Think Big Partners and Angel Capital Group Partner for Nationwide...

Kansas City, MO (Vocus/PRWEB) January 20, 2011

Last Wednesday, Think Big Partners announced its new partnership with nationwide angel capital organization, Angel Capital Group (ACG), and their plans to provide capital-raising opportunities and vital startup resources to entrepreneurs throughout the nation.

Angel Capital Group, originating in Nashville, Tennessee with five current locations nationwide, is an angel network of investors that links together its networks so that entrepreneurial resources, such as startup and seed capital, can be effectively utilized to best aid entrepreneurs. In addition, ACG provides education and support to various communities in order to establish even more angel investor networks.

Think Big Partners is a mentorship-based business incubator and startup accelerator that opened in the Crossroads District of downtown Kansas City in September of 2010. Also known as TBP, this company provides startup resources, a wide variety of entrepreneurial services, a downtown business incubator, and a hands-on staff of seasoned entrepreneurs. These qualities have Rachael Qualls, founder of Angel Capital Group, believing that the partnership is a match made in, well…heaven.

“ACG has learned that once you fund a company, that company needs help,” she said. “They need to be connected with other entrepreneurs; they need resources. That’s why we’re so excited to work with Think Big Partners, because they provide all of the services that we don’t, which makes for a great partnership.”

By combining ACG’s funding platform with Think Big Partners’ national conference for entrepreneurs, investors and startups, this partnership can effectively help entrepreneurs locate capital, assist investors with finding more businesses worth funding, and place more ideas in the right home anywhere in the country. This is the first collaboration of its kind, all in the name of building startups, serving entrepreneurs, and strengthening entrepreneurial communities.

“We’ve listened to small business owners, entrepreneurs, and investors from Kansas City and across the country and almost without exception, they have voiced their concerns about the difficulty in attracting startup capital,” said Tyler Prochnow, co-founder of Think Big Partners. “We are excited to be able to bring another important resource to early stage businesses. This seed capital, combined with the other vital services provided by Think Big Partners, will provide a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams.”

Think Big Partners and Angel Capital Group hope for at least fifteen TBP-ACG locations to develop within the year. ACG’s current locations include Nashville, Tennessee; Knoxville, Tennessee; Memphis, Tennessee; Jackson, Mississippi and they are looking to open more locations in Louisiana and Kentucky in addition to Kansas City.

Think Big Partners’ collaboration with Angel Capital Group is not the first of its efforts to expand nationally. In addition to this partnership, TBP has also announced Think Big Baltimore, which follows a similar agenda of the highly-anticipated May 24th event, Think Big Kansas City. Think Big Partners is continuing to expand this conference to more cities throughout the nation through local partnerships in order to establish more entrepreneurial communities and provide more resources, better services, and accessible funding. Think Big Partners is inviting other organizations to partner with them in order to build a strong nationwide, entrepreneurial network.

“We are here to change the world,” said Qualls of the partnership with Think Big Partners. “It’s about bringing together all of these people, all of these communities, and all of these entrepreneurs and connecting them.”

To learn more about the partnership between Think Big Partners and Angel Capital Group or to get involved, please contact Herb Sih at herb(at)thinkbigpartners(dot)com. The creation of a strong entrepreneur network starts with partnerships from every corner, so please call 816-842-5244 for more information about getting involved with Think Big Partners.

For further information about Think Big Baltimore, please contact Tighe Greenhalgh at mtgreenhalgh(at)gmail(dot)com or 866-THNK-BIG.

Think Big Partners is an early-stage business incubator, startup accelerator and mentorship-based collaborative workspace for entrepreneurs, innovators, founders, and visionaries located in downtown Kansas City.

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Case Study: SME Capital Markets: Educating the Small Business Owner

Introduction

Small business owners spend years growing their dreams into income streams that support them and their families. They sink every dime they have into developing websites, offering new products, and getting in front of potential customers. Over time, these businesses grow into entities of pride and value. It is impossible not to feel proud of an endeavor that started as an idea and evolved into a way to earn a substantial or comfortable living.

In the process of becoming a consistent and viable way to earn a living, small businesses become inherently valuable. Owning a business is like owning stock, only you own all of it. The problem, though, is finding a way to recapture some of the value you have created. Imagine owning a $1 million dollar business, but not being able to access any of that $1 million. It is a challenging situation, and it is not unique. Small business owners tend to have nearly all of their wealth in their businesses, which means that they cannot diversify their investments and protect themselves from normal business risk.

There is a way out of this predicament, and SME Capital Markets is ready to help. With a plethora of resources and advice available, small business owners can learn how to take their businesses public on http://www.smecapitalmarkets.net. Going public is not the exclusive domain of large companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in their war chests. A small public offering can be a viable way for small business owners to recapture some of the wealth they have created.

Your Most Valuable Asset

Small business owners tend to have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in their businesses. This means that you can take the actual cash that you earn (after expenses), but you cannot tap into the full value of your business. For private companies, a rule of thumb is that your business is worth 2.5 times earnings - essentially 2.5 times what you make after business expenses and salaries. After you pay all your expenses, including your salary, you have a certain amount of cash left over. Your business is worth more than twice that amount, but you cannot reach the total value. So, you have a dilemma.

SME Capital Markets helps small business owners increase the value of their companies and access that value. Focused on small companies, SME Capital Markets provides information and advice on how to go public. The information and advice is focused on the issues that smaller businesses face; large companies should look elsewhere.

SME Capital Markets offers all the resources that small business owners need to make an informed decision about going public. The website offers reports, original research, and mountains of data. Using this information, small business owners can decide if going public is right for them. If it is, they can contact the company's principal, Brad Smith, to explore a public offering in more detail. Prices for information are quite reasonable, making it easy for small business owners to understand what it means to go public, and whether to take the next step.

Cashing Out

SME Capital Markets offers real advice for small business owners. Their goal is not to drag you into a difficult decision that is not appropriate for a business of your size. Instead, they prefer to help you make an informed decision. If the decision is to go public, they will help you every step of the way. Electing to go public is a serious decision, requiring a considerable amount of work (just to make the decision). SME Capital Markets endeavors to make this a realistic option for small business owners while not pushing them into unnecessary complexity.

There is a special environment for small businesses that go public - the Over the Counter Bulletin Board ( OTCBB ). Unlike the big IPOs of the dotcom days, the OTCBB is for smaller companies that want to generate more capital (either for growth or as a way for the business owner to cash out). Stock prices are lower, and the stock trading patters are a bit trickier than for large companies. This venue, though, allows successful small business owners to recapture much of the wealth that they created - and otherwise would not be able to touch.

Going public also can increase the value of your business. As mentioned earlier, the value of a small business usually is determined by multiplying your earnings by 2 ½. Not bad, right? Your business is worth more than twice the income it generates. By taking your small business public, though, it could be worth much more. Public companies tend to trade at more than 5 times the company's earnings, so by going public, you can double the value of your company.

That is the goal of SME Capital Markets. They want to help small companies that are ready to take a big step. But, they want to help in a way that only works to the benefit of the small business owner.

How the Web Helped

SME Capital Markets chose to market its services via the web for many reasons. Essentially, the web opened a much larger market to the company than simply pursuing clients through word of mouth networks or traditional print advertising. Small business owners represent a diverse, disparate market. Small business owners can be hard to find. Print advertising would have been inefficient, since small business owners read the publications that matter to their businesses. A small online retailer, for example, is more likely to read publications that cater to online retailers than small businesses. The information in the former is much more directly valuable.

The information offered by SME Capital Markets is easily delivered over the web. Small business owners can save up to 10% of the cost of a report by downloading it instead of paying for shipping and handling. The information is easy to find, and customers can access it quickly. As a result, using the web for its major presence was natural; SME Capital Markets can make its products more accessible and less expensive by operating online. This helps SME Capital Markets fulfill its mission of helping small businesses make difficult decisions without having to spend a fortune.

Lessons for Small Businesses

SME Capital Markets offers a twofold lesson for small businesses across the country. First, the services offered by this company offer small business owners a way to tap into the value of their businesses while potentially increasing that value (by going public). Also, SME Capital Markets has used the web as a way to communicate information quickly and efficiently to a distributed audience without having to increase its prices to reach this audience.

Helping small companies is fundamental to the mission of SME Capital Markets. In the world of finance, fortunes are made with larger businesses. To enter the small public company space requires a focus on service instead of astronomical profits; there is no other reason to enter that market. Consequently, SME Capital Markets remains focused on its purpose of helping small business owners enjoy the wealth they have created but cannot access. Going public is not the right decision for every small business, but SME Capital Markets can help you decide if it is the right decision for you.

In accomplishing its mission, SME Capital Markets has demonstrated the importance of using the web. The entire business would not have been viable without a way to reach a diverse, fragmented market. With the development of a simple website, using prepackaged and inexpensive components for processing payments and disseminating information, SME Capital Markets was able to launch in a short period of time and begin to serve its constituency. Its materials are accessible to entrepreneurs who may not be able to find them otherwise.

SME Capital Markets used the web to assemble expertise, generate information, and reach its market quickly and effectively, demonstrating the potency of an online presence for small businesses. With the work of SME Capital Markets, entrepreneurs can focus on new growth techniques while learning the flexibility of the online business environment.

Copyright 2006 Daniel Scheff

Dan Scheff owns and operates a custom website design firm in Massachusetts.