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By VStart, on January 30th, 2010
VentureStart gets many Sacramento region web startups applying for our mentoring. Very often we see great ideas and the need to raise money to hire people to code the idea/application. We normally encourage these startups to get a co-founder, or someone who will work for stock, on the team, and then get some traction before even considering raising money from Angel groups or VCs.
Adam Kalsey, the founder of SacStarts and a VentureStart mentor, recently gave advice on this to one VentureStart entrepreneur and then published it on his blog. We quote it here since it is so relevant to web startups.
Read More »»
By VStart, on January 19th, 2010
We saw a great video today that every startup entrepreneur should take a look at. It is an online interview by Jason Calacanis of Brad Feld. Jason is an outspoken entrepreneur who recently created a huge online discussion about entrepreneurs having to pay substantial dollars to present to Angel investors. Brad Feld is an entrepreneur, turned Angel and VC, who is very entrepreneur centric and has a widely read blog (that’s where we found this).
This video is 2 hours long but the first 90 minutes are really worth listening to. It covers these topics:
By VStart, on January 14th, 2010
The Sacramento Angels, together with the Sierra Angels, led a multi-million dollar financing for San Francisco web annotation startup company, Reframe It. They were joined by other regional angel groups and individual angels. You can read the web press release here, and see another report of the financing gathered, in part, from the filing with the SEC of Form D here.
There are a couple of interesting points for entrepreneurs about this financing. First, you can see that to raise this kind of money from Angels, it takes a lead (the lead negotiates the deal terms, does the due Read More »»
By VStart, on December 16th, 2009
Phil Reed was the co-founder of both ComputerLand and BusinessLand, two highly successful startups, both of which went public. He’s raised capital from the top venture capital firms in the world and also been part of small companies that never fulfilled their promise and had to shut their doors (if you ask him, those were the source of the most valuable lessons he’s learned). In fact, Phil has founded or co-founded over a dozen companies during his career and he is incredibly passionate about sharing those lessons and helping budding entrepreneurs.
So here are Phil’s top twelve lessons for entrepreneurs. Call it “Phil’s twelve days of Christmas for start-ups”. Read More »»
By VStart, on November 2nd, 2009
Many startups with high growth ambitions immediately think of raising money from angels or VCs. This can be challenging for first time entrepreneurs, and if family and friends money is not an alternative, then the choices left are often credit cards or bootstrapping. Here is a post on the top 10 lessons in bootstrapping from VentureBeat.
There are two ways to build a business: Raise a bunch of money or bootstrap. When I was in business school, there wasn’t much attention given to the bootstrapping notion. The “MBA way” of growing a business is to write a business plan, raise money and then execute the business plan. But I think that’s almost always the wrong approach.
We bootstrapped Infusionsoft for several years before ever raising capital. The lessons we learned were, and continue to be, invaluable. Here are the top ten lessons we learned from this method – and why I continue to evangelize bootstrapping to entrepreneurs: … Read More » »
By VStart, on November 2nd, 2009
Every wonder if you have what it takes to be a founder or co-founder of a company, or even an early participant. Below we copy a post from Steve Blank’s blog.
When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves:
Are you comfortable with:
- Chaos – startups are disorganized
- Uncertainty – startups never go per plan
Are you:
- Resilient – at times you will fail – badly. How quickly will you recover?
- Agile – you may find the real opportunities for your company was somewhere else. Can you recognize and capitalize on them?
- Creative / Pattern Recognition – can you think “out of the box?” Or if not, can you recognize patterns others miss?
- Passionate – is the company/product/customers the most important thing in your life? 24/7?
- Tenacious – can you keep going when everyone else gives up? Can you keep giving 200% despite all the naysayers who don’t believe in your idea?
- Articulate – can you create a reality distortion field and have others see and share your vision and passion?
… Read More » »
By VStart, on October 5th, 2009
We just saw this post on Techcrunch about the CBS acquisition of MaxPreps a few years ago and thought it worth reposting here.
Shhhh…your not supposed to mention Sacramento. Don’t make us send our catering crew over there…..
1st rule of building a startup in Sacramento is your not supposed to mention Sacramento
2nd rule of building a startup in Sacramento, is your NOT supposed to mention Sacramento.
3rd rule of bootstrapping in Sacramento, is that if we are mentioned frequently on TC or elsewhere our talent and engineers get recruited to SV/SF, only to return when the bubble goes limp, taps out Read More »»
By VStart, on October 3rd, 2009
Coming soon, an organization dedicated to the goal of nurturing entrepreneurism in the greater Sacramento region. No dues, no fees, no sales pitches. Just real help and motivation for people who think they might want to start a company here in the region. This group is being formed by investors and entrepreneurs who want to help others start and grow successful businesses here, without having to move their company or raise their money in the Bay area. Click here to get more information when it’s launched.
By VStart, on July 23rd, 2009
We saw this blog post and thought it very appropriate to all those regional web entrepreneurs trying to distinguish them from the masses. The post provides Six Milestones from 30 Seconds to 3 Years by which to judge the effectiveness of your web site/service.
By VStart, on June 24th, 2009
VentureStart can save entrepreneurs unfamiliar with the fundraising process a great deal of time; it’s one of the best value propositions we have. Many first time entrepreneurs waste time chasing funding sources (e.g., venture capital) without understanding the financing food chain.
Most financing is based on setting business milestones and then achieving them. VentureStart can guide you through the process of determining those milestones, and then suggest the right kind of financing (and valuation ballpark) given the stage of your product and market development. Is it loans, friends, family, individual angel money, grants, angel groups, or venture capital? Chasing after the wrong kind of financing can waste a lot Read More »»
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