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Dressing Your e-Business Up for Success

By Stanley P. Jaskiewicz
May 28, 2008
Mirror in the bathroom, please talk free
The door is locked, just you and me.
(from 'Mirror in the Bathroom,' The English Beat)

Asking an e-commerce entrepreneur whether he or she knows what the business looks like may seem silly. After all ' doesn't it seem a given that no one can run a business, whether an e-commerce venture or a traditional bricks-and-mortar storefront operation, without knowing its basic financial information, especially cash flows, receivables and payables, and the balance sheet?

But if the entrepreneur examined this concept and assumption critically in a mirror, and ' give me the benefit of engaging in some creative fantasy here ' the business could 'talk freely' to the entrepreneur, to paraphrase the 1980s group, The English Beat, what would it say?

The answer, of course, would depend largely on the potential backers: how a business 'looks' ' the state it's in, how it's 'tricked out,' and how healthy it is. It also depends on who is looking, and on what he or she is looking for; is it for the upside possibilities that the dewy-eyed entrepreneur sees just beyond every past-due notice, or is it the impending cash-flow implosion that the chief financial officer fears?

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