What Would You Do With $2 Million?

Posted On: 2006-10-09

Is it really a question small adult webmasters should face? Now don't let your imagination run away towards thoughts of tropical islands and busty sex crazed females who are desperate to satisfy your every wish because this money isn't for you to spend on your fantasies. No, this is serious money to help you grow your business.

So what would you do with $2 million if a venture capitalist offered it to you?

Late last week b5 media - a blogging network - announced that they had just received two million dollars in venture capital. Of course some portions of the blog world who have drunk far too much of the blog koolaid immediately dissolved into laughter and suggested that the venture capitalists were crazy, b5 media had no clue, and the whole thing was going to end in disaster for everyone involved.

Ditzy publications like Valleywag were quick to join the chorus but all they showed was a delightful shade of Envious Green. The fact is that no one gets that level of venture capital these days without having a very solid business plan and vision in place.

Picking up any level of venture capital these days is a whole lot harder than it was back in the dot com bubble days. Just ask several other high flying blog networks who have tried to raise the capital and failed.

And the venture capitalists behind this deal are quite open in telling anyone who is interested in approaching them for capital that they want to see something innovative before they're going to think about lending money. They don't want to see the same old business model that everyone else is using and if they do then the money won't be forthcoming.

So b5 media must have been able to show these guys that there really is some great potential for growth in what they have planned for their business.

Could you show a potential investor that your small business had the potential to turn into something much bigger and more profitable if only it had some extra cash to play with?

But Could it Happen to You
Of course you may be laughing right now and thinking that no one in their right mind is going to invest good money in an adult business and even if there was an investor out there you're never going to reach the point where you could ask for an injection of capital. If you are laughing then that's fine but you're being very short-sighted.

As recently as 12 months ago one of the guys behind b5 had a daytime job and one of the others in the group had been building his blogs up for several years before they began to make him real money. So perhaps the only thing holding you back is a lack of vision and a lack of faith in your abilities.

Perhaps now is the time to reassess your goals and to spend some time getting your business and your business records in order? Maybe your records are good enough to satisfy the IRS but you might need more if one day you do decide to take your business to the next level.

It's not a waste of time to at least find out what you might need to do that and right now there is a great post on draft term sheets at Post Money Value that will help you understand the things you need to know. You'll find that blog at ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/ and there's something even more interesting about that blog - Rick Segal is one of the venture capitalists who gave b5 media the money.

Of course, you may never reach that level but there is certainly no harm in being prepared for it if you do. And getting your business records into shape and thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of your business can also help you see where there are areas of potential growth for your business.

Sometimes those areas of growth can be so obvious that you don't see them till you step back and take a good look at where you're going and where you might want to go.

So considering what you might do with $2 million is not such a silly question after all. In fact I'm beginning to think that it really is one of those important questions that can help your business grow out of its skin even if no one every offers you venture capital.

Dreaming about what you might do with money like that can become challenging and when you face those challenges your business could just begin to grow and realize its full potential.

So what would you do if someone offered you $2 million?