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Video For All Startup Entrepreneurs

VStart — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:24:33 +0000

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:

Types of Angel investors and cautions about the make up of Angel groups
Paying Angel groups to present
Building an entrepreneurial culture in Boulder (population 150,000) by importing entrepreneurs — thoughts for Sacramento?
How, in web-based startups, having geeks on the startup team is more important than domain expertise
Good tips on pitching with an entrepreneur pitching live over the phone
How investors in multiple rounds of financing can destroy a company with in-fighting to the detriment of the entrepreneurs
Passion and perseverance — with an example of one of Brad’s investments that took off after ten years!

Yes, it’s long but …….

Sacramento Region Startup ioSafe At CES — Fire, Water, and Crushing Fail to Stop Their SSD Drive

VStart — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:24:49 +0000

Robb Moore, CEO of ioSafe in Auburn, always does something sensational at CES in Las Vegas. This year, as he did last year, he subjected one of the company’s hard drives to fire, and water submersion, but this time he further ran over it with the tracks on a 20 ton backhoe. Take a look at the video to see if the drive survived. By the way. Robb has bootstrapped ioSafe from day one. Seems this video goes a long way to say a lot a pitch or executive summary would never reveal! Robb is a VentureStart adviser.

Answering the Valuation Question

VStart — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:06:47 +0000

It’s easy for a startup entrepreneur to be trapped with the question “So what’s your valuation”. If you throw out too high a number that can be the end of the discussion; too low and you’ve left something on the table. The video below offers one answer: basically it suggests you say you’ll let the market decide.

That’s a reasonable answer since investors often have much more experience than the entrepreneur in knowing current valuation ranges. Yet, frequently investors will insist on an answer to better determine whether they should pursue further investigation of your company. So just in case the “let the market decide” answer doesn’t cut it, you’d better have a backup answer ready before you meet with investors.

You need to get some idea of current valuation for your company stage (pre-revenue, prototype, first customers, etc.). Where do you get it? If you are in VentureStart, then we can help you from our network of investors. If not, here are some alternatives.

If you have chosen the right attorney (by right, we mean all else being equal, your attorney should have plenty of current experience with startups raising money or access to expensive databases such as VentureSource), they will be able to give you some idea. Or you can contact other entrepreneurs who have been funded recently and ask them. You might get some idea from such free online databases as ChubbyBrain, CrunchBase, or TradeVibes, although exactly what you need is rarely given.

Angelsoft also publishes the valuation expectation of entrepreneurs that use their software to apply to Angels. You can see it in their learning center funding statistics. Remember this is the entrepreneur expectation! Deals, if done, will be at a substantially lower number, but it does give you a ballpark.

Once you get an idea bump it up some 60% or so to leave you room for negotiation; yes it is a negotiation but you need the “reasonable” starting point. Bottom line: your valuation is what someone will pay for your stock, nothing more!

You can see the video discussion of “let the market decide” by Jason Green of Emergence Capital Partners below and the original is at Standford ecorner.

Pitching Startups to VCs and Angels — David Rose Serial Entrepreneur and Angel

VStart — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:29:20 +0000

There are many sites, documents and videos on the web about pitching a startup to investors. Here is one video that stands out. It is by David Rose, an angel investor, and serial entrepreneur. He is also the founder of Angelsoft (the platform used by most angel groups to manage entrepreneur applications, and deal flow).

Hope you enjoy it!