Angel Investing, Entrepreneurship & Learning

This past week has been so crazy I can’t believe it.  In the most literal sense, my wife and I spent most of last week and the weekend moving to a new home.  The whole process — packing, cleaning, lifting, organizing, etc. — is something that I don’t particularly enjoy.

On top of that, things have been wonderfully crazy at FundingUniverse.com.  Just yesterday, we launched the first ever VideoPitch service.  I’m super stoked about the new tool because it will really help entrepreneurs to get in front of angel investors.  I started thinking about the impact that it could have if used properly…

When an entrepreneur is seeking funding from an angel investor, it is a difficult process.  First of all, it’s hard to know who is an angel investor.  If I do know someone that is an investor, it will probably be difficult to get a meeting with him/her because they are so busy.  If I do happen to get a meeting with him/her, I’ll probably want to take him/her out to lunch (which would cost about $25-$30).  After I have taken that person to lunch, I will have spent 1-2 hours — and that’s only 1 investor.  That’s a lot of time and money spent that could’ve been used elsewhere.

If the same entrepreneur spends the same amount of time (1-2 hours) and a comparable amount of money ($35) preparing and recording a VideoPitch, you could get in front of a lot more investors and be much more effective.

Anyway…back to moving.  In addition to moving homes and moving the VideoPitch along, we are also moving forward on a couple of really exciting deals.  (As soon as they are closed, I’ll share the secret ).  With all of this “moving” going on, I haven’t had much time for blogging or sleep.  As soon as things slow down…I’ll catch back up!

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Our intern, Bryce, is a total stud!  The thing that I love about Bryce is that he is all about business.  He comes in (every morning at 8 am), does research, and then compiles a daily newsletter that is sent out to our newsletter subscribers.

The newsletter that he puts together is filled with terrific content on funded deals, the latest news and articles on entrepreneurship and angel investing, and a plug for upcoming events.  If you don’t currently subscribe to the newsletter, you should try it out for at least one week — you can always unsubscribe!

While this entry may sound like somewhat of an advertisement, it was motivated by the daily dose of great news that I get from Bryce’s newsletter.  It ends up saving me a lot of time because I don’t have to scour the web for the content and there are always new sources and references.  Anyway…thanks Bryce!

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I am continually impressed by Alan Hall. Alan Hall is the founder of Grow Utah Ventures, the most active early-stage venture capital firm in Utah. Their latest announcement is the funding of Revinetix — that’s 30+ technology companies funded by Grow Utah since their inception.While 30+ companies is a very impressive number, the most impressive part about Grow Utah is their vision to stimulate & support entrepreneurship by rallying financial resources throughout Utah. As a result of Alan’s leadership, 4 new angel groups have been formed throughout the state. Each group meets regularly (once a month) to listen to pitches and fund new deals.

Another reason that I’m so impressed with Alan is because he feels a personal responsibility to give back to the community. He explains that he is the beneficiary of good fortune which only means that he is now a steward over the money that he has made. As a steward, he is doing all that he can to make good use of it. But, it’s not just money that he contributes! He spends much of his time helping and mentoring entrepreneurs.

Thanks Alan for helping entrepreneurs and building a strong legacy for others to follow!

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One of my Junto Partners, Justin Bergener, just recently launched VIPbloggers.com.  VIPbloggers.com is a unique blog directory that helps you to attract traffic to your blog.  I purchased a space on the site and I have already received quite a bit of traffic — and he hasn’t even done any marketing yet.

The price is totally cheap ($10 for 6 months); if you are interested in attracting traffic to your blog, I would give it a try!

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While my wife and I don’t watch a whole lot of TV (unless it is sports), we regular watchers of Donald Trump’s reality show The Apprentice. Most of the time, I enjoy the show because the job candidates are involved in unique and interesting business challenges. I can’t stand it when they try and add too much drama or too much advertising, but all in all, I like the show.

After watching the series for a few years, I’m really surprised with some of the decisions that the candidates are making! Don’t get me wrong — I’m not claiming that I would do well on the show; but if I was on the show, here are a few of the things that I would do to try and make it to the final round:

1. Through the first couple of rounds, I would keep quiet and execute. To me, almost all of the candidates that get fired in the first couple of rounds are the ones are trying really hard to impress everyone. They want to get into the spotlight from the beginning and end up being spotlighted in a way that they weren’t expecting — getting fired! I would let everyone else fight and claw in the beginning while I was getting my job done in the background — my time to shine would come.
2. It seems to me that the key to doing well on each project would be to focus on marketing. Who are the customers that you are trying to please? How can you create a product/service that will make the customers happy? Many of the candidates try too hard to shine by coming up with crazy and unique ideas and trying to push those ideas on the customers. When the ideas aren’t getting the results that they want, they all start to panic and the show ends up being more of a drama than a business competition.
3. Don’t be fake. Many of the candidates try so hard to be everyone’s friend, that they end up being totally fake. In the end, the others see right through the insincerity and it ends up backfiring. I think that the best approach is to be your best self. People appreciate when you are being sincere and that will result in support and backing from others.
4. If you are the project manager and have to choose 2 others to go to the board room, use the odds to your advantage. Time and time again the project manager chooses 2 people that they don’t like and want to see get fired. What ends up happening is that the other 2 candidates team up and the project manager gets fired! (For the life of me, I can’t figure this out) If the project manager took 1 person who they thought deserved to be fired and one other person that they knew was on his/her side, then the chances of being fired would be very slim.
5. Have fun. I love people that are fun to be around. Life is too serious as it is…so we might as well have fun in the process. If people like you and you execute, you will do well.

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With all of this talk about Blackberry going out of business, I started to think about what my life would be like without my Blackberry. Here is a list of some of the things that I thought of:

1. I wouldn’t be as effective with my time. Having a Blackberry could possibly save me about an hour each day responding to emails. Since I am huge believer that the best things happen outside the office, this is time that I try to spend networking and meeting with customers or potential partners.
2. I gaurantee that I would sleep better at night. Since I don’t have an alarm, I end putting my phone next to my bed so that it will wake me up in the morning. The problem is that my Blackberry ends up vibrating on the nightstand up until midnight (when it automatically turns off) and starting at 6 am (when it automatically turns on). Although I am getting better, it almost kills me to know that I just received an email and not take the time to at least see who it is from.
3. I would be a much safer driver. (I probably shouldn’t admit this, but…) I sometimes reply to emails while I am driving! I’m trying really, really hard not to do this (thanks to my wife’s help :)). Instead, I try to reply with very short emails when I am stopped at a stoplight. Don’t worry, drivers, I am making a concious effort to stop.
4. My work wouldn’t go with me everywhere I go. Actually, I’m not quite sure this one is completely accurate because I suffer from “the curse“, but at least it would help.
5. My thumbs wouldn’t be so small. According to Paul Allen’s Connect Magazine article, the thumbs of many businessmen are actually decreasing in size because of the increased Blackberry use — it’s the “survival of the fittest” theory.

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One of our potential partners showed me the free do-it-yourself-podcasting site called Gcast. I’m totally stoked to try it out and see what happens. Has anyone else tried or used Gcast? I’d love to hear about your experience.

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Ok…I might be a little slow to the blog reading community! Up until this past week, I have been reading my 10-20 blogs each day by visiting each of their sites individually. I guess that it wasn’t that hard because I had them all bookmarked in my browser. Finally, one of my Junto Partners showed me Google Reader and I love it.

Basically, it captures all of the RSS feeds from all of my favorite blogs and stores them in my reader. This way, I can just visit one site to see and read all of the new blogs.

Yes….I know…it’s about time.

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Recently I have had a lot of thoughts about negotiation and I’ve finally decided that it is a worthless game. We all know how it works:

1. Let the other make the first offer
2. No matter what the offer is (no matter if it’s highly in your favor or not), your response must be one of shock and surprise…”Are you kidding me?”
3. In our heads, most of us thinking, “I think that it’s fair if the deal comes out 50/50, so I’ll say that it should be 60/40 so he’ll negotiate it his way back up to 50/50.”
4. We continue to play the game, not acting too interested, and sometimes even threatening to walk
5. In the end, the most aggressive negotiator “wins” because the other just wants to get on with the deal

Is that consistent with your experiences?

Personally, instead of battling back and forth until we come to an agreement, I would rather work together to find something that is mutually beneficial. This type of “negotiation” will in the end pay much larger dividends because your relationship is built on teamwork and trust.

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Paul has blogged about his comments that I mentioned in my previous post…check them out at his blog.

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I spent the past 2 days at the Corporate Alliance Summitt and met a lot of amazing people. While there, I learned a valuable lesson from Paul.

When asked the question, “what is one of the reasons that young entrepreneurs fail?” His response was very relevant and wise:

“One of the problems that young entrepreneurs have is that they don’t know a ‘Rockstar hiring candidate’ when they see one. It’s not that they can’t hire well, it’s that they haven’t been around the block to work with a ‘Rockstar marketer’ or a ‘Rockstar salesman’ so they hire based on their resume or other credentials.”

His comment really got me thinking and I believe what he has said. The question now is…how do you hire a rockstar team member of you are a young entrepreneur?

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