Angel Investing, Entrepreneurship & Learning

Brock Blake blogs…

It’s been a week of … moving

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!

Internship stud

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!

Previous Blog

I guess that it would be smart to add a link to my old blog on here….www.brockblake.blogspot.com.

The future of technology

I’m going to join the thousands of people who are talking about the future of technology. With the invent of PODcasting, TiVo, Google alerts, and the like; it appears that the future will be filled with valuable and relevant information at your fingertips. Imagine a world of personalized information at your disposal when you want it and how you want it. No commercials, no sorting, no unwanted information.

It seems that in the near future, radio will soon be replaced by PODcasts of information that will only play your favorite songs or shows. Steps of action have already been taken with satellite radio, but it will even go further than that. In light of all of this discussion, I’m leaving a few links that talk in more detail about the future of technology.

-Paul Allen’s post on Intelligent Alerts
-Phil Windley’s article in Connect Magazine on PODcasting.

What do you think? Please refer me to other similar articles.