INSTANT VIEW: Experts Weigh In On Jane Marvel Handbags

(Reuters) - A highly competitive industry, a failed startup on her resume and the worst recession in a generation didn't deter Jane Saidenberg from launching her handbag business. A year later her Jane Marvel <www.janemarvel.com/> line of "lifestyle" bags is going gangbusters, landing on the shelves of more than 300 stores from Alabama to Wyoming and racking up sales of $1 million along the way. The following panel of experts critique Saidenberg's business model and opportunity for growth:

***********************************************************************************

EXPERT COMMENTS:

TIM BERRY, FOUNDER & PRESIDENT, PALO ALTO SOFTWARE

Tim Berry is president and founder of Palo Alto Software, founder of bplans.com, and a co-founder of Borland International. He teaches starting a business at the University of Oregon. He is author of books and software including Business Plan Pro, published by Palo Alto Software, and "The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan," published by Entrepreneur Press. he has a Stanford MBA degree and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame.

"If angel investors spend $500,000 on Jane Marvel, how much of the company do they own? All those things come under I want a decent return on investment. If you want to write cheques to startup companies you want to believe that $500,000 has a fair shot at becoming $5 million in 3-5 years.

"Is there going to be an exit? The investors need you to go liquid with your company. It used to be IPO or acquisition, nowadays it's just acquisition. She's got to be committed if she gets investors in. They need her to be able to be acquired in 3-5 years and that sucks sometimes for the founder.

"Her life changes if she gets investors. They don't just write her a cheque and disappear. Now she has people who are tracking her performance and are unhappy if she misses her milestones and God help her if she wants to go in one direction and they want her to go in another, because then everybody is unhappy. It's very much like having a second marriage to deal with. You choose an investor for compatibility, as carefully as you would choose a spouse. One of the things that you get to do when you own it yourself is make mistakes. That's a very comforting reassurance, because sometimes it turns out that they weren't mistakes and you were right all along, but your investors would never have let you find that out."

BRUCE MAXWELL, FOUNDER & CEO, BRUCE MAXWELL CONSULTING

Bruce is a Venture CFO, providing interim CFO services to help startups get organized and funded. He also provides portfolio troubleshooting and due diligence services to venture capitalists. He is a specialist in the construction of business plans and financial projections and has raised over $68 million in venture and angel funds. Bruce has operated his practice since January of 1998, serving corporate clients such as Freescale, Volantis, Unplugged and Arcturus Networks and venture clients such as J&W Seligman and Outlook Ventures. Before starting his own practice, Bruce served as CEO of Positive Communications, a paging services firm. Bruce founded Positive in 1992, grew it to over $40 million in annual sales and 350 employees, and sold over a million pagers. Prior to Positive, Bruce held various positions with Voysys, AT&E and Chemical Bank. Bruce holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MBA from Stanford University.

"One of your goals is to gain entry into the national chains and department stores. I recommend that you consider hiring manufacturers' reps to achieve this. Twenty years ago I founded a company to market pagers to mass market retailers. I got very good results by hiring manufacturers' reps to rep my line. These guys are essentially a rented sales force. They will not have the passion or energy of your own internal sales force, but they do have one thing of inestimable value: they have the ability to get an appointment with the key buyer at the chain's HQ. They can walk right through a door that might remain closed to you for years. The traditional approach that new manufacturers use is to hire manufacturers reps to crack the major retail chains and win initial distribution. And then, when you have established your brand and your line, and have a personal relationship with these buyers, you replace the manufacturers' rep firms with a small direct sales force of your own.

JOSH DORFMAN, FOUNDER & CEO, VIVAVI

Josh Dorfman is an environmental entrepreneur, author, speaker, and radio personality. He is the founder & CEO of Vivavi <vivavi.com/>, a provider of contemporary, eco-friendly furniture and furnishings, working with over forty of today's leading edge sustainable designers. In 2006, he launched ModernGreenLiving.com, Vivavi's companion resource that helps consumers find green homes and green building experts throughout North America. Inc. Magazine has called Vivavi one of the fifty most intriguing companies helping to drive today's green revolution. Josh's media ventures center on "The Lazy Environmentalist," the environmental talk radio show airing live daily throughout North America on Lime Radio on Sirius Satellite for which he is the creator, producer, and host. His new book, "The Lazy Environmentalist on a Budget: Save Money. Save Time. Save The Planet." (March 2009) is a follow-up to "The Lazy Environmentalist: Your Guide To Easy, Stylish, Green Living."

"I think Jane is a terrific entrepreneur with a very clear vision. The reality is that we live in a globalized economy, and I believe that is a good thing, so I'm very comfortable with products coming from China and elsewhere around the world, provided that those products are made with environmental responsibility.

"I personally would not fund her business because I see no indication that she considers the environmental and social impacts of her operations."