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Suggest who benefitsWhat Would You Do With $200,000 Right Now?
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Suggest questionAnd so, yes, Dana White was in fact the big winner at last week’s Detroit Demo Day, taking home the top prize of $200,000 for her hair salon business, Paralee Boyd, which specializes in serving women with thick and curly hair and which has an unusual walk-in-only business model. Of course, Dana now has some decisions to make: Does she want to take the money in the form of a zero-interest loan? Or does she want to take it in the form of a convertible note, which can convert to an equity stake in her company? And perhaps, more importantly, how exactly is she going to spend the money? As she tells Paul Downs and Jay Goltz in this conversation, she’s thinking about spending it on marketing, on opening another location, or on creating retail products for sale online or in her salons. What do you think Dana should do? Please email your thoughts to lfeldman@ ( , and we’ll share them on the podcast and in the Morning Report.
About 21 Hats
The proponents of employee stock ownership plans can make them sound like the greatest thing ever. A business owner can take a big chunk of money off the table—or even all of it—while still getting to run the business. And there are some pretty great tax breaks. Oh, and it will also solve income inequality in America. On the other hand, if ESOPs are so smart, why are there so few of them?
Jim Kalb of Triad Components Group in San Diego and Jeff Taylor of Crafts Technology in Chicago have both implemented ESOPs. Jay Goltz of the Goltz Group in Chicago has reached his 60s without a succession plan, and he’s considering his options. In this 21 Hats Conversation, you get to listen in on a street-smart discussion of the pluses and minuses of ESOPs from the business owner’s point of view.