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Full-Text Articles in Law
Minority And Women Entrepreneurs: Building Capital, Networks, And Skills, Michael S. Barr
Minority And Women Entrepreneurs: Building Capital, Networks, And Skills, Michael S. Barr
Other Publications
The United States has an enviable entrepreneurial culture and a track record of building new companies. Yet new and small business owners often face particular challenges, including lack of access to capital, insufficient business networks for peer support, investment, and business opportunities, and the absence of the full range of essential skills necessary to lead a business to survive and grow. Women and minority entrepreneurs often face even greater obstacles. While business formation is, of course, primarily a matter for the private sector, public policy can and should encourage increased rates of entrepreneurship, and the capital, networks, and skills essential …
Should Angel-Backed Start-Ups Reject Venture Capital?, Darian M. Ibrahim
Should Angel-Backed Start-Ups Reject Venture Capital?, Darian M. Ibrahim
Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review
The conventional wisdom is that entrepreneurs seek financing for their high-growth, high-risk start-up companies in a particular order. They begin with friends, family, and “bootstrapping” (e.g., credit card debt). Next they turn to angel investors, or accredited investors (and usually ex-entrepreneurs) who invest their own money in multiple, early-stage start-ups. Finally, after angel funds run dry, entrepreneurs seek funding from venture capitalists (VCs), whose deep pockets and connections lead the startup to an initial public offering (IPO) or sale to a larger company in the same industry (trade sale). That conventional wisdom may have been the model for start-up success …
Incubator Cities: Tomorrow's Economy, Yesterday's Start-Ups, Abraham J.B. Cable
Incubator Cities: Tomorrow's Economy, Yesterday's Start-Ups, Abraham J.B. Cable
Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review
Venture development funds (“VDFs”) are products of state and local government law that use public funds to invest in local start-ups, in the hope that these companies will then attract venture capital investment. Existing analysis by legal scholars largely assumes that establishing a private venture capital market is essential to encouraging entrepreneurship. This article challenges that assumption. It argues that VDFs and other policies focused on encouraging venture capital are outmoded and inconsistent with the ultimate economic development goals of state and local governments. In many industries, entrepreneurs can now get by with less capital because the cost of developing …
Accelerating The Growth Of The Next Generation Of Innovators, Dana Thompson
Accelerating The Growth Of The Next Generation Of Innovators, Dana Thompson
Articles
In a recent study on the best practices of business incubators that contribute to the success of startups, one of the best practices asserted is to include a business lawyer on the advisory board of business incubators, who may suggest necessary legal issues for startups to address and connect the incubator startups with legal assistance. Although many college and university incubators may have access to experienced attorneys who are able to provide advice, and who are able to represent student-led ventures, most do not have access to a university law clinic established to provide pro bono, direct legal representation and …
A Very Quiet Revolution: A Primer On Securities Crowdfunding And Title Iii Of The Jobs Act, Thaya Brook Knight, Huiwen Leo, Adrian A. Ohmer
A Very Quiet Revolution: A Primer On Securities Crowdfunding And Title Iii Of The Jobs Act, Thaya Brook Knight, Huiwen Leo, Adrian A. Ohmer
Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review
This essay introduces the complex regulatory regime that governs the public sale of all securities, no matter how small the offeror. It is intended as a rudimentary roadmap for the start-up or its counsel and will, hopefully, help to illuminate the traps for the unwary while providing an overview of the regulatory universe in which securities crowdfunding will operate.
Beyond Microfinance: Creating Opportunities For Women At The Base Of The Pyramid, Deborah Burand
Beyond Microfinance: Creating Opportunities For Women At The Base Of The Pyramid, Deborah Burand
Articles
A growing number of innovative social entrepreneurs are tackling this problem by creating 'busmesses in a bag' mspired by the world's largest direct seller of beauty products - Avon. These very small franchise or consignment businesses are affordable enough to be acquired and operated by women living at the base of the economic pyramid. Just as commercial franchise networks such as Avon have helped people with httle or no experience grow mto successful business owners around the world, microfranchise and microconsignment networks may hold similar promise.
Unclaimed Financial Assets And The Promotion Of Microfinance, Andrew W. Hartlage
Unclaimed Financial Assets And The Promotion Of Microfinance, Andrew W. Hartlage
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
State governments can effectively promote domestic entrepreneurship in low-income communities and simultaneously fulfill their duties as conservator s of unclaimed property, by lending unclai med financial assets-in-trust at preferential interest rates to in-state microfinance providers. This plan presents an alternative to charitable contributions, though it does not resolve the tension between for-profit and not-for-profit microfinance providers. Such a scheme could be a significant funding source for many microfinance operations in the United States today. Even a small portion of the yearly intake of unclaimed assets would be substantial enough to support fully most microfinance loan portfolios. Also, reinvestment of unclaimed …
Policies To Expand Minority Entrepreneurship: Closing Comments, Michael S. Barr
Policies To Expand Minority Entrepreneurship: Closing Comments, Michael S. Barr
Book Chapters
This essay is based on comments delivered at the Conference on on Entrepreneurship in Low- and Moderate-Income Communities, November 3-4, 2005. This has been a productive conversation. In my closing comments, I want to shift our focus somewhat, from entrepreneurship in low-income communities to minority entrepreneurship generally. I want to do so because many minority entrepreneurs are connected to or hire from low-income communities, and because minority entrepreneurs face critical barriers even when they attempt to create and grow firms outside of distressed communities. In this comment, I want to highlight key barriers and suggest five steps for Congress, the …
Time To Step Up: Modeling The African American Ethnivestor For Self-Help Entrepreneurship In Urban America, Roger M. Groves
Time To Step Up: Modeling The African American Ethnivestor For Self-Help Entrepreneurship In Urban America, Roger M. Groves
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
When the United States Congress passed legislation in late 2000 to revitalize the urban core with incentives for equity investors, African Americans were inconspicuously absent as stakeholders in the enterprise. Subsidies in the form of tax credits were instead gobbled up by investor groups who developed upscale hotel-convention centers, high priced condominiums, and symphony orchestra venues that the pre-existing poor residents could not afford. The focus of this Article is not to blame those investors who took advantage of the opportunity, though they perverted the purpose of the subsidy. Rather, this Article seeks to identify a new substrata of the …