Entrepreneurial expert Nicholas Seet. Courtesy photo
By MANDY MARKSTEINER
- In 2005, Seet won the Rice University Business Plan Competition and received $1.1 million in cash and prizes
Nicholas Seet is an expert at navigating the small business funding process. When his first startup, Auditude, was funded for $1 million, he quickly left his job at Deloitte Consulting and dove into entrepreneurship.
In 2005, Seet won the Rice University Business Plan Competition and received $1.1 million in cash and prizes, over 100 other competitors. In 2011 he sold Auditude to Adobe for a low-nine-figure number.
Auditude grew from a humble MP3 identification company to become the fourth largest ad network in the world.
Seet graduated from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, and received his MBA at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, majoring in entrepreneurship and finance.
His biggest passion is answering the question, how can I make entrepreneurship accessible to everyone? His students quickly learn to get into an entrepreneurship mentality and start asking questions that lead to breakthrough business ideas. Questions like, what’s a big problem? What is a possible solution? How can I help?
“I want to encourage people to forget about who they are and focus on who they want to be,” Seet said.
This fall, UNM-Los Alamos will offer a course taught by Seet called Financing the Entrepreneurial Enterprise. The class will be a hybrid course, taught both online and in person. The course runs from Oct. 4-Dec. 6 and will be held noon to 4 p.m. Fridays.
Financing the Entrepreneurial Enterprise will be a natural extension from Seet’s other class, Introduction to Entrepreneurship that is offered in the spring. But this class will focus on the critical money aspect of starting a business. The classes may be taken in either order.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, lack of capital and funding is one of the main reasons why the majority of small businesses fail. That means that businesses that secure funding right away have a greater chance for success.
“It’s important for entrepreneurs to tackle the funding issue as soon as possible,” Seet said. “The money people always demand that you defend and justify your business,” Seet said. “In order to get funding, new businesses need to demonstrate how they will make a profit. If you pass the money test you are more likely to make it in the market.”
In Financing the Entrepreneurial Enterprise, Seet will give step-by-step guidance on how to secure funding. Students will use Kickstarter and IndieGoGo as a starting point, because crowdsourcing is the newest paradigm for business financing. His students will learn how to launch a successful crowd-funding campaign in support of projects of local businesses.
Seet also will bring in guest speakers who are experts in bank financing, equity and debt financing, and bootstrapping. He will bring in professional venture capitalists, who will explain how to attract serious investors. He will also help students successfully assess public grants and navigate startup accelerators and incubators.
There are only 25 slots available, so sign up right away. Financing the Entrepreneurial Enterprise is listed as BSTC 293-300 in the UNM-LA Course Catalogue. UNM-LA has an open admissions policy. Visit http://losalamos.unm.edu to apply.
Note: Local businesses that have small projects that require financing of less than $10,000 can submit proposals directly to Seet at http://NicholasSeet.com before Oct. 1. If your project is accepted, a team of students may initiate a crowd-funding campaign for your project during the course.
