates to our community.
Our CEO, Brock Blake, had a few words to say, “FundingUniverse is thrilled to be included on such a prestigious list of companies! It’s a great tribute to our employees and all the work that they do to help business owners gain access to capital.”
With signs and balloons up everywhere it’s like Christmas morning at FundingUniverse headquarters, complete with an office grinch. One of our engineers grumbled, “All these balloons are distracting…” which sounded like an endorsement to me!
Each year, the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum (UVEF) recognizes Utah’s Top 25 Under 5, an honor given to local companies with exceptional growth and future potential. FundingUniverse walked away with 5th place in a category stacked with impressive companies. Awards were based upon number of years in business, growth of the company, annual revenue and company creation.
Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert was the keynote speaker for the event held inside the Novell headquarters at East Bay. He praised the nominees for pushing through difficult economic times and believing in themselves.
After receiving the award, Brock Blake, CEO for FundingUniverse commented, “We are very honored to receive this recognition. The team at FundingUniverse has worked really hard to get us to this point; I am extremely proud of our company and employees. We are excited to continue our trend of helping entrepreneurs, banks, and investors across the United States!” UVEF logo
FundingUniverse announced today that Nobu Mutaguchi, an early investor in Omniture and Allegiance, was named Utah’s Angel Investor of the Year. Mutaguchi was recognized for his leadership and track record of growing businesses in both Utah and his home country of Japan. Mutaguchi, however, has deep Utah roots and received his MBA from Brigham Young University in 1985 and has since been an entrepreneurial leader in the state. He has invested in over 25 Utah-based startups and emerging companies. His business philosophy centers around mentoring those entrepreneurs in whom he invests.
In addition to Angel Investor of the Year, Mentor of the Year was given to Boom Start-Up founders John Richards and Robb Kunz, both highly active entrepreneurs and investors in the community. Boom Start-Up is a mentor-focused program that facilitates entrepreneurship and local economic growth by pairing emerging technology companies with seasoned, successful entrepreneurs such as Kunz and Richards.
The Start-Up of the Year was awarded to OraBrush, a company that produced the industry’s first tongue-cleansing brush. Started by Robert Wagstaff, PhD, the company developed a unique way to remove bacteria from the tongue that causes bad breath.
The award luncheon featured Michael E. Gerber, author of the mega-bestseller The E-Myth, who was recently touted as “The World’s #1 Small Business Guru,” by INC Magazine. Gerber discussed why entrepreneurs are the backbone of the economy and why they should look to transform the world, not just sell a product. “Go to work on your company, not in your company,” he told a room of investors and small business owners. “There is more to entrepreneurship than creating a successful venture. It’s not just about being busy every day, and it’s not about you, it’s about your God-given gift to create.”
“We are extremely proud to honor these distinguished investors and entrepreneurs,” said Brock Blake, CEO of FundingUniverse. “Our state has an unusual amount of talent which is clearly why Utah ranks among the top economies in the nation.”
A business owner walks into his local bank. He’s been loyal to the bank for years. He tells a business banker that he is looking for a business loan – 50k ought to do it.
Business bankers aren’t dumb, so the banker starts asking the business owner questions: How long have you been in business? Do you own 100% of the stock? What does your credit look like? What are you going to do with the money? What is your plan to repay the money?
The business owner answers all the questions dutifully and purposefully. The banker tells the business owner that the odds are real good for getting him approved, and he takes an application. After that thorough line of questioning and pre-qualifying by the banker, how many times out of ten, in this exact scenario, is the business owner approved for financing? Less than 1 in 10. For those mathematically challenged, that’s over a 90% failure rate. How’s that for a scam???
I would be disingenuous if I didn’t sympathize here with the business banker and the bank just a bit. Does the business banker really know all the underwriting criteria? No. Is the business owner always honest in their answers? No. While a 90% failure rate of pre-qualified business loan applications is alarming, it’s not a scam. It might feel and look like one, but it isn’t.
Banks don’t want bankers to know exactly what the underwriting requirements are for a loan. The banker is an important relationship connector between a human being (the business owner), and a lifeless, cold, mean structure (the bank). The underwriter is part of the cold, lifeless, mean structure. The banker is the human face. People in relationships can be coerced, convinced, sold, or otherwise manipulated, and many business owners are very good at influencing others. To prevent risk, the bank has to separate the relationship and underwriting functions.
So is FundingUniverse a scam? How is FundingUniverse different than a bank? We’re not a bank or direct lender, and we don’t give out money (unless you win an IdeaPitch competition on FB!!). Instead we make verified matches between business owners and funding sources. In fact, we’re the best in the world at making winning matches between entrepreneurs and funding sources.
Why would someone think FundingUniverse is a scam? We don’t always hand out good news. Quite obviously, business owners want good news when they’re looking for financing. Sometimes instead of an instant financing match, we deliver the business owner a task list of things to work on in order to become bankable. We charge our customers for this help.
So yes, we charge business owners for bank or funding type matches, we charge them to underwrite their risk (LenderReady Analysis), and we charge them a packaging fee to help them get their ducks in a row (business plans, LenderPrep Report, websites). Sometimes, even with all of our help, they don’t succeed. We can’t fix idiot. We also can’t fix our customers’ exterior problems.
So is FundingUniverse a scam? Hell no for 99.99% of business owners, and I guess so for 00.01% of business owners that just can’t put it all together.
We sure love you guys and gals (our customers & fellow business owners). What a fun playground we spend our days in. We love your hard work, commitment, courage, and innovation. Thanks for working so hard to provide products and services that bring the world pleasure and make us happier.
Check back soon – my next post will be about revenue problems in business. Get after it; kill it, and we’ll do the same.
Sit still, and the world inches past you slowly. Over an extended period of time you will find yourself further and further behind. Nothing relates better to this premise than business. Doing something just to do something isn’t always a bad thing. It’s tough to do stuff sometimes in this historically difficult economy that has a sudden impact, provides immediate results, or gives your business a big shot in the arm of revenue. Sometimes it does, but it has gotten harder and harder to find things that make the turnaround move that many are looking for.
With that in mind, it seems like some are content to just “hang on” as the ride gets rougher. That might work for some. I myself would prefer to push down on the gas pedal and see if I can get further ahead of those whose pace has decreased. Don’t get me wrong, it’s tough to keep a positive attitude sometimes. Times are tight, bad news is in our face all day, and there are many stories inside and outside of our own front door that make this economic tsunamie a very personal reality. That doesn’t mean it’s time to move to the basement though and wait for things to pass. Get busy preparing, rebuilding, helping others and preparing for the next time. The one thing about tsunami’s is that they are in areas that typically have them often. When the real estate market recovers (it will), and the stock market continues to climb (it will) and unemployment decreases (it will) and other types of “good news” come around, that doesn’t mean your business or job will immediately be saved.
This is the newest of the new economy. The drastic nature of the things that have happened in business in the last 18 months will burn an image in the brain of every business person on the planet. Many of the “norms” we knew before are forever gone. Credit will always be tighter then it once was, Federal oversight will be more invasive then ever, many employers will be slower to hire and expand at the same rates that they once did and overall I think you will find the risk tolerance of many will have permanently decreased.
What does this mean for you? Well, two things. You are either going to beat em’, or join em’. You are either going to push forward during difficult times to try and create more distance from those that have slowed or stopped – or you will keep pace and be in the same boat as most others when things “get better”. I know this – if you work as hard or harder than ever – if you continue to try to innovate, listen, sell, build, sacrifice and try your very best, you will be more likely (although not guaranteed) to be in a better position then many around you when things do turn around. And they will turn around – in fact, sooner for some than others. The ones who will feel recovery the quickest will be the ones who deserve to. Are you out there pushing it? Are you adding employees, raising/borrowing capital, innovating and working harder than ever? If so, you’ll be on the forefront of prosperity as the circle turns. If you aren’t, well, perhaps it’s because you are waiting too long for something to happen instead of making it happen.
Whether you’re an aspiring or practicing entrepreneur, if you want to acquire funding for your business, then drop the victim attitude. It’s interesting to see people come in the front door (okay, our website is the “front door”) of our business with their risk profile in disarray, yet never accept accountability for their own predicament.
If your personal credit is unsightly, if your business credit is non-existent, if you’ve never considered whether your expansion plans can be profitable, if you’re still making excuses for not having a website a decade after it became commonplace for business owners, then how is that FundingUniverse’s fault? Why should we fix all your problems and not be compensated?
It’s interesting that people don’t want to pay to fix their own problems (created by their own actions). I can’t imagine going into a personal trainer pathetically fat and wheezing just from walking from my car to the gym entrance, telling him/her that I want to train for a marathon, but that I’m not going to pay up for anything until I win the marathon. What did the personal trainer have to do with my Big Mac, Twinkie, and Hershey’s problem? What about me would give the trainer confidence that I would actually stick with the work of getting my flabby body into rock hard shape? Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Can you imagine a college student demanding that tuition payment shouldn’t be made until the degree is issued? Is it the college’s problem that the student is uneducated? What if the student sleeps through class, doesn’t take tests, or doesn’t study. Should the student get a refund of their tuition? Please. This is getting painful to even read as I type it.
Take ownership of your situation. If I want to hear whining and complaining I can go out into the consumer economy. Presumptively – in part anyway – people who start businesses do so because they are ready to take ownership of their own financial and emotional well being. So in the B2B economy I shouldn’t hear nearly as much bawling or see as much finger pointing as in the consumer economy.
After reviewing thousands and thousands of credit reports and other risk indicators attached to our customers over the years, I can tell you with conviction that the businesses on the most solid ground also take ownership of their personal and business credit, their financial and corporate hygiene, and their business image. If you want to be one of those successful businesses, the best place to start is by owning up to your marginal credit profile or bad financial habits, and work your tail off to fix them.
Of course you need to do it on your own time and your own dime, but we’d love to help.
I’ve failed as the President of FundingUniverse (herein acronymized as “FUN” – yes, I know I just made up a verb from a noun). It’s happened a couple of times before, but now it’s happened again. As FUN grows, measured in units of production, customers, revenues, and employees, it continually forces management to experience personal growth. It can sure be uncomfortable.
As President of FUN I am responsible for all the day-to-day functions – sales, lead generation, product fulfillment, customer service, and coaching. We have 25 or so full time sales reps on staff here in our office. Considering our sales reps are attached to a large percentage of our revenues, we closely watch their activity and production on a real time basis.
We’ve chosen to operate in a crazy space. Yes; absolutely crazy. Business owners are, almost without exception, at least a little crazy. I’m a business owner and I have a little crazy in me. You have to have at least a little crazy in you to start a business. Then, to complicate matters, business owners need money for their businesses to start them, fix them, or make them grow. Then funding sources need to calculate the risk of giving a partially crazy person money. Add emotion, ego, and irrational behavior to the mix (all respectable elements of a good entrepreneur) just for good measure.
We chose to operate in this crazy funding space because we don’t think it needs to be so crazy and emotional. The funding process represents a vivid hell to most business owners. At FUN we’re inventing. Our business model is unique and intelligent. Do all of our prospects and customers agree? Nope, but that’s okay because most of them do.
So what drives us? I can’t over emphasize how much passion we have for entrepreneurship. We love everything about it, even the painful stuff. Who can’t get excited about job creation, improving the quality of life for customers, disruptive competitiveness, and building something special and unique (a legacy)?
I’ll take the pain; I’ll take the failure. I love FundingUniverse and I love the space we operate in – pain and all. How did I fail as President of FundingUniverse? I built a sales model that is just too damn difficult to scale. Not just difficult to scale in sales, but in customer service. Enough customers have asked for us to revise our internal operations so that they don’t have to work with so many different people internally . Be patient and I promise we’ll deliver.
Failure is an event not a destination. Next stop: Sustainability.
Got bad breath? (hint: everyone does a little-bit). Orabrush is the most effective cure for bad breath. 90% of bad breath is caused by bacteria on the tongue. Orabrush’s sleek, wide gel brush removes bacteria from your tongue, giving you kissable breath.
Orabrush is the story of a small company gone viral. The following video has over 10 million views on Youtube.
But it takes more than an impressive product to win BankPitch. Our Banks were equally impressed by their financials and business model. Our VP of Lending Relations – Derick Faller, interviews Niel Harmon of OraBrush:
We recently published a blog post which addressed Democratic Senator Chris Dodd’s proposed financial reform bill. We discussed some aspects of this bill and the possible negative effects it could have on angel investing in the United States, including more than doubling the net worth threshold for accredited angel investors to $2 million and requiring lengthy filing processes with the SEC.
The Senate began debating Dodd’s proposed legislation last week. According to an article in the Denver Business Journal, Dodd will personally offer amendments “that will allay most concerns” felt by angel investors and entrepreneurs alike. The first amendment keeps the investor worth threshold at $1 million, but will now exclude the value of the investors’ home. The second would eliminate the need for angel investments to be subject to different state regulations (which would make angel investments time-consuming and expensive for entrepreneurs).
Much of the Senate’s discussion thus far has been centered around preventing future economic crises as well as tax-payer-funded government bailouts. According to an article in Bloomberg Businessweek, “staff for Dodd . . . and Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the banking panel’s top Republican, are close to completing a joint amendment to address Republicans’ concerns that Dodd’s bill doesn’t do enough to prevent future bailouts, according to a Senate aide familiar with negotiations. Part of the compromise will be to remove a provision in Dodd’s measure that would have created a $50 billion industry-supported fund to pay for unwinding a failing systemically important financial firm”
The same article addresses other amendments being proposed during this process:
Senator Jim Webb (Virginia, Democrat) offered the amendment to impose a one-time, 50 percent tax on bonuses of more than $400,000 paid to executives of financial institutions that got at least $5 billion from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program Congress approved in 2008. It would apply to income generated for work in 2009 and paid in 2010.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas, Republican) wants to preserve the Federal Reserve’s powers to oversee small banks. This would eliminate a provision in Dodd’s bill that shrinks the central bank’s jurisdiction to the 36 banks with more than $50 billion in assets (including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley).
Senator John McCain (Arizona, Republican) wants to eventually dissolve government-backed mortgage-finance companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
Senator Ben Cardin (Maryland, Democrat) submitted an amendment to provide protections for whistle blowers who work for Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and other credit-rating companies.
The bill is expected to be completed by the end of the week, and we’ll keep you informed of any major changes that happen between now and then. For now it looks like, for the most part, the voice of the investor and entrepreneurship communities have been heard and taken into consideration.
How’s this for a scam?
Whether you’re an aspiring or practicing entrepreneur, if you want to acquire funding for your business, then drop the victim attitude. It’s interesting to see people come in the front door (okay, our website is the “front door”) of our business with their risk profile in disarray, yet never accept accountability for their own predicament.
