Angel Investing, Entrepreneurship & Learning

It was 3 years ago, almost to the day, that I heard about an entrepreneurial program called Junto Partners. I decided to throw my “hat in the ring” to be selected as 1 of 5 entrepreneurs that would receive a $50k investment to start a company. The program lasted 8 weeks; it was filled with Trump/Apprentice-like activities and the awesome experience of learning at the feet of venture capitalist and entrepreneur mastermind Greg Warnock.

Being selected as one of the Junto Partners really jump-started my entrepreneurial career. I ended up investing my $50k into FundingUniverse (which had started several months earlier) and was off and running. It opened doors and provided momentum and infrastructure to a young and energetic entrepreneur. I attribute a lot of any success that I’ve had to the Junto experience.

Though the experience was invaluable, I also felt like there were a few pieces of the Junto program that were “broken.” I didn’t like the deal structure/terms of the $50k.  Also, while I learned a ton from my partners (and they’ll be good friends for the rest of my life), the partnership arrangement didn’t foster the best decisions to build successful companies. I also felt that the mentor program needed some re-structuring.

Despite the challenges, I felt like the Junto Partners program was a fantastic program and needed to exist. Greg Warnock and Alan Hall (the masterminds behind Junto) are sincere in their desire to build entrepreneurship in the state and they love working with young and energetic entrepreneurs. As a result, I felt motivated to provide as much help and feedback to the re-structuring of the new Junto Partners program. Led by Joe Grover (one of my 5 Junto Partners), we met several times to figure out how to create the Junto Partners program with the “issues” being resolved.

That being said, I’d like to help announce the Junto Partners Program 2008. If you are an entrepreneur and are looking to take the needed step to be “plugged in,” you totally should apply to participate. Even if you aren’t accepted as 1 of the 5 entrepreneurs, the 8 weeks of learning (which is free) will be one of the best experiences you will go through as an entrepreneur and will change the way that you think about things. The deadline for the application is this week (April 30th), so don’t wait.

Thanks to Greg, Alan (and Joe) for their hard work to provide such an amazing program for young entrepreneurs. I’ll always be grateful for their mentoring, friendship, and foresight.

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As mentioned in Jeff’s blog, we just released a pretty sweet video showing the excitement and value of our SpeedPitching luncheons. A lot of people have requested to attend as a spectator to see how it works, so here’s your chance.

Props to Joe Grover and his company Digital Mind Studios for putting together such a sexy video. Joe has been a great Junto Partner for the past 2 years and (as you can see) does amazing work.

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Last week, I had a terrific meeting with a good friend and mentor Devin Thorpe of Thorpe Capital. Not only is Devin a very savvy businessman, I like to say that he is on the “good side” of investment banking.

Devin and I usually meet once a month before the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum luncheon. One of the topics that we discussed this month was the importance of having a clear cut exit strategy. It seems that the exit strategy is included in every book or article on writing a business plan, but I’m going to go out on a limb to say that having an exit strategy really isn’t that necessary!

Of course, if you are trying to seek money from an angel investor or VC, your idea must have the potential to exit at some point in the future — that is where most of their ROI will come. However, do you really need to know the possible companies that could purchase your company? I don’t think so. The problem that I foresee is that if you are focused on building your company in such a way that it will be appealing to company XYZ, what happens when XYZ decides not to make the purchase? Did you have to forego possible growth in order to appeal to XYZ? I foresee all sorts of problems when building a company with that specific end in mind.

On the contrast, what if you were just focused on building a successful company? My thought would be that if you are generating substantial revenue, your company will then be appealing to many different companies — which means that they will be competing/bidding to acquire you.

Successful company + competing acquirers + Devin Thorpe = Happy Day my friend.

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While this post is a few weeks late, I want to give a big shout out to Nicole Davis, the director of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition/event. I’ll tell you what, if you missed out on this year’s Gala, I’m very sorry! Everyone and their dog attended the black-tie event; I think that there were close to 1000 people there.

There are a few of the winner’s that I know personally and I would like to congratulate them:

• Greg Warnock: Greg won the special “Supporter of Entrepreneurship” Award. Greg is a personal mentor of mine through the Junto Partners program. He is amazingly well-connected and has a sincere desire to promote entrepreneurship in the state.
• Mark Burton: Mark is a personal friend that I have known since my youth. He is a member of my faith and was an inspiration to me growing up. He has built a very successful company and is an active angel investor.
• Josh James & John Pestana: Josh & John are the Founders of Omniture — the most recent Utah company to go public. I have come to know Josh & Johnny P through my brother Dave (Director of Strategic Accounts at Omniture). They are both young entrepreneurs and are way cool.
• Will West: I don’t know Will quite as well as I know the others, but he is a mentor to the Junto Partners. I have met with him in his office and he has provided valuable feedback to FundingUniverse.com. He has agreed to participate in a FundingUniverse.com podcast interview to provide valuable tips and suggestions on how to raise capital for your business. He has raised more capital than anyone in the state of Utah.

Nicole Davis: you deserve an “atta girl!” Nice work, my friend, on an amazing event.

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A good friend of mine and previous Junto Partner, Tamio Stehrenberger, once created the “Don’t Hate” t-shirt brand. I always thought that the brand was cool because it’s in align with my “Be cool” theory.

Anyway…the reason that I bring this up is because a blogger in Texas posted an entry about FundingUniverse.com and me that was definitely “not cool.” Of course, everyone has their opinion… so it’s not that big of deal.

Although, if you are going to state your opinion, don’t you think that you should be educated on the subject? This guy doesn’t know me from Adam. He has no idea what we have accomplished or what we are building. He also doesn’t know how accurate the article in VentureWire was — it’s not my fault that the VW article posted that we raised “less than $1MM.”

Either way, I’m really glad that he made the entry because “any PR is good PR.” I wish him the best of luck and only give him one piece of advice: “Don’t Hate!”

UPDATE:  I read Mark Cuban’s blog this morning on criticism and I really like what he has to say.  If you don’t do anything, you’ll never be criticized.  If you are being criticized, it probably means that you are on the right track.  Take the criticism, learn from it, and keep going!

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Yo blog readers: If you haven’t heard already, the Utah Bloggers Conference is coming soon. Mark your calendars:

• June 13, 2006 (6:30 pm - 9:00 pm)
• Miller Business Innovation Center
• Free admission, food, and prizes
• Hosted by my peeps: Ryan Money, Phil Burns, & others

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