The team here at DealBacker has been working hard on building a pretty radical business sale management platform that will include opportunity marketing, deal management tools, business for sale and merger and acquisition information and avirtual due diligence service.

Stay tuned to to see what DealBacker will bring for business owners in 2010!

Best wishes
The DealBacker team

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a document that describes your business, its objectives, strategies, target market and financial forecasts. It's a blueprint to your business's future.

Business plans can vary enormously in length, style and content, but the key is to ensure the document is realistic, practical and regularly reviewed. It should not only set the direction for your business but act as a reference point for measuring performance.

Why do a business plan?

What is intellectual property?

Put simply, Intellectual Property (IP) represents the property of your mind or intellect. If you develop a new product, service, process or idea it belongs to you and is therefore your intellectual property. If however, you want to ensure exclusive legal ownership, you must formally register your IP.

Types of IP protection

There are seven types of IP protection available for your idea:

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patents for new or improved products or processes; Read more...
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Important issues to consider when buying rural land are:

1. The economic climate of the area. Is the land to be used for agriculture, commercial purposes or private use?
2. Check that the property has appropriate council approvals and council zoning for any external buildings, and any future development.
3. What about your health and age? (Do you expect to have need for services that are found in cities and regional centres?)
4. What are the property taxes?
5. Does the contract include any licences such as water usage etc.?

An interesting article on using peer to peer loans to fund your business from Lending Hub in Australia:

Some commercial due diligence questions to ask yourself and the vendor of a business when you start looking at buying a business or venture:

1. How much revenue has historically been generated - is this driven by unit sales or price increases?
2. What is the competition like in this sector
3. How often is the business marketed and does the marketing deliver revenue increases?
4. Is the business scalable...you want to be able to increase sales easily without having to add significant costs and resources
5. How do customer perceive the business, does the business have a good reputation?

Here are some of the difficulties and challenges of woning a retail business such as a shop, hairdresser, grocery etc.

1. Low sales post Christmas
2. Large cash investment at startup
3. Long hours and little (or no) pay to start
4. Only vacation is attending trade shows and buying events
5. Meeting difficult customers
6. Not having what your customers want
7. Bounced checks / credit card fraud
8. Having to do it all (marketing, buying, bookkeeping) yourself
9. Too little profit on the merchandise you love to sell

Here are some benefits of owning a retail business (such as a shop).

1. Holiday sales figures
2. Research and assistance from trade associations
3. Satisfaction of building something from the ground up
4. Attending trade shows and buying events
5. Meeting new people
6. Having on hand exactly what your customers want
7. Cash transactions
8. You get to set all the rules
9. Selling merchandise you love and have an interest in
10. Creating a pleasant atmosphere and receiving compliments about your shop
11. Hiring and training wonderful employees

Interesting article on the Malaysian corporate mergers and acqusitions scene.

"Malaysia's national A1GP team is reportedly in talks with the new Lotus F1 entry about collaborating in 2010.

The Malaysian Insider cites a "source" as revealing that "deep discussions" between Lotus team officials Tony Fernandes and Mike Gascoyne, and A1 team boss Jack Cunningham, took place recently at the Singapore Grand Prix.

"A1 Team Malaysia feels that the technological know-how and vast experience it has could be put to good use in helping out the Lotus F1 team," the source said."

An interesting article on Ireland's corporate merger and acqusitions scene between. Aer Lingus and Ryanair.

"A former Aer Lingus boss has said the future of the airline can only be secured if it merges with another airline – as long as that airline isn't Ryanair.

Willie Walsh, who left the airline in 2005 and is now Chief Executive of British Airways, said Aer Lingus' future was now uncertain due to a variety of factors, and that the airline should consider a merger.