He has established demand, but needs to hire key staff, and then ramp up his production and distribution capability. Once this is done, he will have to decide if he wants to expand in measured steps out of current cash flow, or more rapidly with additional rounds of private equity. JW has funded his company to this point with his own capital from a previous food company.

During our two-hour meeting I learned a lot more about him and his company. He shared information about his current setup for manufacturing and distributing the product, his business plan, corporate partners and customers and how he has reached his current level of success, and what he needs going forward. To say he was exuberant would be an understatement. I had to ask him to calm down and slow down on several occasions. I think he viewed this meeting as the "15 second elevator speech" and was concerned about using up his allotted presentation time. This was not the case; nevertheless, he remained quite animated for the rest of the meeting.

What I decided: In the end I agreed to help JW with some of his initial planning. I advised him to expand his business plan to a full Private Placement Memorandum (PPM). I advised him to be realistic about how much capital he will need and to not under estimate it so that he seeks enough to establish a reserve and makes that clear in the PPM as well.

I also asked him to allow me to make some calls on his behalf to several well established law firms with the experience and the clout to protect his financial interests. He does have the trademarks, copyrights, and patents in place from what I saw, but he still was operating in stealth mode as much as he could. Proper counsel ( a firm, not a person) is important before he makes a lot of noise.

I also suggested he create an advisory board, firm up his banking relationships, and be sure that his business plan not only address the financial and growth projections of the company in the PPM, but also the pay back to the investors, in great detail. That is an imperative. He must also explain and demonstrate how he intends to successfully execute this plan.

One of my favorite adages that I have repeated in previous blogs and I'm sure that I will again is, "Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else." I hope I have enough experience already to be of help. There are many things that must be accomplished in these early stages and I have just touched the surface.

This company does not have the potential to be General Electric (GE) or Microsoft (MSFT) and it will not grow as fast as Google (GOOG). But it can be another Ben & Jerry's-type story. I will let you know what happens as it unfolds, if I remain involved.

Disclosure: I do not own shares of any company mentioned in this story. I may become an angel investor in JW's company; that is yet to be decided.

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Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for Design and Research of an Architecture & Planning firm.