Angel Investing, Entrepreneurship & Learning

One of the things that has been on my mind since I attended the Gnomedex 8.0 conference was how social media can positively and negatively affect the FundingUniverse brand.  Now, I realize that “social media” is a very popular buzz word these days — everyone (& their dog) is talking about social media and I’m trying to decide if the buzz is justified or if this is a fad similar to podcasts and other new media.

Some of you might be asking… what is Social Media?  I’m no social media expert, but I’m referring to the following platforms:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Company Blog
• iPhone & Facebook Applications

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Trent and I had the opportunity to attend the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum Top 25 under 5 award luncheon yesterday, and we had a great time.  We had found out last week that FundingUniverse would be one of the top 25 and we ended up at number 19!

After hearing about the top 5 companies, I think that I could’ve guessed all but the #1 company.  The top 5 were:

1. Agel (www.agel.com):  Agel Enterprises, LLC has created a nutritional supplement in single-serving gel form packaging that is not a burden to consume, is convenient, tastes good, and quickly absorbs into the body.
2. Control4 (www.control4.com):  Control4 is the platform for today’s digital home and makes whole-home automation a practical option for any residence. They believe that home automation is not just for the rich and that fully customizable solutions are not just for luxury homes.
3. SkullCandy (www.skullcandy.com):  Skullcandy was founded in 2003 by CEO Rick Alden.  It is the fastest growing consumer electronics company on earth, specializing in audio & gaming headphones, audio accessories, integrated audio devices & mp3 players.
4. Seastone (www.seastone.com):  Seastone Consumer Products Group is the market leader in specialty gift card packages and gift card promotional programs.
5. Mindshare Technologies (www.mshare.net):  Mindshare’s business monitoring survey tools gather continuous real-time threads of customer feedback that can be immediately transformed into actionable intelligence.

I’m going to be honest, I was a little disappointed to find out that another MLM was at the top of the list. I really would’ve like to see MoveNetworks at the top of yesterday’s list.  From everything that I hear, it sounds like they are the real deal.  They must be, they just raised another $46M that was led by tier 1 VC Benchmark Capital.  It should be fun to see the company grow.

Anyway, congrats to all of the companies that were on the list!

UPDATE:  Because of a few misunderstandings (on the way that my original entry read), I have edited the current entry to better reflect my thoughts on the subject.

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I’m up in Seattle today getting ready for tomorrow’s Northwest LivePitch event.  Carolynn has been working her tail off up here to host the event and things are coming together quite nicely.  As of earlier today, we had around 100 people that had RSVP’d for the event.  We also have 15 companies that have been selected to pitch with a Rockstar panel of judges that include:

• Nathan Kaiser, nPost.com
• Todd Dean, NorthWest Keiretsu Forum
• Tom Ryan, Atlas Recruiting
• Jim Roberts, UW Technology Transfer
• Rebecca Lovell, Alliance of Angels
• Buzz Bruggeman, ActiveWords
• John Kauffman, Stoel Rives

In addition to the event, we are excited to announce that Chris Pirillo, the well-known technologist, will be broadcasting the event live!  For those that want to check things out, go to http://live.pirillo.com at 2 pm PST (3 pm MST) and check things out!

FYI… spent the evening with Chris & his wife, Ponzi.  They are amazing individuals and have built an incredible business together.  I’ll have to write the details of the trip when I get back.  See you tomorrow!

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Any of you know the Hundred Dollar entrepreneur?  Those of you on twitter know her as @hundreddollar, and others know her by her real name (Carolynn Duncan).  No matter what you know her by, I’ll have to say that she has been a great addition to the FundingUniverse team.

About 6 months ago, we recruited Carolynn to do some of our Venture Consulting (helping entrepreneurs through the fund raising process).  Immediately, she began going above and beyond her role and led efforts to make a complete overhaul of systems, processes, and operations of the Venture Consulting Arm.  Since then, we’ve kept her very busy on several other areas of our company (sales, marketing, geographic expansion, curriculum development, etc.).

Currently, she is leading our geographic expansion and has opened up our Northwest region.  In a short 9 weeks, she’s developed relationships with angel groups, entrepreneurs, universities, networking organizations, business magazines, and VCs in the region.  Let’s just say that the region is on fire right now.

Not only is Carolynn talented, she understands the world of a startup.  She completely understands the fundraising process and has a bootstrapper’s mentality. She’s done a great job adding value to FundingUniverse and the clients that she serves.  We’re stoked to have her on board! 

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Over the past year, we’ve had many requests by entrepreneurs to come and attend our SpeedPitching events. While we’d love to have everyone there, part of the value for the entrepreneur/investor is to have an intimate environment where you can focus on relationships, etc. However, the good news is that we have just announced our upcoming LivePitch event — a pitching/networking event for all entrepreneurs.

Here’s how it works: we are inviting all entrepreneurial companies to apply to pitch. However, this isn’t necessarily a place to pitch for money. You can pitch for feedback, partners, help, fun, and/or for investment dollars. Yes, investors are invited — in fact, we’ll have a few of them on our “panel of experts.” But, the majority of the audience will be other entrepreneurs that are coming to have a good time and network.

Here’s the kicker: everyone in the audience will have $100 in “funny money” that they can use to “invest” in their favorite pitch. At the end of all the presentations, we’ll have 2 winners: one chosen by the panel of judges & another “chosen” by the audience’s investment dollars.

Each company will have several minutes to make a presentation, after which, they’ll answer questions posed by the panel of experts and/or the audience. It should provide a valuable learning experience for the presenters and allow some great exposure to the community. We previously hosted one LivePitch event in Boulder, CO and it turned out to be a huge success. Come and enjoy the opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs in the State.

Here are the details of the event:

When: Friday May 2, 2008
Venue: Miller Business Innovation Center
Building: Karen Gale Conference Center
Rooms: Wasatch and Cottonwood
Time: 9 am - 10:30 am
Cost: FREE! ($10 to apply to present)
Click here for more information or to register.

Also, for all of you Utah bloggers, please spread the word. We’ll announce our panelists (most likely angels & VCs) in the next few days.

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I’ve never been so busy at FundingUniverse.  Things are going better than they have ever gone before and I’m super excited about the future.  With the growth and opportunities, I’ve been over loaded with new projects and meetings which means that I’ve neglected to write as much as I’d like on the blog.  So here is a list of things that I would’ve liked to blog about, but didn’t:

1. FundingUniverse named #2 Startup to Watch on the UV50 list
2. Participating on the Advisory Board of the yet-to-be-publicly-announced Utah Pulse — the site for “all things business in Utah” — led and sponsored by Zion Bank’s CEO Scott Anderson
3. Recent FundingUniverse SpeedPitching event — 12 awesome companies, 30+ legit investors, 1 great location (Noah’s in Lindon)
4. Recent “hot companies” in Utah that I’ve seen or met with recently:  Lumiport, Open Floor Technologies, Sendside, Velosum, Mangia, SimpleStartup, and Neutron Interactive (there are probably more, but I can’t think of them all right now).
5. v|100 list was announced — though it can sometimes just seem like a popularity list, I’m honored to represent FundingUniverse because the recognition comes from the Utah Business Community
6. Lots of thoughts on various types of financing for businesses including, but not limited to:  unsecured lines of credit (680+ credit score & 2 years of business will go a long way), Dell business credit (an easy $25,000), Google credit line (an easier $125,000), Equipment leasing, etc.
7. The parting of Jeff:  total stud.  We’ll miss him.  In the end, will work out best for everyone.
8. Following up on Entrepreneurship & the Family… for those of you that are entrepreneurs and have a family, I’d love to get your feedback via a quick survey that I set up.  It’s a fun side project for me.
9. Read the book The Illusions of Entrepreneurship and loved it.  You can learn more about it here and here.
10. Being a judge at the BYU Business Plan Competition — a lot of fun.  Went to the final event today and the final 3 winners are:  1.  Klymit (previously Argon… raised $375k through one of our SpeedPitching Events), 2. SchoolTipline (founder is Justin Bergener… one of my Junto Partners), and 3. Greeting Call.  Congrats to each of them!
11. Hiring of our new VP of Sales Jason Emett.  Jason is a rock-star that I’ve known for over a year.  He used FundingUniverse for a separate company and was invited to pitch in front of the Utah Angels.  We’re stoked to have him on board.
12. Looking to hire the following positions in the near future:  COO, CMO, Affiliate Recruiter, Internet Marketing Specialist, Business Loan Specialist, Investor Account Manager, and a few more.

Anyway, I know that there are a bunch of other things that I should be blogging about, but that’ll suffice for now.

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FundingUniverse has received some great publicity over the past couple of weeks.  Last week, we had a fantastic article published in the Wall Street Journal about how we are able to connect entrepreneurs with investors.  Now, this week, we had a blog entry posted on the Logoworks/HP blog about the when/how to raise capital.

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