BossTalks.com Tag: event

KMM15 on "Online Marketing Event Announced for Pittsburgh"

KMM15 — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:40:33 +0000

The Online Marketing:Innovations that Work conference has been announced for Pittsburgh on August 16, 2007. This conference is aimed to help business owners and professionals learn simple, cutting-edge innovations to help expand and promote thier businesses online. Speakers include representatives from Microsoft, eBay, WebTrends, g8wave, ihearpgh.com, and Direct Online Marketing. For businesses that are looking to supplement or create marketing objectives on the internet, this is an excellent opportunity to learn the basics that will help these goals get accomplished. More information can be found at MarketingConference.org.

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white on "TiE Meet the TCA Angels (event notes)"

white — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:19:46 +0000

This event was held at 5/29/2007 at the California State University in the Long Beach.

http://www.techcoastangels.com/Cal/PublicEvents.aspx?EventID=2541

It was leaded by John Morris who is past President and on the Board of Governors of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA) and Managing Director of GKM Ventures.

Here are some notes on the events.

It was an introductory meeting, it wasn't supposed to be very specific, it was detailed enough so everyone could get an answer for his questions. It was a pretty interesting networking for the first hour. And the very hot and spicy dinner -- it was nice, but only for those who can eat fire.

This is the first and experimental event on the Long Beach. Few words about the TiE (the organization which runs the event). TiE provides a range of opportunities for entrepreneurs and a mentorship programs. They have a regular seminary, TiEcon, and it is going to take place in the middle of September this year. Currently, TiE is developing close relationship with TCA.

When the time for Tech Coast Angels (TCA) presentation came, they started with the Key Trends:

VC Funds getting bigger, investment size increasing
Technology helping lower startups costs
Organized angel investing has become a national theme
VCs have grown t respect Angels, slowly
Angel bandwidth for coaching and mentoring is major value add for seed stage entrepreneurs
2006 nationwide Angel investments in 2006 topped $25.6 billion, matching VC investments in all rounds
VCs affiliate program is very important

Few words about the TCA:

TCA celebrates the 10th year
TCA is largest Angel organization in US
TCA has completed 41 deals in 2006, among them 20 new deals, 21 follow-ons
$11.4 millions from TCA, $96.4 millions from VCs
TCA organizes four groups (networks)
2005 was a break out time for TCA deals

The typical TCA Deal Flow Funnel:

Pre-screen
Network Screening Presentations -- 40% of opportunities
Due Diligence, Valuation and Terms -- 10%
Network Dinner Presentations -- 4%
Fund -- 2%

Typical TCA Investment Criteria:

Technology is a core
Located in Southern California (within driving range)
Addressing a compelling business need
Protect-able IP or barrier to competition
Validation from existing or potential customers or users
Market size enabling more 10x return within 5 years
Coachable and talented management team
Ability to attract future funding
More than just technology

Thesis from the event:

There are several Angels groups in the Southern California. They are often interconnected. In example, one of the speakers, Mr. Al Schnaeider -- one of the founders of LA Angels and Pasadena Angels networks, was one of the founder of Pasadena's one.
Angels don't like to do follow-ons, but TCA hit a lot of them last year.
Angels have a lot of VCs affiliates and sponsors -- can help you to get to the right firm and organization.
The recent TCA investments was made to Make It Work, Mindbody, Coda, etc.
VCs don't have as much time for you as Angels do.
Angel expect to do a lot of mentoring, because can really help, but not only write a check.
VCs can write a bigger checks and it's harder to reach them.
Most early stage companies fail because they make a failure mistake and they are very limited in possibilities.
TCA view of the entertainment industry -- they neither stay or go with entertainment industry. They work closely with the merger of Internet and real life social networking and entertainment media. But they are not always about technology component. Content development is very important. Entertainment is a tough industry and built on a risk pyramid and very challenging.
Nowadays it's not about a building your website, but it's about marketing it.
Angels try to act similar to VCs (in matter of investment rounds, etc).
It's awfully easy to take money from Friends & Family, but it's important to put it in writing properly. Every transaction should be properly documented.
Angels expect at least 12-15 months period of time for each funding round.
Valuation is not an academic science. Valuation depends on development stage, nature of market, risk, time range of the projects, reasonable projection, etc. In common, the valuation is a very complex question.
Angels don't want to mess with out-of-country and different-culture problems, but sometimes they do.
Business investor slides are for Angels, business plan for entrepreneur. Investor slides is the methodology nowadays, it's 15-20 slides and that's all. Written document (business plan) is not that important. Business plans are yesterday. Key elements of business plan should be included into investor slides. Substance is more important than a form. Quality of the answers is more critical than a business plan. Put up a chart in presentation and provide a reason why and how to get enough ROI for Angels. They take a high risk and want to get high ROI. You should be realistic in your calculations hitting the high revenues.
The ideal situation if the Angels loose money, the founder should feel badly, too.
Angels expect to see confidence in your business.
The pre-screening could be a session, when you are not ready with the slides, but know the core thing, so Angels can advice you what are you missing, because they suppose to do mentoring.
TCA have a very deep relations with UCLA, Caltech, etc and they provide mentoring and coaching over there.
Management vs governance. Angels want to help on opening the path to customers and clients. They offer help to management, but try not to force it.
You've got to have some customers who are interested. Needs to be a high enough pain for the problem which you're solving and a potential customer needs to want to work with the startup. Only 2% of business are willing to work with the startups.

In total, it was a pretty interesting event, which helps to build a great networking.

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green on "Google announces Developer Day in 10 cities"

green — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:32:31 +0000

Google announced Developer Day in 10 cities around the world. I believe it can be a very interesting event, and I clearly see the reason for that. They want to get everyone in one room. They want to get in touch in worldwide best developers community. This is the key of Google's success, and the thing on which they always stressed a lot. Google wants the best of the best to work for them, but it's getting harder and harder. Is it realted to their "brain drain"? Probably. A lot of people who were close to the company, who were in there from the very beginning are leaving, and brilliant minds need to be exchanged with new ones...

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white on "Are there anyone else going to Startup School?"

white — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 08:44:35 +0000

For those who missed it, the review is posted here at http://www.bosstalks.com/topic/52

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green on "Are there anyone else going to Startup School?"

green — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:33:53 +0000

yes, we will do our best do give a nice review

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johnw on "Are there anyone else going to Startup School?"

johnw — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 06:33:49 +0000

please do so! last year's podcast was very.. not full. ;-)

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white on "Are there anyone else going to Startup School?"

white — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:41:17 +0000

Yeah, I know it sucks. I'll do my best to make nice notes and will post them here.

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johnw on "Are there anyone else going to Startup School?"

johnw — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:28:28 +0000

Not me, mine was rejected... :-(

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white on "Are there anyone else going to Startup School?"

white — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 20:17:07 +0000

Are there anyone else going to Startup School 2007 to Stanford, CA?

My application was originally rejected, but lately, Mrs. Jessica Levingston (the author of Founders At Work and the partner at Y Combinator) approved it and allowed me to join this incredible event.

For those who don't know what is that, let me tell you. First of all, you are already missed it. :) But as for good things:

"This is free, one-day startup school this March 24 at Stanford. We'll have a range of experts speaking on all the things you need to know to start a company: what makes a good startup idea and where to get them; what to look for in a co-founder; how to get angel and VC funding; how to incorporate a company and what agreements founders should have among themselves; when and how to apply for patents; what can go wrong in a startup; what acquirers look for; and how the acquisition process works.

One day is not enough to cover all these topics thoroughly, but we think we'll be able to cover enough to make it clear how startups work. Many hackers consider starting a company at some point, but are put off because "business" seems a mystery. Our goal is to remove that mystery."

(quote from Startup School site)

I am very excited about it and can't wait networking with other geeks and listening to people, who already gained a lot and built a sucessful startups.

As for the speakers list, it's just incredible, it's even more impressive than last year event:

"Chris Anderson
Editor in Chief, Wired Magazine

Paul Buchheit
Creator of GMail

Paul Graham
Partner, Y Combinator; Founder, Viaweb

Mitchell Kapor
President, Open Source Applications Foundation; Founder, Lotus

Joel Lehrer
Associate, Goodwin Procter

Max Levchin
Founder, Slide; Founder, Paypal

Mark Macenka
Partner, Goodwin Procter

Michael Mandel
Chief Economist, BusinessWeek

Greg McAdoo
Partner, Sequoia Capital

Ali Partovi
Founder, iLike; CEO, GarageBand.com; Founder, LinkExchange

Rahoul Seth
CFO, Adteractive

Mark Zuckerberg
Founder, Facebook"

See you there!

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