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This is an exclusive story, researched and written by Eric Van Buskirk

Is it possible that MarkMonitor, Inc, who call themselves “a global leader in the fast-growing market for online corporate identity” has been secretly hiding links on behalf of TimeWarner? Is this being done on subdomains of timeinc.net in order to rank high in the search engines? You decide. MarkMonitor owns the domain name timeinc.net, a site with a homepage which re-directs to the main Time.com site. So it would seem they are running this site on behalf of TimeWarner.

If you go to the timeinc site and view some of the source code of the pages, you will find error pages that have links below an image map at the bottom of the page, links which are hidden from viewers and added to increase the search engine ranking of other Time Warner properties. This link-hiding practice is often referred to as “Black Hat” SEO.
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You want to buy a new company, expand operations, acquire a business, or raise capital. You’ve decided to go for venture capital funding versus a bank loan for a multitude of reasons from the risks involved to the amount you need to carry out your plan.

Do you know as much as you’d like about gaining capital? Most people don’t. Their expertise is in their business, not in capital funding. Here are ways to protect yourself from vultures, deals you can’t afford, and the nightmares of both.

Some quick explanations:

A venture capitalist (VC) is a person, group of people, company, or group of companies with money to invest in your business.

A VC broker represents you (or possibly a VC) and arranges the parties to create a deal. This article is about working with the broker.

Since many brokers are ethical, why such a negative slant? Over two months, two of our consulting clients nearly lost their shirts dealing with brokers. One broker tried to quadruple dip on a VC deal by taking a commission, bringing in another broker (who needed a commission), taking excessive points on growth targets, and adding interest fees into a contract making the deal impossible. Had our Boston-based client signed with his current and (estimated) future numbers, his decade-old business would have perished.

Another broker wanted a client in Connecticut to sign a broker-exclusivity contract, forcing our client to pay commissions on any type of financing, regardless of whether the deal originated through the broker or not. If an SBA loan or unrelated VC came through, our client would pay $400,000 in unearned commissions.

(With each client, the broker used four or more of the nine strategies below that would be harmful to your fulfilling your capital needs.)

Every deal has its own merits and challenges. Regardless, nine general tips to consider are:

1. Don’t sign exclusivity contracts barring you from finding your own funding. A) On one hand, a broker has every right to protect his intellectual property by preventing you from bypassing him and striking a deal with one of the contacts he’s introduced you to. B) On the other hand, beware of anything preventing you from gaining funding from any other source without going through the broker.

2. Avoid long-term cancellation clauses that hold you hostage for a year or more. Sixty to ninety days is reasonable. You’ve got to be able to move on. A broker’s objective in creating a long cancellation clause is to prevent you from securing funding with the VC they’ve introduced you to while at the same time making it difficult for you to find any funding. Keep your options open and agree to 90 days giving you time to find new opportunities.

3. Prevent double dipping. A savvy broker has multiple compensation channels: initial commission, commission on additional funding you get during a 1 or 2-year term, compensation if the business is sold during specified time frame, percentage of interest on monies lent, etc. Read fine print, several deals that have passed over our desks in the past 6 months have had hidden compensation clauses that would have made any deal difficult to swallow had they had signed with the broker. (Have legal representation from an expert in VC funding.)

4. Know the type of funding you want before you start searching, and bind your broker to the specifics with a contract. Looking for a VC with an equity position who wants shares and is interested in growing the firm, or do you just want financing? Initially, the two can appear similar. In one VC deal, the company looking for funding thought they were getting an equity partner, but the VC only wanted to achieve 3.5 times their ROI in 5 years in monthly fees and interest. The final terms of the agreement: the “receiver” would get $2.9 million, but would pay back $6 million in 5 years. It was not the deal he expected.
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This is an exclusive story.

Is it possible that MarkMonitor, Inc., who call themselves “a global leader in the fast-growing market for online corporate identity” has been secretly hiding links on behalf of TimeWarner? Is this being done on subdomains of timeinc.net in order to rank high in the search engines? You decide. MarkMonitor owns the domain name timeinc.net, a site with a homepage which re-directs to the main Time.com site. So it would seem they are running this site on behalf of TimeWarner.

If you go to the timeinc site and view some of the source code of the pages, you will find error pages that have links below an image map at the bottom of the page, links which are hidden from viewers and added to increase the search engine ranking of other Time Warner properties. This link-hiding practice is often referred to as “Black Hat” SEO.

An image map tells the browser how to display an image. That is it’s only purpose. However, some of the pages on timeinc.net have links hidden to viewers next to the image maps. If one views the source of sub domains such as img.timeinc.net or i.timeinc.net, it is apparent there are four links to other TimeWarner properties.

Did MarkMonitor, Inc., a huge company and a true leader in “defending brand names” online buy this domain, redirect the traffic to Time.com and find places to hide links to other Time websites out of pure altruism? It’s possible, but hard to believe. It should be noted that there are very important subscription pages on other sub domains of timeinc. This is not a domain that was cast away and has no value for linking.

If MarkMonitor purposefully hid links as it would seem, altruism towards Time seems an unlikely motive.
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If you are in the early stages of starting up a business then you may be experiencing the internal ‘fear and doubt’ dialogue that can often take place in one’s mind. The following 9 Principles will help to release some of this tension…

1. Do What You Love

Ensure that you are in a business that interests you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be in love with the product or service that you sell; however, you must enjoy aspects of the business otherwise you won’t be motivated to give it 100% of your focus. And it will need a lot of your focus and energy, especially in the early stages!

To help determine this point, you could ask yourself the following types of questions:

* What do you really like to do (in a business sense)?

* Are you an ideas or action type of person? Or a bit of both?

* In which 20% of your talents do 80% of your results come from?

* In other words, where do your key skills lie?

It really all boils down to one question though – what are you really passionate about?

2. Niche

Another critical point which goes a long way to determining business success is your Niche. Without exception, the majority of successful business owners I know can tell you in a couple of sentences exactly what it is they love to do and why it has made them wealthy.

Without a precise understanding of your Niche your chances for success are greatly diminished. After all, it’s very difficult to hit a target which doesn’t exist or to win a game when you don’t know what it (winning) is.

Ask yourself what you are trying to achieve in this business venture:

* Do you want to make quick cash?

* Do you want to develop and grow a sustainable business?

* Are you interested in high cash-flow or developing assets? Or both?

* Do you have BIG aspirations or are you just looking to develop a hobby for some part-time cash?

Keep in mind that your Niche can always be adapted down the track if your situation or the market changes.

3. Leverage

You need to become a master of Leverage. It is one of the most powerful principles in business. Everyone who is successful in business and life uses Leverage in some way.

To use the concept of Leverage you need to continually examine how you can access other people’s skill, resources and money more effectively. Furthermore, consider less obvious assets in business such as systems, marketing and time.

Leverage is about duplicating a high-value item or skill at a lower cost.

I will explore this topic in depth in future articles; however, at this point it is important to remember the following points:

* Focus on Money-Making activities

* Delegate to others as much as possible

By doing this you will see an immediate increase in your ability to work ‘on’ your business, rather than getting stuck ‘in’ the day to day running of it.
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