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My full assessment

Set up and Planning

  • Created a business plan
  • Performed a competitive analysis
  • Interviewed potential customers
  • Created a prototype
  • Tried to sell to customers
  • Confident
  • Confident

Market Research

  • Confident
  • Very Confident
  • Neutral
  • Not confident
  • Not confident

Finances

  • Confident
  • Very Confident
  • Confident
  • Neutral

Sales

  • Confident
  • Neutral
  • Confident

Operations

  • Neutral
  • Confident
  • Very Confident
  • Confident
  • Very Confident
  • Confident
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Leroy Cook Entrepreneur

Location Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
Venture Industry Legal Services
Languages spoken
  • English
  • French
Recent Activity

What I need help with

My background as an entrepreneur

My current challenges

Financial security has never been one of my top priorities, so I am underfunded for launching a new business. I am not specifically seeking financial backing but, having suffered from "chronic self-sufficiency" for sixty years I need to be convinced accepting financial backing from others is a possible option. I am not good at self promotion but I enjoy public speaking.

Actions I’ve taken so far

I have obtained licensing and bonding as a private investigator in Arizona.

I spent the day yesterday at an all day seminar sponsored by the Arizona Association for Justice watching 350 attorneys walk by my exhibit table showing little interest.

My future goals

Keep re-inventing myself as needed and provide an enjoyable life for my wife and myself.

My motivations to work with a mentor

I need and want to do something worthwhile and also earn a living while doing it. I have never concerned myself with earning money but at this stage of life I realize my earning days will eventually end.


About my venture

Interviews and Declarations Started 2019

I am an "experienced" investigator. I am a world traveler, former Alaskan bush pilot, flight instructor and former private investigator. I founded two businesses that supported the families of several employees for thirty-five years. I am a husband, father and grandfather. Since a head-on collision in 2005 I have fought back from traumatic brain injury and I am now ready to pay it forward while supporting myself and my wife again.

First of all, I will be 81 years old in April so I don't fit the usual "wannabe" entrepreneur model.

Mentoring me would be a challenge because of my 50+ years of being self employed and the limitations imposed by being on the down-sloping side of the hill most are still climbing.

I was an insurance adjuster in the 60s for nine years and then sold World Book door to door and trained others for four years before becoming part of the investigation world for another 30+ years. I started an investigation business in 1976 which I sold to employees in 87. I then started a nationwide investigator referral service in 1987, of which I sold the remnants in 2011. The reason there were only remnants was the head-on collision my wife and I experienced in 2005 which left me with MTBI and severely limited self-confidence. After 14 years away from the world of investigation, I recently obtained a private investigator's license here in Arizona and will be working exclusively for trial attorneys with the narrow specialty of interviewing lay witnesses and obtaining declarations. My target market will be attorneys with clients suffering from MTBI and or other types of non-measurable secondary injuries.

Like the referral business I founded which helped other investigators earn millions of dollars they might not have earned without me, this business can only be sold only after my potential clients are educated about it. It is hard to sell something the customer hasn't even thought about. From a business standpoint, this is a bad idea because of the education requirement. It is, however, something that really needs to be done because people with secondary injuries are mostly ignored and clearly underrepresented by the attorneys who represent them.

Besides the challenge of educating before selling, I am limited by a lack of financial resources. My wife and I have about $50,000 in an investment which does not pay dividends and might do well or might not. Beyond that, we only have our mediocre Social Security incomes.

If you like challenges and are interested in working with me as a mentor, ask questions and I will answer.

Countries of operation: United States of America