Guidant Financial

Last updated
Guidant Financial
Founded2003
FoundersDavid Nilssen
Jeremy Ames
Headquarters Boise, Idaho
Website www.guidantfinancial.com

Guidant Financial is an American small business financing company headquartered in Boise, Idaho. It provides business financing to new and existing entrepreneurs. The company specializes in Rollovers as Business Startups (ROBS) and Small Business Administration (SBA) loans. Guidant Financial has helped over 25,000 entrepreneurs put greater than 4 billion to work in small business and franchise locations in all 50 states. [1]

Guidant Financial is the largest ROBS provider and a third-party administrator of 401(k) plans. The company facilitates the process of rolling over individual eligible retirement funds to purchase stock in a new company for the purpose of small business financing. In 2011, it made headlines for supporting veterans with a dozen of entrepreneurial scholarships to start businesses. [2] Guidant Financial also produces an annual business trends report called The State of Small Business. The past two years, it has been done in collaboration with The Lending Club.[ citation needed ]

History

David Nilssen and Jeremy Ames co-founded Guidant Financial in 2003. [3] [4] According to Nilssen, their goal was to help individuals self-direct their IRA or 401(k) "to a variety of investment opportunities, including the purchase of a business or franchise." [5] The company has been recognized by many organizations for its growth, impact, culture and leadership. [6]

In 2019, Guidant Financial opened two new offices in Boise, Idaho, [7] and Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam. Beginning in 2021, the company went entirely remote.

Related Research Articles

In the United States, a 401(k) plan is an employer-sponsored, defined-contribution, personal pension (savings) account, as defined in subsection 401(k) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Periodic employee contributions come directly out of their paychecks, and may be matched by the employer. This pre-tax option is what makes 401(k) plans attractive to employees, and many employers offer this option to their (full-time) workers. 401(k) payable is a general ledger account that contains the amount of 401(k) plan pension payments that an employer has an obligation to remit to a pension plan administrator. This account is classified as a payroll liability, since the amount owed should be paid within one year.

A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. During the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential, such as unicorns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venture capital</span> Form of private-equity financing

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are often from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Small business</span> Business with fewer employees or revenue

Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have a small number of employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being able to apply for government support and qualify for preferential tax policy. The qualifications vary depending on the country and industry. Small businesses range from fifteen employees under the Australian Fair Work Act 2009, fifty employees according to the definition used by the European Union, and fewer than five hundred employees to qualify for many U.S. Small Business Administration programs. While small businesses can be classified according to other methods, such as annual revenues, shipments, sales, assets, annual gross, net revenue, net profits, the number of employees is one of the most widely used measures.

An individual retirement account (IRA) in the United States is a form of pension provided by many financial institutions that provides tax advantages for retirement savings. It is a trust that holds investment assets purchased with a taxpayer's earned income for the taxpayer's eventual benefit in old age. An individual retirement account is a type of individual retirement arrangement as described in IRS Publication 590, Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs). Other arrangements include individual retirement annuities and employer-established benefit trusts.

Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term seed suggests that this is a very early investment, meant to support the business until it can generate cash of its own, or until it is ready for further investments. Seed money options include friends and family funding, seed venture capital funds, angel funding, and crowdfunding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. R. Simplot</span> American businessman

John Richard Simplot was an American entrepreneur and businessman best known as the founder of the J. R. Simplot Company, a Boise, Idaho–based agricultural supplier specializing in potato products. In 2007, he was estimated to be the 89th-richest person in the United States, at $3.6 billion. At the time of his death at age 99 in May 2008, he was the oldest billionaire on the Forbes 400.

Brian Scudamore is an American–born, Canadian entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of O2E Brands, the parent company of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, WOW 1 DAY PAINTING, and Shack Shine. He is a regular contributor to Forbes, writing about small business ownership, franchising, and building corporate culture. His first book, WTF?! : How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success, was published in 2018 and his second book, BYOB: Build Your Own Business, Be Your Own Boss, was published in 2022.

An angel investor is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early stage, once or in a consecutive manner, and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital and provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.

Rollovers as business start-ups (ROBS) are arrangements in the United States in which current or prospective business owners use their 401(k), IRA or other retirement funds to pay for new business start-up costs, for business acquisition costs or to refinance an existing business. In 2008, the Internal Revenue Service set up the ROBS Compliance Project to monitor such arrangements.

Betterment is an American financial advisory company which provides digital investment, retirement and cash management services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank VanderSloot</span> American businessman

Frank Leonard VanderSloot is an American entrepreneur, radio network owner, rancher, and political campaign financier. He is the founder and former chief executive officer of Melaleuca, Inc. His other business interests include the Riverbend Ranch and Riverbend Communications. VanderSloot also serves on the board of directors and executive board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In 2011, The Land Report listed him as the nation's 92nd largest landowner. In 2017, Forbes listed VanderSloot as the richest person in Idaho and the 302nd wealthiest American with a net worth of $2.7 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hamdi Ulukaya</span> Turkish businessman of Kurdish ethnicity (born 1972)

Hamdi Ulukaya is a Turkish billionaire businessman, activist, philanthropist of Kurdish ethnicity and based in the United States. Ulukaya is the owner, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Chobani, the #1-selling strained yogurt brand in the US. He established production facilities first in upstate New York, and since then has expanded. According to Forbes, his net worth as of October 2022 is US$2.1 billion. On 26 April 2016, Ulukaya announced to his employees that he would be giving them 10% of the shares in Chobani.

source of business financing refers to the means by which an aspiring or current business owner obtains money to start a new small business, purchase an existing small business or bring money into an existing small business to finance current or future business activity. There are many ways to finance a new or existing business, each of which features its own benefits and limitations. In the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–08, the availability of traditional types of small business financing dramatically decreased. At the same time, alternative types of small business financing have emerged. In this context, it is instructive to divide the types of small business financing into the two broad categories of traditional and alternative small business financing options.

Equity crowdfunding is the online offering of private company securities to a group of people for investment and therefore it is a part of the capital markets. Because equity crowdfunding involves investment into a commercial enterprise, it is often subject to securities and financial regulation. Equity crowdfunding is also referred to as crowdinvesting, investment crowdfunding, or crowd equity.

OYO Rooms, also known as OYO Hotels & Homes, is an Indian multinational hospitality chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes, and living spaces. Founded in 2012 by Ritesh Agarwal, OYO initially consisted mainly of budget hotels. As of January 2020, it has more than 43,000 properties and 1 million rooms across 800 cities in 80 countries.

Utah-based Lendio, founded in 2011 by Brock Blake and Trent Miskin, is a free online loan marketplace in the U.S. targeting small business owners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Fritchman</span> American politician

Harry K. Fritchman was a merchandise broker and warehouse owner in Boise, Idaho, USA, in the first half of the 20th century, and Fritchman served as mayor of Boise 1911–12.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SECURE Act</span> 2019 United States federal legislation

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019, Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law  116–94 (text)(PDF), was signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 20, 2019 as part of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessica Rolph</span> American entrepreneur and businesswoman

Jessica Rolph is an American entrepreneur and businesswoman. She is the CEO and co-founder of Lovevery, co-founder and former chief operating officer of Happy Family, and co-founder of the Climate Collaborative.

References

  1. "Self-Directed IRA: Guidant Financial". NuWire Investor. Archived from the original on 30 January 2013. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  2. Gustafson, Jeanne. "Guidant Financial Pledges Assistance to Veteran Business Startups". Bellevue Patch. Archived from the original on 3 February 2013. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  3. Saunders, Laura (2 March 2012). "IRAs Get Sexier". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  4. Taylor, Barbara. "Using Your 401(k) to Buy a Small Business". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  5. Lister, Kate (22 March 2011). "Should You Tap a Nest Egg to Start a Business?". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  6. "Guidant Financial Awards & Honors". Guidant Financial. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  7. Day, Don (25 February 2019). "Seattle area's challenges bring financial company to Boise" . Retrieved 25 February 2019.