Investment Showdown

You, the investor, must decide which of three Toronto businesses merits your money. Each of them has a new, edgy business concept that they think deserves your dollars. Review their ideas, and make a selection in the right-hand column. These cases are hypothetical, but the businesses are real.

Louis Trahan

LastMinuteTraining.ca

LastMinuteTraining.ca is the fastest and easiest way to find affordable seminars and workshops in Canada. The seminars and workshops listed on lastminutetraining.ca are being sold on a last minute discount basis with a minimum savings of 20%.

We have quickly grown to become the largest marketplace for discounted training seats in Canada. We have partnered with over 60 training companies across the country. Some of Canada's premier training companies such as Nexient Learning, New Era Technologies and On-Track Computer Training find LastMinuteTraining.ca an ideal resource for connecting with clients. Our list of partners grows weekly.

On any given day we have more than 600 computer training courses for sale. Positive reviews and featured articles in Entrepreneur Start Ups Magazine, The Toronto Sun, The Toronto Star, Metro and SOHO Magazine and other online sites are testament to the value we bring our clients. We are the fastest and easiest way to find training seminars and workshops in Canada.

Our company is growing slowly and steadily and we are in a positive cash flow situation.

Our Hypothetical Case For Investment

Although many corporations and SME's use us to find workplace related training we would like to expand our service to include a larger variety of personal interest and personal development training seminars. We have been getting more and more requests for these types of seminars but they are under-represented on our website. These seminars are typically held by smaller, local niche training providers. The cost of adding and supporting these smaller trainers under our current system is prohibitive. In order to make this initiative a success we have identified four areas that need to be addressed.

1. We must reduce the barriers to adding new training providers to our service. Those barriers being:
1. the length of time it takes to set up new training providers;
2. the amount of training required to teach new training providers how to use the system
3. The cost to use our system;
2. We need to develop a lead generation and sales plan specifically dedicated to finding and signing up new training providers.
3. We should increase our market presence through an enhanced marketing and advertising campaign.
4. We must improve search functionality and the online registration and payment process.

By investing in these areas we anticipate being able to grow significantly with minimal addition to our infrastructure or resources. Currently most of our resources are spent on activities that take a lot of time collecting and disseminating information. Through automation and improved functionality we will reduce the number of in-bound calls received by our training agents. Additionally we will be able to reduce the amount of time spent servicing those calls. On-line payment options will reduce the amount of time spent connecting with clients to collect credit card payments over the phone. This liberated time will allow us to service considerably more clients with our existing staff.

Our Loan Requirements: $50,000

To do this are looking for a $50,000 loan to be used as follows:

• $ 15,000 in improvements to our existing technology
• $ 15,000 in lead/sales development
• $ 20,000 for Marketing, PR and advertising

We anticipate the increase of just over $50,000 in gross profits from vendor fees annually directly from our enhancements and sales efforts. In addition increases in course registration sales due to improved search and registration combined with enhanced market awareness should increase by $250,000 per year.

Our business already produces revenue, is growing and is fiscally healthy. This loan will simply enable us to achieve even faster growth. The combined increase in revenue will easily service the small amount we are looking to borrow.

CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites. Links will open in new window.

Cup sealed with Sur-Seal system.
View a video of the process.

Sur-Seal Lid System

Audio: Noel Williams and Bill Bakker of Green-Line Products Inc. on the Sur-Seal Lid system. Listen | Runs 7:54

Green-Line Products Inc. has developed and patented Sur-Seal, a touch-less lidding system for take out cups used in Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs). Place any size paper or plastic cup filled with a hot or cold beverage into the Sur-Seal countertop machine. In only one second a specially printed shrink film, after exposure to the light energy of a halogen bulb, will shrink around the rim of the cup, creating a leak-proof seal.

The Sur-Seal lid, dispensed from a 6" diameter roll and holding the equivalent of 4000 lids, uses 85% less plastic material by weight and 99% less storage and shipping space than current lids.

Upon Sur-Seal's winning of the prestigious Food Service and Packaging Institute's Award, QSR Magazine (11/2006) reports:
"This is revolutionary - it targets major issues in cost, environment, consumer concerns and inventory management."

Presentations have been made to some of the world's leading QSR chains. They acknowledge the many problems with current lids; chiefly being spillage and the loss of profitable beverage sales in the "Drive-Thru." They also recognize the opportunities for revenue from the "in your face" new promotion space on top of the printable shrink lid.

Coca-Cola Co. and Dixie Cups commissioned independent consumer surveys during extensive field trials which included 6 months at McDonald's restaurants. The surveys indicate that a minimum of 86% of consumers preferred the Sur-Seal lid. The lid provides a more sanitary and secure cup cover.

Potential customers from around the world crowded the Sur-Seal interactive exhibit booth at the 2006 National Restaurant Show in Chicago. Awarded the Kitchen Innovation Award, Sur-Seal was voted a "must see" product from among the 2100 exhibitors.

Our Hypothetical Case For Investment

The system is ready for commercialization with pre-production samples, engineering drawings, regulatory approvals and qualified manufacturers prepared to proceed.

Bill Bakker and Noel Williams
of Green-Line Products Inc.

The size of the market is huge. The U.S. annual consumption is 410 billion plastic lids. Tim Horton's alone uses 2.1 billion lids. (A switch by them to the Sur-Seal lid will result in 4000 tons less plastic waste).

The cost of Sur-Seal lids will be competitive to the cost of the current lids, which average roughly $0.03 each. Within a 5 year period, Sur-Seal lids are estimated to capture an achievable equivalent of 4% of the U.S. market.

Our Loan Requirements: $380,000

The development effort has been supported by private investors (as shareholders), government grants and interested corporations. The immediate need is for $180,000 to cover pre-production tooling costs. Another $200,000 is required to support initial operating costs for a total of $380,000. This would easily be discharged within the first 5 years.

Not including proceeds from the sale of advertising space, the net after tax income at the 5th year is projected to be $18,200,000 this is based on the sale of machines, film and service.

CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites. Links will open in new window.

happyworker.com

Happy Worker's mission is to spread happiness in many ways. Our specialty is on inventing, designing and manufacturing products that are creative and enjoyed by grown-ups, either under our own Happy Worker brand or for other brands. We're passionate about ideas and even more so, about making ideas happen.

Our Hypothetical Case For Investment

We'd love to see more original products make it to market. We meet many inventors who have strong potential ideas but have the challenge of funding the development, manufacturing and distribution. With the current economy, innovating and introducing new products is challenging - it is difficult to get funding and retailers are risk averse with carrying new products.

The happy workers plan their platform.

We would like to build an "Open Product Development" platform that enables users to submit their product project for community feedback, development, and funding. This would ensure that only innovative products that have demand and interest are manufactured, by getting community feedback and for raising funds through micropayments.

This online platform will enable users to:

• Share and get feedback on their concepts.
• Determine the best engineering and materials, depending on budget, timelines, and quantity.
• Invite friends, family, and fans to support the project.
• Communicate regular updates and announcements through email newsletters, blog, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media platforms.
• Fund their project by accepting micropayments as low as $10. Each contributor will be able to choose how many items they'd like to receive when the project is completed. When the project is completed, the contributors receive a gift of the item they helped create. For example, when you contribute $100 to a specific project, you could receive 10 final items.
• Monitor their project contributions and track how close they are raising funds for the project.

Happy Worker will earn a portion of distribution revenues, and will provide our prototyping and manufacturing services. We'll also offer such premium services as creative consulting, package and product design, marketing and PR, distribution and warehousing, drop shipping, and ecommerce services.

The happyworker.com team.

Our Loan Requirements: $70,000

To launch the Open Product Development platform, powered by Happy Worker, within the next year, we would need to allocate an investment of $70,000:

• $18,000 for IT Development & Programming
• $22,000 for Marketing
• $30,000 for Sales & Support

Goals over the first year will be to generate an additional $320,000 in revenues by completing 35 different product projects, split between larger and smaller product launches. Risks are low as product investments are scaled to fit actual demand and pre-orders.

About Happy Worker, the "Creative Product Makers"...

Happy Worker partners with corporate clients to design and manufacture retail merchandise, original sales and marketing premiums and promotional items. The company began as a toy manufacturer, and Happy Worker's retail toys have sold in hundreds of stores in North America and made more than 300 media appearances.

CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites. Links will open in new window.