Verify-crED Business Plan

Today I worked on the Verify-crED business plan - in the strangest place. I took my daughter to a birthday party and hunkered down in the waiting room with my laptop. I have this laptop going everywhere. On Saturday mornings while my eldest daughter is at her fencing class, I sit in the car and drain the battery (actually, I have only done this once and I bought a jumper after that horrendous experience).

I anticipate that one of the requirements any interested investor will seek is a business plan - makes sense. It just feels like I am putting this together when I have the least amount of time.

As an aside, I attended a focus group at the NJ Star Ledger last week that was quite informative. The Star Ledger wants to revamp the business section to provide more for the small business. Interestingly (and wonderfully) there were not many small business owners there; rather there were quite a few representatives from organizations that support small businesses. At the meeting, I heard about all these seemingly wonderful resources that are available to me - but I know that muddling through the mounds of information is PAINFUL. That is why I think many small businesses eschew the help offered. The number of hoops through which you are expected to jump don't feel worth the effort. I am going to reach out to some of the other attendees to see if my perceptions are true. I just feel that at this time in our business cycle, I don't have time to waste. Everything I do has to positively impact the business and the return has to be as immediate as possible. So, when I go to the gym, conduct personal training sessions or coach Level 2 gymnastics - I look at those activities as helping me focus. I ran about 5 miles this morning and I felt so good. I appreciate the time to sort through my task list. I am always impressed by the people who can work out at midday. I need to start my day with activity, and I cannot break in the middle of it.

I wanted to also talk about Verify-ID (as promised). Verify-ID is our feature that allows our clients to submit search requests without the required social security numbers and dates of birth. Our clients can have our system send an email message to the search subjects that contains a direct link. This link takes search subjects securely into our system so that they can enter their own sensitive data. Neat, huh? It came out of my experience when I worked at an executive recruiting firm. There was a concern that candidates' sensitive data would accidentally end up in the search management database, so this feature was created to solve that issue.

We really try to make sure that we listen to our clients, because they are from where we will get the next great idea.