Thursday, June 19, 2008

Do you want funds?

In my mind and in my dealings with Angel Investors, Investment banks, and Venture Capital professionals, most entrepreneurs hear about VCs only first, so they start hammering out their made-up business plan and they start sending it to VCs, who roll their eyes and hit the big red X in their inbox. It doesn't work! Been there done that. http://www.bifidium.com. I was so sick, I decided to work for others again, when all the funds dried up.

I feel it has nothing to do with the idea. They are fantastic all the time and boring most of the time. People come up with great ideas but they dont do research into what is entailed to bring it to life, in a better way! VCs and Angels are excited about new technology and new ideas. They see things before everyone else even knows that it's there, sometimes years before it's available. And they will help you.

Who, What, When, and Where and how much and How you plan to spend it, must be answered. But to be honest with you.


The first line of the email that you send to that investor, better be intriguing and concise and paint a picture of excitement to the point. Because if you cant be excited about your project, then no one else will either. Another way to get their immediate attention is to have coerced amazing talents to work for your cause in startup mode. And don't say it can't be done, because it can...I have 7 people working with me right now that aren't getting paid a dime and we haven't even worked out the equity arrangements, but they are excited about what we are doing and what it's going to do and the tech challenges involved. So, if you are the CEO, you are the last ball six hitter in the defensive huddle and you better get em fired up buddy and put on your selling shoes, especially in the market that you are trying to penetrate...WOW...You better have some amazingly innovative and creative introduction methods and GUI never seen before...or you will just be another fish in the pond buddy.

So, get you some architect/developer types on board who can do this work and bootstrap it, start anything, guerrilla marketing campaign and go from there...It works quite well for a lot of the others. Social site. I wrote about in another blog earlier. They simply post ads as if they are girls/guys looking for love and link them to their site. So, I hope what I told you helps. I feel your pain, I do, but seriously you will meet some jerks and you will meet some nice guys in the VC/Angel world, but keep your head up, as you will probably hear a 1000 NO's before you get one maybe. People simply do not see things the same. So be prepared for that.

I would like to know what is different about your business than all the others?

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