Environmental Business

Business Loans, Angel Investors, Venture Capital and Start Up Capital for Environmental Businesses

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

In order to consider investing, angel investors must believe that the company has great potential to achieve a liquidity event, and one that enables them to earn a significant return on their investment. The following factors imply that a company has this potential.

The first criterion is scale or the potential for the company to achieve significant annual revenues. If a company expects to raise venture capital after the angel round, it must have the potential to earn annual revenues of $50 million to $100 million within five years.

Conversely, an angel investor, when no follow-on capital is required, might be willing to invest in a restaurant or website that has the potential to generate hundreds of thousands or a few million dollars as long as a clear path has been laid out regarding how they could get a sizable return on their investment.

photo credit: Kevin Krejci

It looks like investing for green now has a double meaning.

A couple of years ago, if you would have asked someone about “green investing” they probably would have told you that you were just trying to make some cash. Today, “green investing” not only means investing to make money, but to invest your money in an environmentally friendly way.

So, how can you get in on this type of investing? Aside from investing in mutual funds that specialize in these sorts of companies, it seems like there’s really one of two ways for you to invest your hard earned money “greenly”:

photo credit: robertnelson

As any experienced marketer knows, differentiating your business from your competitors is a primary key to attracting new prospects and customers and retaining them once they decide to become your customers. But will the same “hook” that attracted them to become your customer be enough to maintain their loyalty? Let’s examine a few strategies:

Low Price: As people are always price conscience, especially in this slow economy, this can be an excellent method to attract new customers. However, unless your company plans on being a “discount house” operation, you will need to evolve a different strategy to retain those customers, otherwise they will simply seek out the next big discount elsewhere.

photo credit: Choubistar

In today’s global market place people are looking to go green for many reasons.
One good reason is the environmental impact going green has.

If you consider the impact of fuel burn in the daily commute to work the overpowering reason to go green is the cost of gasoline.

More and more the ability to stay at home and telecommute is taking first choice for many people.
Inter the home business arena and the ability to have family time when you want it, work in your sweats and slippers, not have to suck the exhaust fumes of the traffic ahead of you on the daily commute is another environmental plus.

photo credit: MSFP

Sometimes it takes one event or trigger to change your life or the direction you are going. I have been very much in my element the last 12 months trying to develop more and more content and services for consulting and coaching clients. I have had clients on a regular basis, even though I always feel I should have more, based on all the time I spend finding them.

As any good coach and entrepreneur should, I keep up on the developments in the industry and believe in the concept of “paying it forward”. The developments in our economy didn’t really help my relatively new company.

photo credit: telmo32c

One way that you can differentiate your Lawn Care Business from all the others is to consider starting an environmentally friendly lawn care company. Here are some ways that you could distinguish your company as being environmentally friendly.

Some smart lawn care operators are starting to use electric mowers, edgers and blowers to do their work. Not only can these options be better for air emissions but they can also be quieter and cheaper due to the savings made on fuel.

photo credit: kevindooley

In today’s economic crunch, it can be tempting for hopeful entrepreneurs to renege on their once strong desires to go into business for themselves. Because most assume a very high price tag associated with purchasing a franchise business, it can seem unreasonable or perhaps even foolish to spend money when things are tight. But that conclusion is based on one very flawed presupposition: the notion that all franchises are more costly than the average businessperson can afford. In fact, there are many business opportunities that can be started for an initial purchase price no greater than the value of a mid-sized sedan, and a business is certain to bring in greater revenue than a Toyota. If you’ve been pondering the business options available to you and have lost the hope of being able to afford a franchise business, here are 10 great, low-cost businesses you may want to take a look at.

photo credit: thingermejig

Good health never sounded so good… especially when you can actually earn money while buying your own all-natural “green” health and spa products. If you’ve always dreamed of financial freedom, you can now work from home and earn a residual income simply by buying green health and spa products and possibly recommending them to others.

If you’ve been searching for an online business endeavor for very long, you’ve probably heard of home business opportunities that require you to purchase high-ticket items at wholesale prices such as cars, boats, TVs, furniture, and even $1,200 pots and pans! The company asks you to persuade others to sign on under you and purchase these products for themselves, earning you an added commission and them a savings on these items. The problem is many people who want to start a home business are looking because they need money – not because they already have lots to spend. These high-ticket products – even at wholesale – usually cost more than many can afford. That’s why some aspiring business owners drop out of the race so soon.

With “green” health and spa products, things work a little differently. These are actually products you use daily and might even already purchase on a monthly basis. They are affordable, below $100 monthly for entire supplies, and might possibly benefit your health, particularly if you have allergies. One opportunity such as this is with Ultra International, a manufacturer of health and beauty products called Ultra Selects, such as shampoos, body soap, hand soap, and other 100 percent green products. There are also weight loss products, nutritional super drinks, and other health-related products you can try while earning money with this company.

photo credit: sgs_1019

More and more these days’ people are worried about the environment. You will find that many more companies are now launching public relations campaigns in order to show their customers and the rest of the potential customer market that somehow they are changing their ways and going green. This is a great move for companies to show that there is more to worry about than just the bottom line.

If you own a business and you want to let your customers know about your new green strategies, environmental public relations will come in handy. This is more than just regular PR; instead, it is a type of PR that is focused solely and preparing and presenting your company with green initiatives.

photo credit: Spigoo

Embracing new, environmentally sustainable ideas is often confusing. New terms like “Greenhouse Gases”, “Carbon Footprint”, :Greenwashing”, and even the “Three R’s” (nope, not what you learned in school) are tossed about by a new generation of green techies but for most of us, they may as well be speaking in Latin. Before a company can truly become green, the principals must understand the dynamics, procedures, and the corresponding terminologies.

Let’s start with Recycle. Sounds easy. Most of us are familiar with recycling glass bottles, plastics, and newspapers. The confusion starts with plastic coding, that little number inside the recycling logo on the product. All recyclable plastics are now coded with a numerical value between 1 and 7, representing the type of material used to produce them. However, in most parts of the country, only plastics coded 1-3 are generally being recycled. The others end up in a landfill for the next eon or so. So, instead of simply recycling, we now use the 3R’s: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Carefully consider the waste before purchasing an item; try to purchase an item that can be reused at least several times; and, of course, continue to recycle what you know can be recycled.