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 Ratings
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| Reviewed: |
Apr 24, 2008 by Business Editorial Board |
| Overview: |
This guide has links to resources to help businesses understand and obtain financing from various sources. Topics include Angel Investors, Venture Capital, SBA Loans, Private Equity Financing, Bank Loans, Microloans, Strategic Partnerships, and Direct Public Offerings. From Inc.com. |
| Learning Goals: |
Assistance to business owners on finding and understanding different sources of financing. Intended for a practitioner audience rather than an academic audience. |
| Target Student Population: |
Undergraduates and graduate students enrolled in a course on entrepreneurship or small business development. Adult learners in a training workshop for entrepreneurs. Could also be used in support of a small business finance course. |
| Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills: |
Basic understanding of business, particularly small businesses and understanding of finance. |
| Type of Material: |
Reference material |
| Recommended Uses: |
Good resource for a homework assignment or project related research. Student reference material. |
| Technical Requirements: |
Browser |
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| Strengths: |
Professionally written materials developed for a major business periodical. Links to good material describing financing possiblilites, lists of sources of that type of funding, and what is needed to obtain that financing. |
| Concerns: |
Articles are very practical in orientation and, while they may be grounded in appropriate theories, that grounding is not made explicit. Resources are targeted to small business owners rather than to students. All links are to inc.com material. |
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Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool |
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| Strengths: |
Articles are written for practitioners and are therefore concise, accessible and straight forward. Enough links for each sub-topic area, but not so many that it is overwhelming. |
| Concerns: |
Not designed for academic usage, so there is no attempt made to address learning issues, build concepts progressively, etc. This is a practitioner oriented resource rather than an academic resource. |
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Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty |
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| Strengths: |
Easy to navigate, materials are concise and written for a non-academic audience. Professionally done web site. Each article link is accompanied by a "headline" type annotation to identify the key content. |
| Concerns: |
Not an interactive resource, simply a collection of textual materials. The titles of the articles sometimes make it difficult to determine what the content is (but only in a few instances). |
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| Other Issues and Comments: |
A nice reference site. |
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