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Everything a Startup Needs to Know About Raising Funds - Daniel Gould Interview
I have a very helpful mp3 for anyone who’s thinking of raising money for a new business.
To help me prepare for the “Getting Your Startup Funded” Mixergy Forum, my friend Dan Gould spent an hour on the phone with me, walking me through me the process of getting a new business funded.
In 2004, Dan co-founded Newroo, which was acquired by Fox Interactive/MySpace in 2006. He’s currently VP, Technology at FIM.
I think our call is as good as any seminar on raising money and he gave me permission to post our conversation here. So if you can’t make it to my next event, listen to my call with Dan a few times.
Download my hour interview with Daniel Gould by right-clicking here.
Pasandena Angels Respond
Joe Platnick, Director of the Pasadena Angles, answered my question on the Angels blog.
One other way to put the overall process into perspective is to talk about the numbers on a monthly basis:
80-100 funding applications
6 invitations to present at the screening meeting
1-2 invitations to present at the member breakfast
One company funded per month (on average)As you can see, it’s a little like applying to Harvard—similar percentages, but without the elitism and having your father donate a library in order to get in.
You can read their full process here. [Thanks Joe]
I’d love to hear what angel groups are like to work with from an entrepreneur. If you’ve gone through this process and want to clue me in, contact me. (I’ll keep our conversation private if you prefer.)
Before Looking for Funding, Get an Advisor
As part of my preparation for the Mixergy Funding Forum, today I talked with Eric Pollard, founder of VentureAssist.
One of Eric’s suggestions for startups is to look for advisers before looking for funding. Seek out people that you trust in your vertical to help you think through your idea. Then get advisers who have been through the funding process a few times to help you figure if you have a plan that can be funded and how to present that plan to investors.
Eric suggests these advisers:
David Berkus - Chairman Emeritus of the Tech Coast Angles
Lynn Foster Jr. - Emerging Technologies Director at Greenberg Traurig, LLP
I’ll add Michael Jones, founder of Userplane.
Who else would make a good adviser for startups?
Who else should I talk with to prepare for this forum?
[Emad, thanks for referring me to Eric.]
New Mixergy Forum: Get Your Startup Funded.
I’ll send an official announcement about this soon, but here’s an early notice about the next Mixergy Forum.
When:
Tuesday, June 3
7:00 - 10:00
Where:
The Santa Monica Playhouse Theater
Who’s presenting:
William Quigley, Managing Director of Clearstone Venture Partners
Other presenters will be added shortly
What you’ll learn:
This event will cover what you need to know to intelligently raise money for your startup.
Also:
We’ll have a post-forum mixer so you can get to know the presenters.
How you can help:
Send in your questions–either through the comments or by email. Also, if you want your startup to be used as a case study, describe it in the comments or by email.
Tickets:
Ticket prices will be $50-$75. If you’d like to get your ticket early, you can do it here.
$35 - Early Ticket (limited number available)
$25 - Early Student Ticket (limited number available)
Learning from TweetUps and Users
My goal is to make Mixergy into an invitation Web site that helps guests mix. If you give us feedback, I’ll link to you here.
At a recent event, I asked Mike Prasad, who organizes “TweetUps” for his input. Here’s what he said:
Roger Vetruba of movoxo.com says:
hey bud, I really wish [the invitation emails] contained a google-friendly time-date, so that Gmail would automatically ask to add to my calendar!
This is a tough issue.
Hosts want their guests to RSVP. If we include the event details on the initial invitation email, guests will be less likely to go to the invitation and therefore less likely to RSVP.
But I understand that guests need to get an event’s date and location by email. So I’ll try something new. After guests RSVP, I’ll send them an immediate confirmation email that will include the date and time.
Anyone have any other ideas about this issue?
Videos and Pictures from Today’s Event @ Yahoo
I took these videos and pictures to help you see who’s coming to my events. If you took any pictures or videos, let me know and I’ll link to you.
Jon Anderson does Talent Acquisition at Yahoo! I asked him why he brought Lunch 2.0 to his office.
Maneesh Goyal of Miramar Venture Partners talks about his investment company’s latest win.
Allen Vartazarian of taltopia.com is an entrepreneur with big news.
Joel Ordesky hosts his own events. As the founder of Mixergy, I believe you meet more people by hosting that you do when you’re only a guest. Here’s what Joel had to say about that.
Scott Metcalf is bringing the next Lunch 2.0 to MySQL / Sun. I asked him why he’s doing it.
Click here to see some of the pictures I took.
You can see the interactive invitation I used here.
How to Get Bloggers to Write About Your Company
Marjorie Kase is the founder and CEO of Blogger Reps, a company that helps brands reach bloggers and their audiences. I met her at an event I hosted, so I interviewed her to learn how to connect with bloggers. I’ve been using what she taught me and it’s working.
My biggest takeaway from the call is when you read something, write something. Since my call with Marjorie, whenever I read a blog post that I like, I try to add a comment, or email the author, or blog about it, etc.
At first it felt awkward. I couldn’t think of anything to write and I hated the idea that others even knew what I was reading. But after doing it awhile I’ve learned how to write comments quickly. And I found that coming up with something to say forces me to think a little deeper about what I read.
Now bloggers reach out to me and I’m getting more mentions on their sites. Check it out, I’m in a post on today’s socalTECH.
For many more ideas, download my full phone interview.
Got a Pile of Business Cards on Your Desk?
Every time I go to an event I come home with piles of business cards. I tell myself that I’ll save them all to my address book, but I don’t do it often enough.
If you’re in business, I bet you have a similar pile somewhere. And when it’s time for you to reach out to someone you met, I bet you have to dig through your pile of cards to find their address? Or maybe you Google them.
Why should you have to work so hard?
This is one of the problems we’re trying to solve with Mixergy invitations. Right now, if you met someone at a past event that used Mixergy.com for its invitations, you can go back to the invitation and message that person. (There’s a message icon next to every guest’s picture.)
Soon we’ll make it even easier.
Bring Lunch 2.0 to Your City
Jesse Stay wants to bring Lunch 2.0 to Salt Lake City and asked me how it works. Since others have been asking how to bring Lunch 2.0 to their cities, I thought I’d respond to Jesse in a blog post that lists some of the common questions I’ve been getting.
What are the rules?
You don’t need anyone’s permission to start setting up a Lunch 2.0 in your city. And no one will impose a format on you.
I can tell you the format I use, but you’re free to do it your way. This is how I do it:
noon to 1:00 - guests walk around, eat and mix
1:00 to 1:10 - the local Lunch 2.0 organizers introduce themselves and the hosting company introduces itself.
1:10 to 2:00 - guests walk around, eat and mix
What’s the best way to get started?
The hardest part is finding the first company that’ll take a chance and invite people in. Once you’ve got that, everything else is snap. I recommend talking to the company you work for or asking your friends to check in with their companies. (Don’t be discouraged if it takes longer than you’d like. It took me months to find my first company.)
I’ve found these two departments to be most receptive to doing a Lunch 2.0: Business Development & Human Resources. Check in with them.
This interview with Woody Pewitt of Microsoft can help companies understand the benefits of doing Lunch 2.0
How can you grow your Lunch 2.0?
At every lunch you do thank your guests for coming and announce that you’re looking for other companies to host a lunch at their office. I get 2-5 business cards after each of these announcements.
You can also send a follow-up email asking for other lunch spots.
How do you promote Lunch 2.0?
Once you’ve confirmed your date and location, post it to the Lunch 2.0 blog (I can help you do that), invite everyone you know in tech, and ask some local tech groups to help you spread the word.
“Pen Movers”
At the Mixergy education sessions, when I see the audiences’ pens moving while a presenter is talking, I know they’re going to tell me they love that speaker. When I ask people what they thought of one of my panels, their response usually includes how many pages of notes they took. “Greatpanel Andrew! I got 3 pages of notes.”
If that’s how listeners will evaluate you, then have a list of “penmovers” prepared ahead of time. Make them short and clear so people can writethem down easily.
Examples:
- At Mixerg’s “How to Get Traffic” event Michael Dorausch said, “If you want links to your site, write articles for other blogs.”
- At Mixergy’s “How to get PR” event Ray Doustdar said, “Set up Google News alerts on your competitors, and when you get alerted to an article, email the reporter.”