Invested Interests

Build Entrepreneur Credentials Early and Wisely

Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard via ShinyShiny.tv

Many believe that entrepreneurs are born, not made. While I agree that successful company builders usually have a natural inclination to be entrepreneurs, a good education helps polish that apple. There are people who are natural musicians, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try to teach them music.

Of course, there’s no law saying you have to go to college to start a business. We can all point to examples of successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of college, but still went on to make a big impact. Current young adults have grown up hearing about Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), who dropped out of Harvard, as the paragon of success. Why not try to follow in his footsteps? Read more

Industry Experts

The Experience vs. Education Curve in Startups

Years ago I came across the idea that in entrepreneurship, education and experience contribute to likelihood of success roughly like you see in the chart here. The underlying assumption is that a lot of education makes up for very little experience, and vice-versa. And this is in the context of startups, investment, and entrepreneurship. 

education vs. experienceI’ve drawn it here MBA style, with a line on two axes, pretty much the way I first saw it, with a smooth curve from one extreme to the other. It’s almost symmetrical in this drawing, and would be even more so if I had better tools (who wants to devise an equation? I just drew it.) The idea is some sort of a conceptual break-even point between the two factors. 

I think it makes sense in a broad view, but my experience — as angel investor lately, as entrepreneur before that, and startup dabbler still — makes me think it should be skewed. This is my opinion, based on (how nice) education and experience. And this relates to how I look at startups as potential investments for the angel group I’m in (WAC) : 

  1. There’s no amount of education that has much likelihood of success with no experience whatsoever. The curve should move slightly up and to the left. 
  2. I believe the sweet spot on the curve is in the middle. 
  3. My own experience with an MBA degree — which I got later than most, already 30+, but also before I started my own business, and was a co-founder of one that went public — was that the MBA gave me a general overview that made entrepreneurship easier. 
  4. However, through several decades of working in this area, I’ve come to think that most MBAs need to temper all those analytical skills with real-world experience before they can really make progress. So an MBA five years out of biz school tends to be way more valuable than one who just graduated. Then again, I have an obvious bias. 
  5. I’ve seen very little evidence that an undergraduate business degree increases likelihood of startup success more than a good undergraduate degree in science, math, engineering, or — yes, I’ll stand by this one — even liberal arts. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of evidence for the latter: that any other degree is a better indicator than a business degree. 

However, one big caveat: I’m guilty in the above of one-size-fits-all thinking. The huge bias towards my way of doing things. So take all of this as just one opinion. 

Do you agree? What are your thoughts? I posted it here because the discussion intrigues me, not because I think I’m right. 

Tim Berry , Founder, Palo Alto Software
January 9th, 2013 3

Invested Interests

7 Startup High Risk Factors That Scare Investors

Image via Flickr by artemuestra

We all know that every startup is risky. No risk means no reward. Yet every investor has his own “rules of thumb” on what makes a specific startup too high a risk for his investment taste. You need to know these guidelines to set your expectations on funding.

Of course, if you intend to fund the business yourself, or have a rich uncle, external investment funding concerns are not a problem. Yet, it’s still worthwhile to understand the issues so you can minimize your own risk of failure. Here is a summary of the “big picture” high risk considerations: Read more

Invested Interests

Startups are the Place to Find and Use Baby Boomers

Richard Branson image via Wikipedia

The buzz from startup executives, especially high-tech ones, has long been that startups are no place for Baby-Boomers (1946-1964) – you must have the high energy and crazy determination to work 20-hour days to succeed. Only the under-35 age group need apply.

I will argue that times have changed, and you better take another look. First of all, the Boomer demographic is currently the single largest, mainstream pool of experienced talent in the market today (76 million people strong). They have worked with high technology and computers for at least 20 years, are highly educated, and highly motivated. Last year, nearly 40% of the total workforce was Boomers. Read more

Invested Interests

How would you break down the process of raising an angel round of investment in 5-10 steps?

1. Understand your business. It sounds obvious, but the majority of entrepreneurs who pitch me have obviously never thought through many of the major issues surrounding their companies.  You should know EVERYTHING about your business, product, customers and competition. You should know every metric regarding customer acquisition, conversion and retention. You should have a crystal clear understanding of your business model and your financials. And all of this should be at the tips of your fingers so you can instantly answer any questions you are asked about it.

2. Understand what investors are looking for, what they usually invest in, and why. There is a vast gulf between a ‘cool product’ and an ‘investable company’ and if you don’t understand the difference, you will be doomed before you start. There are many good books on this subject, and you owe it to yourself to read at least one of them before you begin talking to angels. A good beginning would be Bill Payne’s The Definitive Guide to Raising Money from Angels, available as a free download from http://gust.com/definitiveguide.

3.  ONLY after you’ve completed #1 and #2 will you then be ready for capital to be applied to your venture. And that capital is going to come from…YOU. That’s right, you should not even consider trying to raise money from anyone else until you have reached deep into your own pocket. This is the case for two reasons: first, because the bare fact is that investors simply do not fund ideas. The expectation is that in an era of increasing technology and decreasing costs, you will be bringing them an operating company with at least some traction. Looked at from their perspective, given two teams equal in entrepreneur, market, business model and potential, why should they invest in one that exists on paper, when the other has reduced its risk and improved its viability by actually getting started?  The second reason is that investors want to know that YOU believe in your own startup…and the best way for you to demonstrate that is to show that you have personally put your own money where your mouth is. Keep in mind that any cash you put in will remain in the company as Founders’ Equity, and will only come back to you on a successful exit in which your investors make money.

[3a. Although it is not required per se, and therefore is not being given its own discrete step here, in the real world most startups at this point turn to friends and family for additional capital, in the form of equity or loans, to help get the company to a stage at which it is legitimately investable by third parties. The important thing to note about this is that the money should either go into the company directly as a convertible note without a cap, or (depending on the personal relationships involved) as a personal loan to the entrepreneur, which he or she in turn invests as equity into the company, but will be responsible for repaying even if things don't work out.]

4. With #1 – #3 under your belt, you should start preparing the components you will use to support your pitch to outside investors. These range from outbound materials, such as pitch emails and funding applications, to presentations of your venture in different forms for different purposes, to detailed back-up information that you will be asked to supply during due diligence. A comprehensive list of things you might want is listed in the answer to What materials or software should I use to pitch a VC?, and these can all be neatly gathered into a confidential investor relations site, such as you can create with Gust.com.

5. Now, and only now, are you prepared to start fundraising. This phase is a combination of (to mix several metaphors) WMDs and sniper fire.  Start by letting absolutely everyone know that you’ve got a great startup looking for early investors. And I mean *everyone*. I have been led to deals by my barber, my interns, my cousin and my high school classmates. If you hide your light under a bushel, investors simply will not come looking for you proactively. At the other end, do your homework to really understand which investors would be the most productive for you to approach. Some only invest in their home city, others only invest $5,000, still others only invest in biotech, for example. Blindly sending your business plan to every single angel and VC in the world will have zero effect, and simply clogs the system while annoying everyone.

6. Seriously consider applying for funding from your local business angel investment group. There are many hundreds of these across the country and around the world, and virtually all of them accept applications over the transom. If you are invited to come in, even for a preliminary screening, you will have the opportunity to present your business to experienced investors. This will given you both pitching experience and usually solid feedback on your plan. And if you do get funded, the group can be extremely helpful in getting other investors to join in with additional funds.

7. Another avenue that is increasingly a good idea is to consider applying to one of the new breed of accelerators. While yCombinator and TechStars are the two best known, there dozens of others, local, national and international, many specializing in specific areas (including fashion, food, finance, gaming, etc.) Accelerators typically provide several months of intensive mentoring, at the end of which they host a Demo Day to introducing all their graduating companies to a large number of local angel investors.

8. Your goal in all this is to try to find a lead investor. This person will be critical in rounding up other investors, drafting a term sheet, and generally getting the deal done. He or she will be your primary champion, and often mentor. Doing a deal with a lead investor is 3 to 5 times easier than trying to pull everything together by yourself. Among other things, your lead can vouch for you with other investors in their circle, or who follow them on online financing platforms, which can be a good way to finish up a round (via “social proof”) once your leads are in place.

9. Before you start negotiating a term sheet with any potential investor, make sure that you GET A LAWYER, specifically, a lawyer with experience directly in the early stage financing world. This will NOT be your family lawyer, or the one who helped you beat that traffic ticket. There are excellent venture lawyers in every major city, with enough to form a flash mob in places like California, New York and Texas. For more background on this key step, see the answers to “What should one look for in a startup lawyer?”

10. Finally, from the minute you begin engaging with an investor, it is critical to COMMUNICATE early and often. Keep them up to date while circling your round, thank them as soon as it closes, and provide ALL your angels with either quarterly (at a minimum) or monthly (ideal) reports on how the company is doing.  In my experience there is a astounding correlation between frequent, thorough communication and successful follow-on funding.

*original post can be found on Quora @ : http://www.quora.com/David-S-Rose/answers *

Invested Interests

4 Startup Tenets for Extreme Focus on Customers

Image via Facebook

New product startups rightfully begin with a heads-down focus on creating the ultimate product – whether it’s a new technology, a new look and ease of use, or a new low-cost delivery approach. Most then add customer service at the rollout, but very few really understand what it means to be truly customer centric, and even fewer really achieve it.

Customer centricity is far more than providing excellent customer service, although that’s a step in the right direction. Customer centricity is a strategy to fundamentally align a company’s products and services with the wants and needs of its most valuable customers, with the aim of more profits for the long term. Read more

Invested Interests

What is the ratio of equity received for sweat equity vs. cash investment in a new venture?

There is no specific ratio between “sweat equity” and cash in a venture, and that’s actually not a good way to think about the issue. The bottom line is that cash is cash is cash, and everything else is “not cash”. The reason is that cash is fungible, which means it can be interchanged for everything else, from programming skills to vacations on the Riviera. Other things, such as your particular time and effort, are not.

A better way to think about this is to separate two aspects of the “sweat” that one puts into a new venture. These are critically different, and have very different economic attributes attached to them.

The first is the entrepreneurial value of the founder(s) in a new venture. This is what happens when someone starts an enterprise and creates something of value. So if you start a company, and then raise a round of angel investment at, say, a $2,000,000 valuation, the entrepreneurial value of the time and effort it took you to get to that point is…$2,000,000. The point is that the value created has absolutely nothing to do with a quantified effort that it took to get there. You might have created that value by slaving 18 hours a day, seven days a week for five years (in which case the value of the sweat equity is $8.70 per hour), or you might have created that value by having a brilliant concept, execution plan and team that you pulled together in two weeks of leisurely work (in which case the value of the sweat equity is $25,000 per hour).

The second component is the replacement cost of the specific skills and effort that are involved in the particular work. So if the same specific tasks could have been achieved by paying a programmer (or marketer or part-time CFO), say $2,000 on a short term contract, then that is exactly what the replacement cost value of the work would be.

In practice, once a company has been funded and a valuation established, “sweat equity” contributed after that point is usually compensated based on only the replacement cost number, either 1:1 (that is, the nominal salary, what you would have been paid if the cash had been on hand) is simply accrued, or some other ratio (say, 25% or 50% extra), in recognition of the fact that you’re willing to take the risk that it will never be paid if things don’t work out.

*original post can be found on Quora @ : http://www.quora.com/David-S-Rose/answers *