The twelfth Annual Bigelow Forum was held on Thursday, September 12 and Friday, September 13 at the Wentworth by the Sea in New Castle, NH.
Pete Worrell welcomed our guests by discussing the “Why?” and describing in detail the many phases Owner- Managers go through when trying to do what is best for their business. Rob MacLeod hosted an EOM panel of four Entrepreneur Owner-Mangers answering questions about what their journeys were like unlocking Enterprise Value in the private transaction market and how it affected them personally and professionally. Panelists included Jan Blomstrann (NRG Systems, LLC), Mark Taylor (Reading Plus, LLC.), Ross Silverstein (iPROMOTEu.com, Inc.), and Deb Grass (Astroseal Products Mfg. Corporation).
On Friday David Laibson opened our 2019 Forum with a keynote about the most common cognitive biases that can negatively affect good decision making when building and capturing Enterprise Value. During our breakout groups in the afternoon, EOMs had the opportunity to connect with other business owners and discuss in more detail how the cognitive biases presented in David Laibson’s presentation affects them in their day-to-day. These include anchoring, loss aversion, the endowment effect, over-confidence, the “winner’s curse” (and how you may use it to your advantage when choosing a new majority investor for your enterprise), and present bias (with an emphasis on transition-planning procrastination).
