Guest Speaker Ron Kornfeld

The serial entrepreneur, Ron Kornfeld, was gracious enough to pop by our class and shed some light on the concept of the business plan, funding, and other business related concepts.  Kornfeld, a classically trained businessman, is the author of our EIT business plan template and was, therefore, the perfect person to expand on its functionality.  The business plan performs many functions within the operation of any successful business.  During the formation of the business plan the author is required to articulate the business idea in greater depth which can expose flaws at an early stage.  Once formed, the plan can be used to convey the purpose of the business in a standardized, formalized, and disciplined fashion.  The plan can then be used to obtain funding from investors as well as acting as the primary operational guide.  At the end of the business cycle the plan is used to assist the exit strategy.  Kornfeld gave an excellent example of this when he described how his business plan was used to help recover from a financial disaster when a venture capital investor vanished overnight.  The plan assisted in the sale of the company in an effort to spare the company's share holders from suffering losses.  Kornfeld also gave great advise for dealing with subject matter experts.  He advised to not overly generalize the abilities of any given expert.  By properly evaluating the abilities of the subject matter experts an entrepreneur can have reasonable expectations of its experts.