The Incubator Program

BFC Ventures is proud to be the sole provider of the newest form of entrepreneurial training in the world, the Fund the Youth Program.  By and large we have seen that young people have some of the greatest ideas in the world and are often times just simply too inexperienced and or underfunded.  We see this as being the basis of our mission as a firm, to help anyone that is trying to free themselves from the chains of employment and lead them into the world of entrepreneurial success.  With this mission in mind we have created a 4 step process to success for new entrepreneurs, and current ones for that matter, everyone is welcome to the program as long as they are willing to listen, learn and work harder than they ever have before!  Here is a breakdown of the way the program works and why it is the best possible option for the Gen X and Gen Y.

Phase one: Learning to soldier

Similar to the military, entrepreneurs need to learn to work through pain, lack of rest and distractions.  With this being the case 100% of the time, we think it is a needed function of the program to make this step one in the process toward financial freedom.  During Phase One of the program, our entrepreneurs will be given the opportunity to show what they are worth and learn more about business than they ever dreamed.  We will have them focused on making sure the day to day activities of BFC are covered in full, this will mean a lot of “grunt work” for a period of 4-5 hours a day.  This activity is not designed to teach anything but work ethic. In the start phase of their business these candidates will have to sacrifice time for results in launching their businesses, so we want to teach them how to do that while we have a chance to mentor them to phase two.  Each candidate will be evaluated by the mentors to see which one of the BFC projects would fit them best and will assign them to it.  The purpose of this assignment is to ensure success in phase two.  Phase one is designed to last no longer than 45 days and no fewer than 20 days.

This will also be the time our candidates will start to find themselves and the type of entrepreneur they are.  We will have our staff, partners, affiliates and contacts help them to begin the basic stages of their start up.  They will be taught to understand the types of corporations they should be forming, the differences between them and the way to form them.  These candidates will have the opportunity to interview some of the most innovative minds in the Gen Y/Gen X markets to start gathering information and learning the way the real world works.  Each day will be filled with “grunt work” followed by a video from our firm and a new author, speaker, successful business person, attorney, accountant, CEO, CFO CIO, investors and so on.  They will learn to: focus, out work their competition, learn how to promote and edify other businesses, use social media, market through many channels at the same time and understand why this is all important. Building their bandwidth for knowledge is the forefront of Phase one.

Phase Two: Learning to sell

We see it all the time, “Eric my product is amazing, my office design is perfect, my books are run well…….why am I going broke” and the answer is always the same—YOU ARE NOT SELLING.  The purpose of any business is to sell products or services, period.  Most businesses fail, not because it is the law of averages, because the person running them had one of the following problems:

1. They couldn’t break the paradigm of going from a W-2 salary employee to a 1099 Self –Employed machine. This is a problem.  This is why most businesses fail.  Most people are taught to do “a job”, not “run a business”, which are far different things.  “Doing a job” is nothing more than filing your role within the system, and most of the time getting paid a fraction of the value of the job.  “Running a business”, has no function, YOU MUST KNOW AND DO EVERYTHING, from the smallest to most important task—EVERY DAY.
2. They couldn’t get out of their comfort zone. People are funny; they love to do what is easy and want to be paid like they did the things that are hard.  Being successful is all about doing things that everyone else hates to do or doesn’t want to do.  We have to teach these candidates to get out of their comfort zone and break through the barriers that hold back their peers.
3. They never learned to sell. What a problem this can be for an entrepreneur, not knowing HOW to sell.  Think about it, once you have a product or service, what good is it if nobody buys it?  Sometimes the best product or service in the market is never heard of because the owners didn’t know how to sell, really know HOW to sell.  We teach them TO sell and HOW to sell during this phase, while they sell their business that they have been working on.
4. “I am a business person not a salesman”. WOW, this is a killer.  No one says that you have to sell used cars out of the back of a flea market like a bad movie.  Think of some of the best salespeople out there, they are the names you know.  The entire panel of multi-millionaires on Shark Tank, some of the best salespeople to ever live.   Sean (P-Diddy) Combs, Tony Robbins, Donald Trump, Suzie Orman, David Letterman, the list goes on and on.  These people have made it in their industry because they are always on the sale.  When people realize that a salesman is the same thing as a businessman, they sky is not even close to the limit.  The common misconception that salesmen are bad is controlled by the way that a sale is done.  Learn to embrace it and use it right.
5. I need money to make this work! Big problem for most businesses.  Entrepreneurs seem to follow the trend of the popular failures and successes of those that have been where they are.  Make sure you have a product and or service that is good enough to not need money from anyone else.
6. One revenue stream. This is 2009 and the world of specialization has hit, but the specialty is in knowing how to pay your bills.  Companies that limit themselves to their business alone as a revenue stream will be left behind.  We will teach our candidates to learn about other businesses and partner with the right ones to ensure that SOMEONE is always selling and revenue is always coming in. Make no mistake about it, the consolidation era is here and those that embrace it will come out on top.

During this next 3-6 month phase each candidate will have exact advice on their new business ideas and begin to write a formal plan and organize a team of board members from our panel of contacts.  We will teach them to find the right consultants for the business as they start the process of creating their service and or product line, They will be taught to make their own marketing pieces, form their “pitch” for their business, learn to: stretch a dime, leverage relationships, find other forms of income to solve short and long term cash flow issues, predict markets, understand consumers, SELL the product they just “grunted” and earn money.  For every deal that these candidate close they will be paid a commission and learn to live off of what they earn and break the habits of the past-being paid to go to work.  As they earn and produce more they will be promoted to up the ranks and move forward toward owning their own enterprise they will have a side account set up in their name that will match them a certain percentage of their  commissions in escrow for the purpose of funding out a business when they leave the incubator.  We want them to learn to live based on the results they have and then reward them for these results with an easier path to success in the future from proper funding.

Phase Three: Turnarounds

As a firm, BFC is built on the premise of helping business owners turn their businesses around from loss to profit in exchange for equity in the business.  This means that we have a team of people that have been through the ringer!  On any given week we might be asked, or pitched, by 5-10 businesses that need our help and we work closely with firms that will help us determine which deals to take, if any.  We then dig right in and get to work and revamp the entire company to focus on making money.  Doing this can only be done with a strong will, background, network and thick skin.  As the candidate progresses through phases two, selling, into phase three we will then start to allow them to work on managing projects that we see fit for them to succeed in.  We should have a candidate that can start the entry level turnaround process with little need for mentoring.  We will have made this candidate a beats from all the things they will have not only learned, but been through to this point.  We will walk them through our model for their first 2-3 turnarounds and then let them finish the five they need to leave the candidate stage and become a business owner.

The point of this phase, aside from raising the amount of people we have that are trained well and can execute, is to teach the candidate to solve problems.  Problems WILL arise in business the better you are at seeing them and solving them to better chance you have to succeed.  We want them to need us for a few deals and lean on our knowledge and support so that our business continues to grow and flourish along with teaching them to be a professional problem solver and execution specialist.  When they start to see problems in others businesses they will learn to avoid them themselves in the future, making our investment one that can make money.  We will be paying a standard commission based on success, this may include revenue sharing, equity stakes, options or even outright ownership in the businesses.  Along this path the escrow account will grow based on the success they have in each endeavor.  They will be taught the ropes and will now be building a real pro forma, business model, contacts, experience and shopping their ideas to investors in our network.  We will make sure that the investment they are offering out to the network is a fundable deal in all ways.

Phase Four: Spreading the wings

At this point we will have made an entrepreneur that actually knows how to stand on their own 2 feet, earn money doing things outside their comfort zone, run a business, turn a business around, SELL, network, use the internet and technology, build multiple revenue streams, manage their funds properly, market, advertise, build bridge and so on.  So let’s take care of the crew now!  We will have “self funding” sitting in an escrow account for them, an interim CFO to make sure they are not wasting time on the books when they need to be building their business and possibly (depending on their level of revenue potential) investors ready to drop in cash to make the idea become reality.

Our goal extends much further than just the launching of their business, anyone can do that.  We are in this with them for the long run. We will be partnered with each entrepreneur and have an interest in their success and company.  Guidance through the good times and the bad is what they will have with us, nothing less.  We are a resource of REAL business owners, not just people teaching and or “speaking” about business.  Our goal is simple, let’s make some money! We will not be using any professors form universities, because we believe that what we do is congruent with what they do.  Professors lay down the foundation and teach the HOW to think, we work with them to build the house and show them WHAT to think.  We are VERY selective on who we have educating these young minds and will doing background checks and verifying income in the past for all our instructors.  Instructors should be n the trenches and teaching when they have free time (if they ever do).  We understand that there are times when entrepreneurs struggle, but we are ONLY looking for people that can PROVE they have made money in the past, as an entrepreneur.  We understand the importance of public speaking and “self-help” professionals, but again only want the ones that can back up their speaking with evidence of success.  We are not looking to find billionaires to teach, we are looking for real, humble success stories that want to procure a nation of entrepreneurs that change the path of modern times.   –Eric Rice