There are tons of informative sessions at Web 2.0 Expo. I especially like the Day 1 workshops. Maybe it’s the no-break, three-hour block . . . the fewer tracks . . . or the reduced traffic, since a good many folks opt out of Day 1 to save money. Shame.
If you’re a coder, there are solid technical workshops. But even though I’ve started up several companies, today I made a beeline for the startup and financing workshops. Why? Mainly because the scene/climate is constantly changing. But also because, just as with a pitch meeting, you always come away with some useful nuggets.
At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco in April, it was ‘Starting Up: Strategies for Financing & Growing Your Web 2.0 Startup,’ put on by Rob Hayes of First Round Capital and Jeff Clavier of Softtech VC. Today, it was ‘Casing the Startup Joint: Real Life Examples of Startup Opportunities, Issues, and Strategic Decision Making,’ presented by Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures, along with Charlie O’Donnell of Path 101 (Charlie was formerly an analyst with USV).
[Fellow East Coast startups take note: Both USV (New York) and First Round (just outside Philadelphia) are early-early stage VCs. Both are on my radar for CHALLENJ — but despite what First Round says about investing on Powerpoints, I don’t plan to approach either until our app is built; USV makes it clear they want something working.]
Here are a few random nuggets from today:
– Shift from hard-coded documents to live ones Although crafting a clear (if not pretty) business plan is still advised (if for nothing else, it gets everyone in the company on the same page, so to speak), VCs would rather see your competitive analysis in a wiki. “It also tells us that you have an ongoing process for tracking competitors,” according to USV’s Wenger. And if your .ppt deck doesn’t change nearly every time you deliver it, by definition it’s stale.
– Reduce your risks before applying Be mindful of the four buckets of risk before you approach any investor: 1) Team, 2) Technology; 3) Market; and 4) Capital Requirements. Says Wenger: “We can handle one — maybe two — but that’s it. (I’m working on my team — any killer PHP coders out there?)
– Rejection by one VC firm has no reflection on your business Suck it up. Firms like USV do fewer than 20 investments a year (and some of them are later stage). If they pass — presuming you’ve been sufficiently persistent — move on. (The corollary to this of course is, if 40 firms pass on your deal . . . it’s time to retool.)
– State of angel investment The thin g to remember — and it’s good news — is that the number of angel investors is 10x the number of VCs. But you have to work a lot of venues to find them, since most don’t hang out a shingle with wings on it — uncles, friends of the family, doctors, they all count. The bad news? When Wall Street flails (as it’s doing right now), even the wealthy get skittish. As O’Donnell puts it, “The rich tend to write fewer checks when they feel less rich.”
Lastly, it’s always interesting to hear the war stories from other startup CEOs. To be honest, I’ve made enough mistakes that I don’t learn all that much in these ‘true-confession’ sessions . . . but there’s something comforting in knowing that really smart people also did some dumb things.