Florida Air, Inc.

1. Evaluate Florida Air’s search for capital. What, if any, key mistakes were made? -Dan failed to fully utilize high profile networks of Scott and Henry, who were both graduates of an Ivy League School (Did Scott graduate from Ivy League School?). Also, Dan did not try to reach out to his network he established while he was buying and selling airplanes. Even if there was no one interested in their direct network, perhaps someone in their network knew someone who might be interested. Scott later contacted his 100 alumni later but rather passively; instead of calling to actively initiate a conversation, he mailed out information. -Also, the team initially decided that the best group to approach for capital would be the ones with airline experience to appreciate the benefits of their idea. However, we think the investors do not necessarily needed to have that airline experience, as long as they saw potential and some benefits of the venture. By selecting that "best pool" we believe the team limited themselves to a small group of potential investors. -The team did not do enough research and did not come up with a well-structured business plan. When potential investor candidate Jason Daulton had asked seemingly basic questions about how Flordia air will handle maintenance costs, scheduling, fuel efficiency economics, underlying rationale of assumptions made in the business plan, the team did not know what to answer. -We think the team's estimate of necessary capital of 1.5 million might have been too small for such a capital-intensive business (considering they would have to lease/buy airplanes). Therefore, the team could not get attention from institutional sources of funding.