Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
A Boot Camp for Women Angel Investors - Innovation America
As co-founder of NY Tech Meetup, a group of 15,000-plus techies, investors, and entrepreneurs who gather every month in Manhattan for technology demonstrations, Dawn Barber has plenty of A-list contacts. Yet she hasn't invested in any of the people who've made presentations over the past six years. "I'm poor," says Barber, who supports herself through consulting gigs and other freelance work. "My [husband and I] are just not those people. If we were, I'd try to invest … in companies led by women."
Barber may soon get her chance. She's applying to the Pipeline Fund Fellowship, a new program for women who want to learn the ins and outs of angel investing (giving cash to a fledgling company in exchange for an equity stake). The fellowship was conceived by Natalia Oberti Noguera (above), a 27-year-old Yale University graduate who this summer launched Pipeline Fund, a New York venture capital firm that aims to back so-called socially responsible companies. Her goal with the fellowship is to increase the ranks of female angels and steer more cash toward such businesses. "There's a lack of gender diversity in the VC investment world," says Oberti Noguera. "And there's a lack of funding for profit-seeking social ventures."
To read the full, original article click on this link: A Boot Camp for Women Angel Investors - BusinessWeek
Author: Nick Leiber
cOOL !!!
The New Face Of Venture Capital, Part 1
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
The New Face Of Venture Capital, Part 1
View more presentations from trendcaller.
Authenticity of Teotihuacan's "The Malinaltepec Mask" Verified in New Book
Check out this website I found at artdaily.org
Mexico !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Authenticity of Teotihuacan's "The Malinaltepec Mask" Verified in New Book
Check out this website I found at artdaily.org
Thank you !!
The Big Bang of Crowdfunding: Startups as a Public Asset Class
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
10 lessons from a failed startup | VentureBeat
A year and a half ago, my co-founder Dev Nag and I started an internet TV network for games called PlayCafe. Our ambitious plan was to run highly interactive game shows in which everyone was a contestant. Players could watch our hosts, answer questions, win prizes, form teams, call our studio, live chat, and run their own games. It was a huge undertaking, but despite great engagement — users watched for 87 minutes per session and 40 percent returned within a week — we didn’t reach enough users. We may revive it in the future, but for now, we’ve placed the site in hibernation and returned remaining funds to our investors.
What follows is a post-mortem of what we did right and wrong and how we will improve next time. I feel too many entrepreneurs are afraid to discuss their failures, locking up important lessons. I hope you find some of this useful.
1. Find quick money first. We were fortunate to know several top investors but we spun our wheels pitching too early and trying to optimize terms. Many entrepreneurs seek A-list investors first; quick (but not dumb) money is more valuable. There are only about 30 high-profile investors in the Valley, they all know each other, and they generally have enough deal flow to wait until risk is minimized. Money is more valuable than advice or connections since there are easier sources for the latter.
Next time, we’ll focus on strengthening our network of investors who are comfortable at the earliest stage and invest quickly, even if they don’t have a high profile (as long as there aren’t red flags). More than three meetings is too long and indicates your network isn’t broad enough or your pitch is poor.
Lesser-known investors also often have more time to give you. David Shen, previously unknown to us, initiated multiple deals and a site-wide design evaluation for us; it took one meeting for David to commit. You want to find 10 David Shens. Once you have traction, the Reid Hoffmans and Ron Conways will find you anyway.
2. Content businesses suck (or: do it for love and expect to lose money). Producing quality content every day is a herculean task, especially live. The idea of creating both the content and technology for PlayCafe seemed achievable, but TV networks focus on distribution and studios on production for good reason: both are hard. Dev and I knew we were production novices but we thought live-filming a pretty girl delivering trivia with one camera guy was simple enough. We were wrong; the business was beyond our pay grade.
Watch American Idol, the country’s most popular show, and you’ll see how often they screw up despite massive resources: sound and video fail, hosts and contestants stammer, camera angles are wrong, stretches get boring, and it happens despite a reality format that is simpler than live sports or news. They also don’t have to deal with DOS attacks, server downtime, scalability, or customer support like we did.
I would advise any entrepreneur or investor considering content to think twice, as Howard Lindzon from Wallstrip warned us. Content is an order of magnitude harder than technology with an order less upside; no YouTube producer will earn within a hundredth of $1.65 billion. This will only become more true as DVRs and media-sharing reduce revenues and pay-for-performance ads eliminate inefficient ad spend, of which there is a lot. The main and perhaps only reason to do content should be the love of creating it.
3. Know when to value speed vs. stability. Another reason PlayCafe’s complexity hurt us is that developing good content and technology simultaneously required too much time. We tried to make each deep and stable — important, we thought, given our live nature — but we were too slow to iterate in a novelty- and entertainment-based business.
A metaphor I like is that a chess novice can defeat a master if moving twice each round. This generally increases bugs and offends perfectionists, but I agree with Reid Hoffman that if you review your first site version and don’t feel embarrassment, you spent too much time on it.
An exception is when your product is mission-critical for users. An eBay outage is a catastrophe while a Twitter one is a joke. eBay iterates slowly partly because 1.3 million businesses depend on it. It has to get it right.
4. Set a dollar value on your time. I agree with Paul Graham that good entrepreneurs are relentlessly resourceful, but I have a bad habit of bargain-hunting for sport. I spent three hours negotiating our wireless bill down $100, which was a poor use of time given our funding. The mantra to pinch pennies ignores the value of time.
Time is arguably more valuable than money because you can’t raise more time. Dev suggested pricing our hours. You can divide your available work hours by salary, remaining funding, or total company costs. Ours was around $50/hour. If I was going to spend 5 hours negotiating, I’d have to save at least $250. This value should increase as you gain funding and traction. For anything greater than $500 at any stage, I’d still strive for NPR: Never Pay Retail.
5. Marketing requires constant expertise. The main failure of PlayCafe was marketing. Dev and I came from PayPal, a strongly viral product at a company almost hostile to marketing. Our efforts in SEO, SEM, virality, platforms, PR, and partnerships weren’t terrible, but drawing users to a live event requires constant, skillful work.
Like creating content, I no longer think marketing is something smart novices can figure out part-time. As the web gets super-saturated, marketing is the difference-maker, and it’s too deep a skill to leave to amateurs.
An exception is inherently viral ideas, especially one-to-many virality, where normal use of your product reaches new users, not “word-of-mouth” viral that requires users to advocate you. With inherent virality, a barely adequate product might suffice, though even then marketing should accelerate growth. Next time we’ll raise enough to hire a marketing expert early.
6. Control and calculate your user acquisition costs. We initially conceived of marketing as a wildly creative exercise: filming viral videos, launching clever campaigns, pitching media players. That’s partly true, but the best marketing is controlled and calculated. If you know exactly how much it costs to acquire a user and you control the entire process, you then know how much capital and revenue you need, reducing your marketing plan from fuzzy guesswork to a clean formula.
Until you find a marketing expert, a place to start is the AdWords keyword tool, which shows you how many people Google for certain words, and the Traffic Estimator, which shows the rough cost of buying keyword ads on Google.com. Yahoo has similar tools. The ideal terms have a decent number of monthly searches (10,000+), low number of competing advertisers (3 or less), and strong relevance to your site.
For example, “game TV shows” has 12,100 monthly searches with 7 currently competing ads, while “2008 game show” has 14,800 monthly searches with only 1 ad. The relevance of these searchers is roughly the same so the latter is a better chance to acquire users cheaply. Your first users are the most expensive and can cost $10-20/user, but the cost should decline as your brand and word-of-mouth grows. The promised land is when you convert and monetize well enough to literally buy users.
Other tactics to control and calculate include A/B testing, tracking sign-up and purchase conversion, and creating landing pages to drive SEO and track different campaigns; look at the bottom of Mint.com for a good example. For fuzzier marketing tactics like blogs and press, knowing the time you spend on each, the value of your time, and your break-even acquisition cost will help you calculate efforts that aren’t cost-effective. A data-driven culture is a well-oiled machine.
I would also avoid money pits like PR firms, CPM ads, billboards, and TV/radio spots. We wasted $5,000 on a promoter who produced almost no buzz then said it takes a few $5,000 sprees to see results. Unless you control and calculate, these methods are mainly for marketers bad at math.
7. Form partner relationships early, even if informal. Two downsides of partnerships are that they’re slow and you lack control, but they do have advantages beyond driving users and revenues. Partners can make connections, teach you the market, flag potential competitors, and become potential acquirers. Believing we had little leverage, we de-prioritized several partners who later said they might have bought us if we had built a stronger relationship and proven our value.
We learned that you can build informal relationships with little time. Meeting decision-makers early, keeping them in the loop, and being genuinely helpful builds familiarity and goodwill, which reaps some of the above benefits without the pain of hashing out a deal. It takes foresight and maintenance, but dating before getting married also makes it more likely the partnership will be healthy.
8. Plan costs conservatively and err on the side of raising too much. While I’m doubtful more funding would have made the difference in our case, it would have let us try more tactics. We did a detailed financial plan, but I underestimated costs to fully expand. Next time we’ll better know real costs and likely bite the dilution bullet to raise a bit more than needed. This also prevents spending a lot of time raising extra rounds.
Glenn Kelman from Redfin has some nice common costs. To refine, ask a successful entrepreneur for a previous financial plan to vet yours. I disagree with folks who think financial plans are a waste. They are indeed wrong the moment you start, but they help you estimate headcount, fundraising, break-even, and whether your business model is insane.
9. The key to negotiating is having options. The single most useful piece of advice I got was from Bill Trenchard, founder of LiveOps: “Always have options.”
Almost everything you do as a founder/CEO involves negotiation: closing investors, hiring employees, signing partners, paying vendors, even advocating features internally. The best way to persuade your counter-parties is signaling — implicitly or explicitly — that you have viable options (also called BATNAs). Just two can be enough. Being at the mercy of a lone option is a recipe for getting screwed.
The more humans are involved, the more negotiable the system. If you hear a human say “that’s our policy” without much reason, bells should go off that you have room to negotiate if you reach the right decision-maker. Be nice, ask to speak with a manager, and politely signal that your endurance will outpace their patience. Higher-ups know the value of time and make exceptions accordingly. Sales managers are especially persuadable because they’re social and work on commission.
That so much of a founder’s job involves negotiation also means work can get adversarial and lonely. It really helps to have a group of friends you don’t have to haggle with.
10. Knowing isn’t enough. Most frustrating is that Dev and I knew much of the above going in. We’ve been doing this for 10 years each across three startups (though this is our first significant one at the helm). I could have sent this to myself two years ago and probably would have thought what many of you are thinking: this is nothing new.
What’s new for me is painfully experiencing the gap between knowing and doing. Advice is thrown liberally around the Valley, but like a surgeon who has studied but never practiced, I think it takes a lot of hands-on experience to learn intricacies and exceptions. I think advisers should more often say, “You probably won’t get what I’m saying until you screw it up.” Expertise takes time, and pithiness comes with a cost.
Plenty of useful advice conflicts for this reason: Know Your Customer vs. Build For Yourself, Don’t Raise Too Much vs. Don’t Raise Too Little. The better answer to these questions is It Depends. Advice isn’t like code that’s easily executed, but like map coordinates that require skill and context. My hope is that our experience brings us (and you) a little closer to that.
Mark Goldenson lives in Palo Alto, Calif. He is launching an innovative web venture in health care.
Next Story: Roundup: Real life Twitter, Intel’s EU fine, and more
Previous Story: Namco Bandai’s line-up reflects safe, if boring, game development strategy
Companies: Playcafe
-->
via venturebeat.com
Thank you !!
Angels in Chicago: Seed Investment for Startups Vol 1 - Technori - Chicago Technology and Business News - Celebrating Chicago Entrepreneurs
This post was written for Technori by Len Feldman.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Yelp, Tesla Motors, LinkedIn, Zygna: Not all of them are household names, but they’re all highly-successful companies. They also have one thing in common: All of these companies were funded by angel investors who originally worked at a single Silicon Valley company, PayPal. When PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, the company’s founders, and some of its early employees, decided to make seed investments in other startups, along with providing advice, counsel and connections. Some of those investments have already paid off in a very big way; for example, Peter Thiel’s $500,000 angel investment in Facebook is currently valued at around $1.7 billion. (Thiel received approximately $55 million from the sale of PayPal to eBay.)
Silicon Valley’s angel community has become the lifeblood of startups there, and the fact that the angels exist in such numbers encourages more entrepreneurs to start their own businesses. It’s common for founders or employees of one company that’s been sold or had a successful IPO to fund others. For example, Chris Sacca, formerly of Google, was an angel investor in Twitter. Aydin Senkut of Google made an angel investment in Mint.com, which was sold to Intuit for $170 million. (As of late February 2010, Mr. Senkut had made more than 60 angel investments, ranging from $25,000 to $150,000.)
Chicago has its own network of angels, and most of them came to angel investing with very different backgrounds than their Silicon Valley counterparts. Who are some of these “Angels in Chicago”, what advice do they have for entrepreneurs looking for funding, and how can more investors be encouraged to become angels?
First things first: What is an angel investor? Wikipedia defines an angel investor as “… an affluent individual who provides capital for a business startup, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. A small but increasing number of angel investors organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share research and pool their investment capital.” Missing from this definition are two important constraints: Angel investors almost always invest in initial (seed) funding rounds, and they usually invest a limited amount of capital—anywhere from a few thousand dollars at the low end to $500,000 at the top.
The terms “angels” and “venture capitalists (VC)” are often confused. They both provide debt and equity investments, but angels are individuals who invest their own funds, while venture capitalists raise funds from other investors, make investments in companies at a variety of stages, and are paid a management fee by investors for their services. Many years ago, VCs did seed funding, but as the size of seed rounds has gone down over time, VCs have focused primarily on later funding rounds (A and B rounds, mezzanine rounds, etc.) A group of so-called “super-angels” blur the line between angels and VCs—they invest their own capital as well as that of other investors, and they tend to fund seed rounds near the top end of the range—some super-angels will invest as much as $1 million in a seed round.
There are no good statistics on the number of individual angel investors in Chicago, but there are several active angel investor groups. Two of the best-known are Hyde Park Angels and Wildcat Angels. The Hyde Park Angels, with 76 current members, was formed in 2006 by classmates from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business Executive MBA Program and is based in the Booth School’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship on the University of Chicago campus. Wildcat Angels is based in Evanston but has no formal affiliation with Northwestern. AngelList, a website that connects startups with angel investors, lists 13 angel investors in Chicago.
There are also companies that do both angel-type seed and conventional venture capital investments. Sandbox Industries runs a seed-stage fund and also manages a $116 million VC fund that makes later-stage investments. Apex Venture Partners does everything from seed to late-stage investments. So, who are some of the people behind these organizations, as well as some of the individual angel investors in Chicago?
Meet the Angels
Jeff Carter is a co-founder and one of the seven original members of Hyde Park Angels (HPA), and he currently serves as the organization’s Treasurer. His “day job” is as an independent commodity speculator at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which he’s done since 1992, and he was a member of the CME Board of Directors from 1999 to 2001.
Jeff and his classmates at the Booth School formed HPA to make money by filling what he terms a “donut hole” in Chicago financing—focusing on companies with a valuation of from $250K to $3MM before they receive outside financing. Companies smaller than that generally get “friends and family” financing, while companies with a valuation above $3MM before financing are generating revenue and usually have multiple sources of capital.
HPA focuses on companies in that $250K to $3MM range, whether or not they’re generating income. It limits its investments to Midwestern companies, with one exception: It will consider investments in startups that have a University of Chicago connection, even if they’re not located in the Midwest. According to Jeff, HPA focuses on seed rounds, right after friends and family. The group will consider later rounds, depending on the business and valuation. Overall, the business is more important than the specific round in making the decision on whether or not to invest.
In addition to group investments made by Hyde Park Angels, Jeff has personally made angel investments in tallgrassbeef.com and windetergent.com. When asked about the angel investing environment in Chicago, he said: “Opportunities in Chicago for angel investing are sort of sparse. There are ad hoc groups of private individuals that pass deals around. HPA tries to institutionalize it a little; there are other angel groups, but I think we are the biggest. Chicago needs to create a culture of entrepreneurship. The people that have been successful (as investors and in their own businesses) need to join an organization like HPA and mentor and invest in new firms. That is the essential ingredient of Silicon Valley--the successful guys (there) continue to participate. We are trying to build that culture. HPA is full of people that successfully started their own business. We also have some people that are pretty cagey investors, and are not afraid to take some risk and write a check. The other thing that we have is diversity. We have knowledgeable people from a lot of different industries. They can look at a deal and give an opinion that is not typical, and that forces you to look at a deal through a different lens.”
Andy Hagans is a co-founder of and strategic advisor to Best Online Universities. He recently joined HPA and invested in FeeFighters (http://feefighters.com) through that group; prior to joining HPA, he made an angel investment in ETF Database (http://etfdb.com). When asked about what got him interested in angel investing, here’s what he said: “Having founded a few companies myself, and closed a few rounds of funding as well, I’ve found it’s a challenge that I enjoy. As an angel investor I have to try to pick winners, when the odds against any given startup succeeding are long indeed. So I would say startups, speaking as both a founder and an investor, are an intellectual riddle that I have fun trying to “solve”, and they are also one of the biggest passions that help me get out of bed at 8 am every morning.”
“So there’s my passion for startups, but on the investor side, I started out angel investing informally when I funded another Chicago startup, ETF Database. My experience with that team (and investment) was going so well, I thought, well, why not keep going? But as some point you realize that your time and your capital don’t scale past a certain level and that’s where a group like Hyde Park Angels really helps you. I should also add that I don’t think a lot of angel investors are doing it to get rich--a normal angel allocation is maybe 5 or 10% of your portfolio--but it’s fun, and you get to meet people in the Chicago startup scene, so that’s a big element of it. Of course, it isn’t charity, so you want to achieve positive returns on your capital, too!”
Andy believes that the Chicago angel community is near, if not already at, the tipping point: “I think the team at HPA, and especially the associates from the University of Chicago Booth School, are a huge asset for any potential angel investor in the city of Chicago. You need a certain critical mass of capital and startups to make something like that possible, and HPA seems to be growing quickly and growing awareness of the whole Chicago startup scene. I know that a lot of folks in the startup ecosystem think that critical mass is in California, Boston, Seattle, and maybe even in Austin, but I think they would be surprised at the size and talent of the community here. I won’t even mention Groupon, because I think the breadth is much larger.”
Lon Chow is a General Partner with Apex Venture Partners, a Chicago-based venture capital firm with more than 25 current investments. (Apex generally invests from $200-300K at the low end to $4MM maximum in a single company, and typically leads the funding rounds in which it invests.) Prior to joining Apex, Lon was a partner with Mercer Management Consulting. Apex sometimes has to pass on a seed investment (for example, the partners may already have their hands full with other investments, or Apex’s latest fund may be reaching its end), but if Lon believes in the company, he may make an angel investment with his own capital.
Lon’s angel investments range from $10,000 to $50,000, and he’s made personal investments in Viewpoint Networks, YCharts, Tap Me! Games, BrightTag, BringIt and Solmentum, among others. In fact, it was his experience with Viewpoint Networks that encouraged him to make his own angel investments. He was first approached to be an advisor to the company, then asked to join its Board of Directors, and he invested in order to have a personal stake in the business. However, unlike his role at Apex where he sits on several Boards of Directors, he almost never takes a Board seat at his angel investments.
According to Lon, he appreciates the level of startup activities in Chicago: “There’s a deep talent base, especially in online.” Over time, he’s also seen that more people in Chicago are willing to take risks, both in starting businesses and in funding them. On the other hand, he noted that there’s still a real lack of seed-stage capital: “The reason is that Chicago investors don’t have much history, or experience, with this kind of asset class.” If investors don’t know how to value an investment or how to measure its risk, they tend to stay away. Lon also said that the Chicago angel community, while growing, is still small and somewhat fragmented.
Nick Rosa is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sandbox Industries. He and Bob Shapiro started talking about the concepts behind Sandbox as early as 2003, and formally co-founded the company in 2005 when they hired their first employees. Bob and Nick were colleagues at G.D. Searle, with Bob coming to Searle in 1978, and Nick in 1980. They both moved to the NutraSweet division of Searle, where Bob rose to the CEO position. In 1985, Monsanto acquired Searle, and Bob became the president of Monsanto’s agricultural business, while Nick ran the Food and Nutrition sector. Bob eventually became the CEO of Monsanto, and when the company decided to divest itself of a number of non-agricultural businesses, Nick led a buyout of NutraSweet.
After Monsanto was sold and Nick had run NutraSweet for a couple of years, he and Bob reunited to decide what they wanted to do next. They both wanted to start new businesses and bring new technologies to market. Said Nick, “We spent a couple of years talking to people about why new businesses fail, and why, in the corporate development/business development world, most new projects fail. We then tried to develop a system for creating businesses that wouldn’t fail. One of the principles we adopted is that you need to have a large number of businesses to evaluate, because most of them are not going to be successful. So, it’s a numbers game.”
“The second principle is to test things cheaply, and to ask the ‘killer’ questions early. So many entrepreneurs and business development departments avoid the ‘killer’ questions: For example, ‘If the business fails in a year, why will it fail?” We can then put our resources behind answering that question early (in the process). Corporate environments and entrepreneurs often take care of the ‘easy’ stuff—‘Let’s build the product, let’s build the website, can you manufacture it’—and avoid the hard questions, which more often than not relate to how to cut through the clutter and get through to the business or consumer who wants to buy it.”
Sandbox currently invests in startups four ways:
Its initial approach, an incubator that develops and funds its own business concepts (although it has brought one startup into the incubator from the outside). Six businesses are currently in the incubator and are awaiting the decision for additional funding. An $18.5MM seed-stage venture fund that invests in both incubated and outside startups. At present, the largest single investment that the seed-stage fund has made is $100K, although it would consider investments as large as $500K or $1MM. A $116MM venture fund that Sandbox manages for BlueCross BlueShield. This fund focuses on A and later rounds of financing. A $20MM co-invest fund. Sandbox’s primary emphasis is on starting and funding new businesses, but since taking on management of BlueCross BlueShield’s fund, “We’re finding that there’s a really interesting circle that goes with innovating your own businesses and being in the fund world, because you get to see a lot of what’s going on, (and) you get to see trends,” said Nick. Between its internally-incubated businesses and the startups that it has invested in, Sandbox now has 17 active businesses. Sandbox’s emphasis is not on the financing, but rather, on how to build and grow the businesses, whether they’re internal or external.
Nick believes that the quantity of deal flow has increased a lot over the last 18 months—in his words, “There’s no shortage of people looking for advice and possible funding.” He also thinks that there are a lot of good-quality opportunities: As an example, he points to the Excelerate program (modeled on Y Combinator) that Sandbox participated in last summer. Over 300 entrepreneurs submitted proposals for new products and services.
He sees the challenge for angel investors in Chicago to be the same as it is in many other cities: “At such an early stage, how can you identify a potential winner? That’s why there’s such a high beta (risk) for early-stage investing. Also, how well can you work with the management team? We place a lot of emphasis on how we can help the business, so what’s difficult for us (and for other investors) is, how can you find businesses to help? That’s pretty much the only kind of investment we make—can we do something (beyond just investing money) to help the business move forward. Quite often, we can help with forming the team, finding customers, going to market, and similar things.”
Read Part 2 to find out how to find angel funding in Chicago, what to ask, where to find them, and what the typical investment sizes are.
via technori.com
cOOL !!
Thank you !
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Investors get tax break if they act fast - ABJ Entrepreneur
Friday, November 19, 2010, 9:54am CST | Modified: November 19, 2010, 9:54 AM
Investors get tax break if they act fast
by Christopher Calnan
Excellent !!
Thanks,
Jg
Friday, November 19, 2010
Incorporation services - Business formation - Incorporate online
Espanol | Contact | Privacy | Service Terms| SiteMap
ActiveFilings LLC is a document filing service and cannot provide you with legal, tax or financial advice. The information on our website, www.activefilings.com is designed to provide general information related to the business incorporation in the USA. It is presented with the understanding that ActiveFilings LLC is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If legal advice or other professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
© 2001 -2010 by Active Filings LLC. All Rights Reserved
cOOL !!!
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Business plan valuable, but not the end - ABJ Entrepreneur
Thursday, November 18, 2010, 3:27pm CST | Modified: November 18, 2010, 3:27 PM
Business plan valuable, but not the end
Exactly my point !!
Thanks,
Suddenly, Everyone Agrees Tech Startups are a Bad Bubble | The New York Observer
Fred Wilson, the prominent New York venture capitalist, declared last week that warnings signs of a dangerously overheated market were building in the world of tech investing.
Prominent VC voices weighed in, for the most part seconding Wilson's assessment, touting their own credentials as far-sighted naysayers and amplifying the alarm.
Case in point, Mark Suster, who today wrote a post for his popular VC blog, Both Sides of the Table, with a headline that compared angel investors in tech to investors in Florida's real estate bubble, which Suster had the foresight to avoid.
It's an extreme analogy, perhaps intended only as an attention getter, but out of step with what Suster wrote just a few months ago. Over the summer, in a conversation with Dan Primack, Suster wrote that, "I actually think there is a small bubble going on in seed/angel rounds. Prices are creeping up and angels are feeling bullish." That's a far cry from the get rich quick mania that characterized the condo flipping at the height of the Florida's housing bubble.
There is no question that valuations for tech startups are getting out of whack ($5 million for a two month old photo sharing app?). At the same time, the flood of angels entering the tech market is making it a lot harder for traditional VCs to find sweet, early stage deals. Valuations may be extremely bullish these days, but take these VCs' dire warnings with a grain of salt.
bpopper [at] observer.com
via observer.com
Great news ?
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Entrepreneur, REinvestor - Mc Allen, Texas - Jose Gonzalez
Member since: Oct 18, 2009
Last activity: 3 minutes ago
Jose's network
There are no members in Jose's network.
Mutual connections
via biznik.com
cOOL !!!!
Thanks,
Jg
David Johanson - 509 995 2727 Startup Internet Marketing SEO, Seattle Everett Bellevue Redmond Kirkland - Seattle, Washington - United States
509 995 2727 startup internet marketing seo biznik.com david david johanson facebook.com flickr.com friendfeed.com howcast.com icerocket.com internet marketing bellingham, seo bellingham johanson last.fm linkedin.com mixx.com repscore10 seattle seattle everett bellevue redmond kirkland seo smo sem google adwords certified startup internet marketing twitter.com united states vator.tv washington zimbio.com
via naymz.com
Excellent !!
Thank you !
Jg
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Retailigence Announces $1.5M Seed Round of Funding With Leading Venture Capital Funds and Angel Investors - FOX41.com Louisville News Kentucky Indiana News Weather Sports
Information contained on this page is provided by companies via press release distributed through PR Newswire, an independent third-party content provider. PR Newswire, WorldNow and this Station make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
SOURCE Retailigence, Inc.
Startup Launching at 'Under the Radar' Conference Bridges Local Retailers, In-Stock Products and Customers Through Existing Location-Based Mobile and Web Applications
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 12, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Under the Radar Conference – Retailigence™, Inc. (Palo Alto, CA) – a new startup launching at the 'Under the Radar' conference – today announced it has closed a total of $1.5M in seed financing from some of the most acclaimed Venture Capital funds as well as a number of renowned Angel investors.
Founded in Palo Alto in 2009 as part of the Founder Institute incubation program, Retailigence has developed an open API (Application Programming Interface) for current and new mobile and web applications. The company's technology bridges 'brick and mortar' local stores with mobile shoppers who want to save time by finding in-stock products for immediate touch, try-on or purchase.
Created to ensure location-based purchasing for consumers is based on real available inventory, Retailigence can work with any mobile shopping application, location-based service (such as Google® Maps, Foursquare™ and Gowalla™) or GPS to drive foot traffic and additional sales opportunities for local business. Retailigence connects back-end inventory solutions (ranging from the most advanced software solutions such as those from SAP®, NetSuite and Microsoft® to the humble exported spreadsheet) and unlocks that data for use in the widest possible range of mobile and web platforms.
The initial list of investors in the seed round for Retailigence includes some of the most acclaimed names in Silicon Valley and international funding, ranging from Angel investors to established funds. All of the investors claim an impressive track record for providing not just funds, but industry expertise and contacts to their portfolio companies, and have high expectations for the success and growth of Retailigence.
Fund investors include: Draper Fisher Jurvetson (which has managed more than 600 investments since 1985); Quest Venture Partners (a fund specializing in early stage technology startups, co-managed by Marcus and Andy Ogawa); 500 Startups LLC (managed by the ever-iconoclastic "Superangel" and startup advocate Dave McClure); ZIG Capital (an early stage venture capital and investment firm based in New York City) and Global Brain Corporation (an early-stage Venture fund based in Japan).
Angel investors include: Mark Schulze (an executive at Quantcast.com, responsible for Business, Partner and Network Development); Eghosa Omoigui (formerly a senior member of Intel® Capital) and Tom Chiu (an active member of the Sand Hill Angels).
"The power of the Retailigence technology and the strong market need for location-based mobile and web shopping has attracted some of the biggest names in venture financing to our company," said Retailigence Founder and CEO Jeremy Geiger. "We are very fortunate to have investors who are not just known for their capital, but for the integrity, counsel and experience of success they bring to the table. We are very excited to take Retailigence to the next level of growth and resources thanks to their investment and belief in our fundamental market vision."
Further details on the Retailigence platform will be divulged at the respected "Under the Radar" conference in Mountain View, CA on November 12, 2010.
About Retailigence:
Retailigence, Inc. www.retailigence.com, is a startup based in Palo Alto, CA founded in 2009 that seeks to bridge location-based shopping with real-time store inventory for the mobile and web-based customer. Funded by some of the leading venture capitalists and "Superangels", Retailigence supports any mobile or web application on any mobile OS through its open API, with the goal of providing platform-independent shopping data to consumers and brand management combined with analytics for local retailers.
Retailigence is a trademark of Retailigence, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks previously cited are hereby acknowledged.
Editors' Note: Retailigence logos, screenshots and other images are available from the company press contact.
©2010 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved.
via fox41.com
Thank you very much !
You are kind !
Jg
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Perfect plan
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Perfect plan
View more presentations from TO.BE/Bartosz Sokolinski.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Biz Tips: The 30 Minute-A-Day Business Plan - Adk Biz Today by Ernest Hohmeyer - AdirondackDailyEnterprise.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Saranac Lake region — Adirondack Daily Enterprise
Adk Biz Today November 4th, 2010Biz Tips: The 30 Minute-A-Day Business Plan
“Transform your business to meet today’s challenges”. This was the front page story in the Harvard Business Review. Entrepreneur magazine was filled with forecasts on the new 2010 trends and the Economist talked about “reshaping the post-crisis world”. The SBA extolled entrepreneurs to “…use this time to re-evaluate their business models and opt for new strategies…to move in a new direction”. Charles Darwin wrote “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, or the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”.
One common theme I hear when I meet fellow Adirondack entrepreneurs is “we seem to be doing more with less” and when we talk shop, many become very thoughtful and introspective – more so than I can ever remember in the 25 years of being involved with community and business development. I get the feeling they spend a lot of time lately on how to move their business forward and trying to figure out where the economy is going and with it future consumer trends.
For many of us, November is when business slows down a bit. It is a perfect time while you are at the shop to put down in paper what you have been thinking about in those sleepless nights. In my opinion, you can think about ideas all day long (and if you are like me in the middle of night) but they often do not go anywhere unless you write them down in an exercise that if done correctly tests them in an empirical manner. Yes, I am talking about the dreaded business plan. Too many times business plans are only done when financing is being sought or when you are first going into business. Many business people forget that a business plan is just a snapshot in time and as your business evolves, the economy changes and new consumer trends occur, your premise may have changed.
But before you yawn and let out “Yea, yea I know”, let me suggest 3 things:
1) Those of us that use the word business plan have got it all wrong. It should really be your “Passion Plan”. After all, hopefully you became an entrepreneur because you were excited or “passionate” about providing the public a service or product – and being your own boss. So a business plan exercise if done correctly, should be a stimulus to get you excited again and I am hopeful that if you take a new look at your business, ideas you may not have considered will appear. 2) When you are in business, you have a tremendous advantage: You have live customers you can talk to, you are able to perform customer research and you can test run new products. 3) A “Passion Plan” does not have to be a monotonous, year long exercise. When you are literally the owner, the manger and the store clerk, time is not your friend. So, I would like to introduce the “30 Minute a Day Passion Plan Exercise”. Think of it in terms of taking the time to eat better or take-in a daily vigorous work-out for business health. Over the next several posts of Adk Biz Today, we will suggest a “Passion Plan Exercise” with the intent on doing most of it while you are at work ideally spending no more than 30 minutes a day. As Adk Biz Today is not a daily feature, we will do this over a period of time.
Start with dreaming about where you would like to see your business going to narrowing the focus to help you determine if your idea makes sense to you from a business perspective: From An Idea
Your Vision/Passion Statement Key Services/Products The Target Market Operation Factors Financials
To Thinking About $$$
You may want to consider creating a separate file or notebook.
So let’s start by asking yourself 3 Questions: The Idea: Your Vision/Passion Statement 1. If you imagined the perfect business you would be in what would it look like? What gets you excited? At this point you are only limited by your imagination. 2. In this perfect world what are some of the goals or needs you are trying to address? 3. Based on those goals or needs, what are some key products or services?
It is okay to repeat those things in your current business that still makes sense to you but I encourage you to think out of the box and not be afraid to throw out ideas that excite you. Whether they make sense or not will be discussed later in the exercise.
A biz helping hand: Are there recommendation anyone has on business plan formats you have found worthwhile? If so let us know at Adk Biz Today.
* * * * * * * * * *
Perspectives From An Adirondack Entrepreneur: A Wish to Governor-elect Cuomo: 1. Please visit the Adirondack Park more than your predecessor did. 2. Related to this: how about suggesting that the state legislature convene twice a year outside Albany to get a first hand look at this magnificently diverse state and to see directly that many of our challenges and opportunities are regionally unique. 3. Please help us to reverse the long standing reputation of NY as an over-regulated and expensive place to do business 4. Consider making the Adirondack Park not just a regulatory region but a unified community and economic habitat. Many ideas require little funding and would perhaps help to consolidate and streamline services. For example consolidating the fragmented economic development and regulatory offices that overlap the Park. 5. When contemplating business issues please listen to the voice of NYS entrepreneurs and small businesses.
As Adirondack entrepreneurs are there any wishes you have for the Governor-elect to help our economy? Please be positive, we will all need to work together to be successful.
Disclaimer The views expressed in these articles are opinions and all businesses should consult professional resources such as legal, accounting, and appropriate regulatory agencies before making any business decisions.
Great !!!
Thanks,
Friday, November 5, 2010
Four Steps To Raising Capital From Angel Investors Written by Adam Hoeksema - Innovation America
According to a report by the Angel Capital Education Foundation (ACEF) the angel investment process is typically comprised of 4 steps. According to the ACEF report only between 1 and 4% of entrepreneurs that apply for angel investment funding will make it through the entire 4 stage process. That means that if you really want to stand a chance at securing angel investment you need to understand each of the 4 stages in detail. The 4 steps are as follows:
Stage 1 – Executive Summary – Typically the first stage of the angel investment process, also known as pre-screening, is simply an executive summary round. You will start by sending in your 2 page executive summary. This round determines whether or not you will have the opportunity to meet with your potential investors face-to-face. According to the ACEF, only 25% of applicants will make it through this round, so do not take round 1 lightly. Famous venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki said in his book, The Art of the Start, “Of the effort you put into write a business plan, 80 percent should go into the executive summary. These are the most important paragraphs of your organization’s existence.”Stage 2 – Investor Presentation – If you are lucky enough to make it to the second round you will typically have the opportunity to meet with your potential investors. You will be asked to prepare a short presentation, after which, the investor group will have an opportunity to grill you with questions. Going back to Guy Kawasaki again, make sure to follow his 10/20/30 rule. “A PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.” About 1 out of 3 will make it to the next round.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Four Steps To Raising Capital From Angel Investors | BizPlanIt: Business Plan Coach
Author: Adam Hoeksema
Excellent !!
Thanks,
TX angel network activity picking up - ABJ Entrepreneur
Thursday, November 4, 2010, 4:13pm CDT | Modified: November 4, 2010, 11:00 PM
TX angel network activity picking up
by Christopher Calnan
Good !!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Seattle Business Plans|San Francisco Business Plans|Affordable Business Plans
72 Equity
Professional Business & Marketing Plans, Affordable SEO/SEM, Branded Entertainment, Social Media, Content & Writing
Raising Capital For Your Company Or Expanding Its Global Digital Presence Starts With An Idea. But Ideas Need Execution, Momentum, And A Successful Response.
Business Plan Core
- Executive Summary
- Company Strategy
- Management/Advisory Team
- Risk Minimization
- Financial Analysis
- Competition Analysis
- LLC, LP, Common, Or Preferred Stock Private Placement
- Regulation D (504,505,506)
- Blue Sky/SEC As Applicable To Investor Searches
- Exit Strategies
Contact UsDigital Core
- Content Writing
- SEO
- SEM
- Social Media
- Branded Entertainment
- Video Ad Networks
- Multi-tier Monetization
- Affiliate Channels
- Ecommerce
- Advertising
- Marketing
- Public Relations
- Web Commercials
- Hybrid Tv/Internet/Cable
Core Consciousness
At 72 Equity, we are at the progressive forefront of guiding big companies and the little guy startups in raising capital and implementing digital execution in a constantly changing environment. Our professional business plan writing services injected with global digital marketing, branding, SEO, & SEM infusions allows for the convergence of any ideas to thrive and respond to economic conditions accordingly. In the old days of business plan writing and strategies, a boilerplate mentality and product was executed without taking a methodical approach to a company's future growth. With the evolution of Web 2.0 and the growing opportunities available for any type of new or established businesses, the old rules of raising money simply don't apply and need to be complimented with online resources so potential investors, partners, and consumers don't need to think much about being organically evolving with you and your visions. And if you do a competition analysis of other similar companies such as ours, you may find that their evolution of business plan writing is broken down into "packages" some of which simply have no application today in terms of trying to get bank debt or loans vs. the realities of equity, grants, and other alternatives to capital that will make your likelyhood of raising money more of a success. And if you also decide to leverage our digital execution consulting, you are already leaps and bounds ahead of your target growth and revenue objectives.
Expert Business Plans
Most business plan writing companies have a boilerplate mentally. They take your notes and a few days later they say "good luck".
At 72 Equity, we recommend structures that will increase your likelyhood of getting investors and gearing you up for long term success. We even tell you where and how to find investors!
SEO/SEM
Its easy for some "online" guru to put up a web site and call themselves a Search Engine Or Digital Marketing Expert and then outsource to some offshore company that may spam your site into oblivion.
Or perhaps you think a large interactive agency that will have a "team" of experts working on your site will increase your online presence while really increasing their fancy office rent.
read more
Global Digital Solutions
We are unlike other competitors in that we think globally, progressively, and evolutionary that will increase your revenues, attract new strategic partners, and grow beyond what your current marketing plans ever expected. Whether you are a startup or an established company and brand who simply isn't seeing an ROI that some bigwigs promised you, its time to reevalue, reconsider, and restructure
read more
Branded Media
When BMW launched a series of mini-films a few years ago featuring BMW as the star, it set a new precedent for a global branding of a product or company.
However, many startups, brands, and small companies think its too cost prohibitive to create a branded entertainment concept with a high level of user interaction that can position it with a fresh advertising and marketing concept. We can make it more affordable than your think.
via 72equity.com
Excellent !!
Thanks,
Incorporation services - Business formation - Incorporate online
Espanol | Contact | Privacy | Service Terms| SiteMap
ActiveFilings LLC is a document filing service and cannot provide you with legal, tax or financial advice. The information on our website, www.activefilings.com is designed to provide general information related to the business incorporation in the USA. It is presented with the understanding that ActiveFilings LLC is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If legal advice or other professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
© 2001 -2010 by Active Filings LLC. All Rights Reserved
Excellent !!!
Thanks,
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)