Author: chris

It has often been noted by scholars that the fifty states are policy laboratories that craft and implement public policies that are very specific and relevant to their state populations. In many cases, these experiments sometimes rise to the level of becoming a national policy because Congress will use them as model legislation. Describe any specific policies within your state that have been crafted in response to unique circumstances in your state. For example, Louisiana has fashioned many new policies involving emergency responsiveness since Hurricane Katrina, and California has many unique policies concerning the environment that are not found in other states. Provide a brief review of one policy in your state that you find interesting. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ postings.

Determine whether Starbucks or dunkin donuts would flourish more in slow-cycle and fast-cycle markets. 1.5 pages

• What have you mastered about Strategy in business ?
• What do you now understand but may want to learn more about?
• What questions can you now articulate about Strategy in business based on what you have learned in this course?

Review the presentation attachment on functional versus dysfunctional family

 

Develop a set of services that would benefit families to increase functional family traits and reduce dysfunctional family traits.

 

Provide an annotated outline with brief descriptions of each approach along with a brief description that including the factors that would need to be taken into account for various special populations

Complete final sections of Strategic Marketing Plan content to should include:

Development of Pricing Strategies aligned with Strategic Focus

Development of Distribution Strategies aligned with Strategic Focus

Development of Integrated Communication Strategies aligned with Strategic Focus

Development of Implementation Plan.

 

I will provide prior sections of paper for reference.

Needs to be 5-7 pages and have 7 sources.

“The Ethics and Future of Health Care in the U.S.” Please respond to the following:

• Examine the legal and ethical issues pertaining to end of life care and elaborate on the organizational responsibility to the patient and their families

Using any or all sources that you have been exposed to throughout the term, you will create a strategic plan (10–12 pages) to improve collaboration between the agencies that are involved in homeland security and emergency response in your city. Be sure to describe how your plan will encourage agencies to work together and avoid turf wars with regard to information and jurisdiction.

For this assignment, the strategies and plans listed in the resources for this and the other units provide examples of plans that you may use as a template. Because of the page limit, it is unlikely that an entire strategic plan is achievable. Therefore, you should focus on preparing a collaboration annex to the plan that you select.

• You will again approach it from the perspective of an emergency planner for the real-world county that you have employed all term. (Again, please use a pseudonym when referring to this county.)
• Choose either an emergency operations plan or a subject-specific plan (such as pandemic influenza, school safety and preparedness, information sharing, establishing a fusion center, or any other reasonable topic).
• Locate an annex in any plan or strategy; it does not need to be the plan that you have selected to contribute to for this assignment.
• You are going to produce a collaboration annex to a plan that is used (actually or hypothetically) by your county.
  • Provide definitions and explanations for key terms, including interagency, partners, collaborative relationships, coordination, and team-building.
• Develop and describe 3–5 primary overarching objectives for collaboration and coordination. These are strategic and therefore conceptual; you will be more specific later.
  • These objectives should be as detailed as possible to include information as to why and how they should be pursued and achieved.
  • An example of an objective may be to seek consensus with the subsequent rationale for this, potentially including focusing the team on a single end state, permitting all partners to have some ownership on the plan’s elements or overall goals, or demonstrating respect for all partners’ perspectives.
    • These components must be fully explained.
• Identify at least ten stakeholders with whom the county will need to collaborate for this specific plan. Describe the following for each partner:
  • The specific capabilities that it brings to bear
  • Benefits that it will reap from collaboration
  • Challenges that collaboration or partnering will create for it
  • Points of contact for each partner agency
  • Any other information that you feel is relevant
• Educate prospective partners on methods that the county will use to promote collaboration.
  • Select or originally design at least four methods, programs or approaches designed to foster collaboration.
    • You have learned about some methods and can locate many more in available strategies and operating procedures, especially those focused primarily on interagency coordination.
    • You may choose methods from existing sources, design your own programs, or combine both forms; if you use a method from another source, you must properly reference it.
• Identify and describe at least three ways that partners will be incorporated into exercises; make these descriptions detailed, logical, and relevant to the success of this specific plan.
• Write a short summary wrapping up the intentions of your annex.

Be sure to reference all sources using APA style

• How would you define critical thinking? What makes a person a critical thinker?
• Why is critical thinking important? Provide an example of how critical thinking has helped you in your life.
• What do you expect to learn from this course?

Write a paragraph summarizing the discussion.

1. Name and explain two different types of risks especially relevant to early stage high-potential ventures.

2. Please explain the compensation structure of VC and PE firms.

 

3. Describe possible explanations for an investor’s decision to convert preferred stock to common stock in connection with a liquidation event for a venture

 

4.Describe the shortcomings/limitations of the Venture Opportunity Screening (VOS) Model discussed in class. How did we say the Model could be modified (adapted) to make it more useful to entrepreneurs and prospective investors? Remember that many of the comments also apply to the other screening models (New venture template & VOSE)

 

5. What does it mean that a firm is “Burning Cash”; and how does burning cash relate to the need for external funding in a start-up business?

 

6. Marty Jones is negotiating with a Venture Capital Fund for $10 MIL financing for his new venture. Marty is the sole founder and owns 100% of the company’s equity. He is adamant that he must keep a 60% interest in the company after external capital is raised.

A VC investor believes an 10X return in NLT 5 years is an appropriate return for the risk associated with this investment.

The company has just begun generating revenue, and it does not expect to generate positive Cash Flow (CF) until Year 2. Discreet Cash Flow projections prepared from pro forma financial statements are presented below. After the discreet forecasting period (Yr 4), Rick and the VC expect CFs to grow by 3.5% per year in perpetuity.

Year	Cash Flow
1	$ -2,800,000
2	$  1,000,000
3	$  3,750,000
4	$ 11,000,000

1. What imputed rate of return demanded by the investor? (3)
2. Given that required rate of return, what value would the VCs probably give to projected Discreet Period pro forma CFs? (3)
3. What is the firm’s Terminal Value (TV)? (2)
4. What is the Present Value of the firm? (2)
5. At that valuation; how much of the company will Marty have to give up to raise $10 million and will he do the deal?

 

7.

Your start-up company has been funded as follows:

	Investment	% ownership	Preference	Cap
Family Loans (Yr 0)	$ 1,250,000	0	na	na
Founders Investment (YR 0)	$   500,000	40%	(0)	na
Round #1 Investment (YR 2)	4,000,000	35%	(2X)	None
Round #2 Investment (YR 3)	5,000,000	25%	(1X)	2X

 

The family loans carry a 14% coupon cumulative simple interest rate; however the company was only able to pay $50,000 interest in Year 1 and $ 80,000 interest in Year 3.

In Year 6 the company is considering a $31,000,000 purchase offer from larger competitor. Round #1 and Round #2 investors hold CONVERTIBLE, fully PARTICIPATING Preferred Stock.

Participation is in the %’s indicated above. Round #1 Shares earn 8% CUMULATIVE annual Dividends; and Round #2 Shares earn 6% CUMULATIVE annual Dividends. No Dividends have been paid prior to the Sales Transaction. Assume preference will be paid in order of investment (i.e Round 1 gets paid first)

How will the net sale proceeds be distributed to each stakeholder and what are their rates of returns assuming the deal closes during Year 6?

Family lenders:

Round 1 Investors:

Round 2 Investors:

Founders:

 

8.

STARTUP Analysis

Startup BuffCo (SB) is a corporation organized in Delaware. SB makes basketball coaching software that automatically generates powerful coaching drills and game plans based upon deep data analysis of team and individual statistics. The software works well. It is especially growing in popularity among NBA and Division I college programs where statistical data is extensive. Availability of a wealth of data makes the software’s analyses more powerful. The software is less useful where less data is readily available, such as the high school and club levels.

In September 2003, SB raised $1 million from an angel investor, Rich Uncle Walseth (RUW). SB’s sole founder, Ceal Barry, is CEO and SB is her first startup. Barry offered RUW the “same kind of stock that I own – common stock.” RUW knew a lot about basketball, not so much about investing, and was happy to receive common stock and a $9 million pre-money valuation for his SB investment.

Startup BuffCo made progress after the Rich Uncle Walseth angel investment, however, additional fundraising was difficult. On the verge of going bust, in December 2005, SB raised $2 million from Boyle Ventures (BV) on a $6 million pre-money valuation. BV is a $50 million fund raised in 2003. The round was not syndicated and BV is the sole owner of the Series A preferred stock. BV received Series A preferred stock with a seat on the board of directors, standard protective provisions, and a 1x liquidation preference that is participating up to a 3x cap. The lead general partner from BV, Burdie Halderson (BH), sits on SB’s three-person board, along with the CEO founder Ceal Barry, and angel investor RUW. Boyle Ventures’ cash infusion and Burdie Halderson’s sage advice helped Startup BuffCo finally find its footing. CEO Barry, angel RUW, and BV to this day remain SB’s only shareholders.

In June 2013, Startup BuffCo received a $10 million acquisition offer from Isiah Thomas Corp. (IT). IT offered to pay cash in exchange for all of SB’s stock. SB rejected IT’s acquisition offer. Startup BuffCo’s trajectory is trending well. It won’t explode into a huge company anytime soon, however, it has a valuable product that is carving out its own niche.

On December 10, 2013, SB received a $22 million offer from Knight Inc. (KI). KI offered $22 million cash in exchange for all of SB stock.

The KI purchase offer is as follows:

• $2 million cash to SB payable upon closing.
• $15 million cash is subject to a three year earn out following closing of the acquisition.

  a. The earn out is based upon sales of SB’s product.

  b. The sales number targets seem realistic based upon SB’s current momentum and internal three year sales projections.

• $5 million cash to be set aside and held in escrow for five years to cover any intellectual property or tax claims that arise during the period following the acquisition.

  a. Balance of escrow to be paid to SB following five year escrow period.

Questions

1. What percentage of Startup BuffCo did RUW own in September 2003, immediately after the angel investment?
2. After the Series A round with Boyle Ventures, RUW was unhappy to learn about the price that BV paid for SB. RUW knows that you came through CU’s Venture Capital class and now wants your advice. “What should I do differently in my next investment?” he asks. Please advise RUW on two issues related to price that he should address differently in his next angel investment.
3. Startup BuffCo rejected IT’s $10 million acquisition offer. If it had been accepted, how much of the proceeds would Boyle Ventures have received from the IT purchase of Startup BuffCo?
4. Assume Knight Inc.’s $22 million acquisition offer is accepted and SB gets a “best case” economic scenario. That is, SB gets the $2 million up front, the full $15 million earn out, and entire $5 million from escrow. Under this best case scenario, how much of the $22 million would Boyle Ventures receive AND what is the return on their investment

Assignment 2:  Be Careful What You Sign

Sudson Washer and Dryer Service is in the business of leasing used washers and dryers to apartment landlords for a contracted lease term. The coin-operated machines are used by apartment tenants. Letisha, 25, a human resource clerk, owns a five-unit apartment complex. While she resides in one of the units, the others are occupied by tenants. Sudson contacts Letisha and offers to lease one washer and one dryer.

The washer and dryer in Letisha’s apartment complex are old and worn-out. Anxious to keep her tenants happy, Letisha meets with Sudson’s salesman who presents her with a one-page agreement for the use of one washer and dryer for five years. The five-year term is standard and the front page of the contract states the lease period. Letisha (as lessee) and the salesman for Sudson (as lessor) sign the front page of the contract and Letisha retains a copy of the signed agreement.

The salesman did not inform Letisha of, nor did she bother to read the back of the agreement which contained additional terms, one of which is an ”automatic renewal” clause that states: “If the lessee fails to provide a 90-day written notice to terminate the contract by certified mail to the lessor, the five-year lease term period shall automatically renew for three additional five-year terms and shall only be subject to termination by the lessor.”

Letisha uses the machines for the five-year period and just a few weeks prior to the end of the term, calls Sudson to provide them with a courtesy notice saying she is not going to renew her agreement. The operator replies that since she failed to provide the 90-day written, certified notice of termination, the lease will be renewed for three five-year terms or another 15 years.

Letisha says that she never saw that clause.  The operator replies that it was her obligation to read the back page of the agreement and Sudson will require her to make monthly payments for the next 15 years.  Letisha does not know what recourse she now has.

Research whether Letisha has a contract formation or enforcement defense based on the legal and ethical use of automatic renewal clauses in lease agreements, using your textbook, the Argosy University online library resources, and the Internet. Based on the facts of the case and research, write an analytical paper. In the paper, respond to the following questions:

• If Letisha does not pay and Sudson sues her for breach of contract, what legal arguments could be raised in Letisha’s defense against the enforcement of the automatic renewal clause? Explain.
• What legal arguments could be raised by Sudson in support of the enforcement of the automatic renewal clause against Letisha? Explain.
• What ethical issues are raised, if any, by Sudson’s practice of using the automatic renewal clause in their lease agreements? Explain.
• Does the Uniform Commercial Code Article 2A apply in this case? Explain.
• Are there any government or private entities available to Letisha for lodging complaints about businesses which treat consumers unfairly? Explain.
• If Sudson sues Letisha for breaching the contract’s automatic renewal clause, what do you think the outcome of the case will be? Explain.