Archive for December, 2007

WSJ Article: The New VC

Published on December 31, 2007 in Startups and Venture Capital. 0 Comments

Good article in the Wall Street Journal about the new wave of venture capital and angel investing. As many of you have seen, newer individuals who are investing are past entrepreneurs themselves. Personally, I think this is a welcome change since these folks understand what it takes to start and run a company. In my time with my company and helping others, I’ve heard a lot of inane statements from investors who just don’t get it. For example, I’ve heard this:

“Well, if they need this technology we can just keep raising prices and they’ll pay whatever we tell them.”

Yeah, that’s a good idea b-school boy. Unfortunately your book learning doesn’t completely translate into the real world. Even if you think you’ve got a monopoly (you don’t), then there is a price point where customers will live without whatever you’re providing (product, service, technology) and keep doing business how they were before.

Another one that I recently heard was:

“We’re not convinced about this product/service. If there was a demand for this there would be bigger competitors doing this.”

Say what?!? Isn’t this the essence of starting up a company? You see an unmet market need and you fill it. By this inane argument there should be no startups and everything that needs to be done will be done by big companies.

My point in all of this is that you need to choose your investors wisely. Sure, there are a lot of times where you have to just take what you get. When choosing between shutting down your company and taking money from morons, the clear choice is to live a little longer and hope for the best. The best being that the morons aren’t complete imbeciles (this can be a lot to hope for). But if you have a choice, always choose the investor who has been there and done that over the investor who just shows up with a wad of cash.

Oh yeah, this will likely be the last post for the year so happy new year! I’m looking forward to keeping the discussion going next year!

[via A VC]

For Those Who Travel

Published on December 30, 2007 in Asides. 0 Comments

Quick note on a new travel restriction if you carry batteries. For those of you who travel a lot, take note.

On Sending Decks

Published on December 30, 2007 in Venture Capital. 0 Comments

Venture hacks has a great post on when you should or shouldn’t send a presentation deck to an interested party.  Personally, I know of two VCs who I presented to who weren’t acting in good faith.  Consider that against 200+ that I presented to.  Most, I’d say, are honest and act in good faith but there are exceptions.  Regardless, you control what you put on paper and what you say.  But remember, the only way to make sure you never have your information get to “bad” people is by never telling anyone anything.  But then, that’ll make it hard to raise money, get customers, and grow your business.  So don’t be too paranoid, just be paranoid enough.

Twitter Updates

Published on December 29, 2007 in Asides, Events, Jobs, Startups and Venture Capital. 0 Comments

I’ve kept a frantic pace (at least for me) this last week with posts on Bilgistic.  But I can see that I’m going to need help with feedback, information, or just general story ideas.  So I’ve started up a Twitter account which you can follow.  I won’t use this account to follow people so if you want to say something back, you can either @ reply to me or better would be to direct message me on the Bilgistic account.  Thanks for the support so far.  I’ll try to keep the good stuff coming.

Casting Call - Everyday Edisons

Published on December 28, 2007 in Events. 0 Comments

Everyday Edisons is doing a casting call in Atlanta on January 12, 2008. So what is Everyday Edisons? Apparently it’s a show on PBS stations and the premise is:

Everybody has a great idea that could change the way we work, the way we live or the way we play. Everyday Edisons documents the development process of 14 inventions and the parallel stories of the people who invented them. Selected from thousands, the 14 Everyday Edisons learn how their extraordinary ideas are taken from a sketch on a napkin to a store shelf.

I must admit, I’ve never seen the show. But like most things in promoting your idea/company, no press is bad press. If you’ve got an idea you think could make it onto TV, take a Saturday and head to the casting call. If you go (and especially if you get selected), let us know in the comments. Just remember that your nickname in Atlanta will then forever be “Edison”.

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