The Startup Journey

On Monday (Dec 19), I attended the soft launch of Mentor Partners, a unique technology-focused seed fund, in Bangalore. The firm plans to initially invest $1 million each in 10 product-focused companies in the IT and telecom space: around $500,000 as seed investment or "bridge loan" and the remaining as part of the first round investment along with other Venture Capital firms. With two partners on the ground in Bangalore (Ravi Narayan who earlier co-founded Nextone Communications in the US and V.Prabhakar, a co-founder of Bangalore-based software testing services firm RelQ), Mentor Partners will help its investee companies get access to top companies in India, the US and other markets via its about 35 other members in its network. The network includes those who are either operating managers (like Vish Narayanan, Head of Telecom Operations at General Motors in Chicago) or "been there, done that" entrepreneurs (like Rosen Sharma who has founded several start-ups like ...

Jeff Bussgang recommends entrepreneurs "not be shy about holding their VCs accountable". Just as the board of directors evaluates the CEO/entrepreneur every year for their performance against results, the CEO/entrepreneur should have the license to evaluate their VCs for their performance. Who did they help recruit? What business development introductions did they make? Were they proactive in giving critical strategic advice? Were they available and responsive when needed for emergency issues? The article also points out how VCs apart from being answerable to investors in their funds (the "Limited Partners" or LPs), also have to answer to their partners. In a VC partnership, each VC is investing the money of their peers as well as theirs, and affecting the overall results of the fund. And so while an LP may not hold a VC accountable for periods shorter than 6-10 years (the period after which fund performance is well-known), VCs are accountable to their partn...

Bangalore-based incubator/early-stage fund Erasmic has decided it will not invest in any company which has just a single founder. Subrata Mitra, Founder & CTO of Erasmic said at a recent presentation at a TiE-Chennai event that this decision was driven by the founders' past experience with their own start-ups plus, given their small fund size ($3 million), Erasmic's ability to take risks was that much lower. Vineet Buch of BlueRun seconds this in his blog post: The best tech companies were founded by two people. Oracle, Cisco, Sun, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo ... the list goes on. One is usually not enough, three is acceptable, but having four founders can lead to committee-think - the antithesis of creativity. So, my entrepreneur friend, the first thing I recommend is finding a co-founder who has complementary skills and with whom you are comfortable spending your evenings and weekends. Munjal and I complemented each other perfectly while brainstorming on Ojos (a.k.a. ...

Businessworld has an article on ICICI Bank's "Sponsored Research and Development" (SPREAD) program that has "helped companies like Biocon, Shantha Biotech, Neuland Laboratories and Samtel lay their foundations". Now SPREAD loans are being used for innovative products and processes only a few companies in the world have developed or, in some cases, are now developing. For example, Strand Genomics in Bangalore is using the loan to develop new methods of predicting the toxicity of drugs. Proalgen Biotech in Chennai is using the loan to manufacture natural beta-carotene in very large quantities. Electronica Mechatronic Systems in Pune is developing very precise magnetic tapes for measurement. And so on. These companies would definitely sell their products in the Indian market, but their technology would be contemporary enough for them to sell in the global market too. It is not difficult to see the impact of these projects on t...

Jeff Cornwall has a nice post pointing out that Venture Capital gets much more attention that it deserves (from entrepreneurs seeking financing, that is): I often think that venture capitalists must have the best public relations machine in the world. Only a tiny fraction of a percent of entrepreneurial ventures ever get or need venture capital financing, and yet the two most common phrases that come out of most aspiring entrepreneurs mouths are "business plan" and "venture capital." It is as if the venture capitalists have done such a good job of branding that their product name has become common speech for financing a business (like Kleenex for tissues and Xerox for copying). Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners has some great advice on why Business Plans – at least those presented to VCs – should be in PowerPoint format. He also has some nice tips on what the slides should talk about. There is also a nice discussion happening in the comments section of the post where David critiques a BP submitted by one of the readers. 1. The cover slide should offer complete contact info, and a tagline if you've got it. One of the benefits of a powerpoint plan is that it forces you to perform the critical exercise of describing the business in very few words. 2. A mission statement is a good idea to present, unless it's rather obvious from the tagline (as in BlueNile.com: Education, Guidance, Diamonds and Fine Jewelry). Select a mission statement that is achievable, but not yet achieved.... A clear mission statement also includes a clear idea of what the startup will NOT do. Here are some nice ones... "Prolexic will create and dominate a new network ser...

Gaurav Bhatnagar has a great list of practical tips for hiring for a startup in India; especially hiring programmers. Hring in a hot market like India is especially hard. And for startups, even more so. My experience has been quite in contradiction with common wisdom. And my experiences are probably more relevant for startups and small companies which do not have an army of recruiters and which do not need to hire by the 100s (if not 1000s). Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

With Internet-based services companies back in favor among US VC investors (a phenomenon aka "Web 2.0" or "Bubble 2.0"), can service providers and wannabee start-up executives be far behind? Scripps Howard News Service has an article on PeopleConnect, an exectuive search firm that actually has a branded program called "Employees Without Paychecks" that focuses on placing executives and tech professionals who are willing to work at start-ups without pay until the clients' VC funding comes through. PeopleConnect is the first search firm to market a program of recruiting employees who will work for equity. "A friend of mine calls them 'angel employees,'" (PeopleConnect CEO) Max Shapiro, said, comparing them to angel investors, who fund early-stage companies. ... Shapiro markets the Employees Without Paychecks program to early-stage companies that, like Commendo Software, are just a few months away from seeking venture funding. He selec...

Alok Mittal, the co-founder of JobsAhead.com (acquired by Monster.com in 2004) and now a venture capitalist with Barings India Private Equity, has launched a blog titled VentureWoods . In one of his early posts , Mittal talks about "Band of Angels India", a group of successful entrepreneurs and executives (of which he is a member) with a passion to invest in and mentor early stage businesses. The application process to BoA involves sending in an executive summary to any of the members (yes, investors themselves take decisions here, there are no “investment managers”) and convince them that what you have is a potentially successful business. The member than “sponsors” the proposal to the whole group. Members in the group make individual decisions on whether to invest in any particular opportunity — for example, 4 members may decide to fund a given venture. The members continue to be involved in the mentoring process. Typical deal size at BoA is less than Rs 2 crores. We expect...

Last week, I came across an interesting ad by the Ministry of Science and Technology in The Economic Times and The Hindu inviting proposals for the "Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP)" . The TePP aims to extend financial support to "individual innovators for converting their innovative ideas into working prototypes/models". Jointly operated by the Department of Scientific & Industrial research (DSIR) and Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) of the Department of Science & Technology (DST). Here are some extracts from the FAQ section of the DSIR web site # Who can apply? Any Indian Citizen with an original idea/invention/know-how to develop working prototype/processes can apply for TePP support. Even, the proposal from the owner of a ‘start-up’ company/industry may be considered for TePP support, if the annual turnover of the company / industry doesn’t exceed Rs. 30.00 lakh per annum. # How much support one can expect? Th...

TiE Silicon Valley has launched "TiE-Webstream Zone" showcasing videos of presentations by various speakers at its various forums. From Vinod Khosla and Tom Friedman keynoting at TiECon 2005 to the various interesting presentations at the monthly meetings, the selection is indeed wide. Entrepreneurs from around the world will definitely find quite a few vidoes well worth watching. Thanks TiE-SV for this great effort! Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

The TiE Chennai Chapter , which hasn't been very active in the recent past, seems to have become vibrant again. The Chapter's latest "Success Close Up" event on 19th October - featuring Chandu Nair, Co Founder & Director of knowledge process outsourcing firm Scope e-Knowledge Center - was especially interesting and useful. The Success Close Up event is envisoned as a presentation "by a Successful Entrepreneur who...are willing to share with others candidly their life experiences in an informal setting". Chandu Nair delivered on all this and more in his very engrossing presentation and sincere and thoughtful answers in the subsequent Q&A session. The presentation and discussions covered how Scope was created (serendipty), challenges faced (one of the main being the need to let people go, ameliorated somewhat by active outplacement help), relationships between the founders (better be direct about issues rather than let them simmer), support from the en...

Bill Burnham of Celsius Capital has a great post on the lessons he learned from investing in Datapower, a company that was recently acquired by IBM. The entrepreneur "sometimes" knows his market better Just after Datapower had launched its first product, a performance oriented appliance, Eugene lobbied for the company to accelerate the launch a second security oriented product that had been planned for a quarter or two in the future. At the time, I remember cautioning Eugene on the potential distractions and costs of having two immature products in the market at the same time. Eugene lobbied hard to take the risk and thankfully he won the day. I say thankfully because not only did the company land a $300K order that quarter for the security product, but it was able to establish significant mindshare in the security space well ahead of its competitors. To this day the security space continues to have the most robust market demand and competitors that failed to quickly lau...

Bill Burnham of Celsius Capital has a great post. While it is a VC's angle, it has relevance to entrepreneurs as well. Given the importance of M&A to both VCs and start-ups, it’s important to realize that the seeds for M&A success or failure can actually be sown quite early in a start-up’s life and well before any potential deal materializes. With this in mind, I offer the following Top Ten M&A Commandments with the idea being that if a start-up follows these commandments it will be able to avoid some of the most common structural and financial issues that have the potential to blow-up a deal or dramatically reduce its value. These commandments include: # Thou Shall Not Give a Strategic Investor a Right of First Refusal, Right of First Offer or a Protective Provision that Enables Them to Block a Sale. If you must have a strategic investor in your company (and in general I recommend against it) by all means do not give them a Right of First Refusal, a Right of First O...

Business Week has a cute little quiz to help wannabe entrepreneurs find out if they have the stuff. Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Paul Kedrosky has an entertaining account of an "all too common" type of "value-add" from VCs that entrepreneurs can do without. Too many venture guys do virtually zero heavy-lifting when it comes to qualifying the people they toss at already stressed and over-worked portfolio company CEOs. “Here, talk to this guy, maybe you guys could have an alliance … here, talk, to this guy, he’s with a big company that I met recently.” It’s closer to spam than real added value. Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

"Genuine VC" David Beisel has a list of "Seven Reasons To Become a Founding Entrepreneur", including Creation. The essence of a founder’s job is to create something where there was previously nothing. An idea becomes a plan; a plan produces a product; a product launches a company. To me, the notion of conceiving and building something both tangible and real is paramount. .. Variety. The title “Founder” is function-agnostic. Sure, someone may be a technical founder or a founder with expertise & a formal leadership role in another function (sales, marketing, etc.), but during those exciting early days everyone is wearing many different hats. The diversity in the tasks required of someone in this role necessitates that there is rarely a dull moment. Control. Many jobs leave the much of one’s destiny to the group he/she works in, the company he/she works for, etc. Obviously, there are extraneous unmalleable factors with everything in life, career paths are no exc...

Until 2004, Intel Capital was probably the sole active corporate VC investing in the Indian technology sector. As I have written earlier, Flextronics with its string of rapid acquisitions of telecom R&D companies in 2004 - quite a few of them, interestingly, with Intel Capital as an investor - has emerged as a significant new player. 2005 has seen the VC arms of Nokia, Cisco, IBM, TI and other hi-tech companies - begin to actively scan the Indian market for potential investments. Add to this, the active investments in by some of the Indian business groups - like the Godrej Group and more recently, Reliance Capital - it certainly seems as if corporate VCs are going to play an increasingly important role in the Indian technology landscape. In this context, it is important for Indian entrepreneurs to understand the factors that drive corporate VCs vis-a-vis pure financial investors. A recent Knowledge@Wharton article , quoting the work of Gary Dushnitsky from Wharton and Michael J. Le...

Allen Morgan of Mayfield, has some great suggestions on how entrepreneurs should go about creating their start-up team - especially selecting co-founders. He points out how VCs most often pass on interesting ideas because they don't like some of the co-founders. ..for a VC firm that is comfortable with early stage startups, an incomplete startup team is preferable to a team with the wrong team members. First, VC’s pride themselves (some are even good at it) on being good at helping their companies recruit. If a startup has an attractive couple of founders and a terrific business idea, a VC can imagine how additional, world-class team members could be recruited to fill out the team. ...Second,.. it’s always hard to transition the “wrong” co-founder out of the Company – it’s also economically unattractive to the remaining co-founders. Org-charts We’ve all seen a “standard” organization chart. It has (1) the CEO at the top, (2) Four to eight Vice-presidents below, each in charge of a...

Allen Morgan , quoting his friend John Kernan, has tips on conducting board meetings: 1. NEVER have the board meetng "at" the board meeting. ALWAYS call every director a few days before the meeting and run every important issue by them to get their input, Also update them on company performance, especially the bad news, and let them "beat you up" privately. That way, the meeting can focus in a constructive fashion on problem-solving and building the Company for the future. 2. Maximum Powerpoint show is four slides from any presenter, especially yourself. This should be the limit of director interest in detail. ..4. Have your key team members do almost all the presentations. It gives them exposure and allows you to make sage comments along with the rest of the board. A perfect board meeting is when 10% of the talking is done by the CEO, 60% by the team, and 30% by the directors. ..8. For VC directors, try to picture how they are describing your Company to their par...

Rajesh Jain's has posted on a topic that I have heard several times from other entrepreneurs and VCs. (I had a discussion) with a US-based venture capitalist of Indian origin who had an interesting take on the problems with entrepreneurship in India. He made four points. First, salaries in India will rise faster than cost of living which would make it unattractive for employees working with the international majors to quit and create or join a start-up. Second, even the ones who are venturing out seem to be more focused on services than products. Third, the few in the products area seem content OEMing their creation to the market leaders rather than taking them on with full stacks. Finally, Indian companies lack vision to think big and global. I agreed with him on all four counts and added one of my own. It is well nigh impossible to do a tech, product-oriented start-up because angel and early-stage funding is simply not there. The post also features interesting comments from othe...

Jeff Cornwall quotes bankruptcy lawyer Bobby Guy: 10. Over-expansion. The need to get there first or to demonstrate revenue growth to anxious investors leads businesses to grow too fast. 9. Poor Capital Structure. Companies take on too much debt....Enough said! 8. Failure to Control the Controllable Costs. Businesses spend down the initial cash before it is flowing in at a positive rate. 7. Failure to Prepare for Volatility of Uncontrollable Costs. For example, energy, materials, labor, or insurance. 6. Add New Products or Divisions that Drag Down the Profitable Ones 5. Poor Internal Controls and Execution -- customer service, accounting controls, theft, fraud 4. Poorly Designed Business Model 3. Reliance on Critical Financing that Dries Up 2. Failure to Adapt to a Changing Market AND THE #1 REASON? Management in Complete Denial...... Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View ...

Jeff Bussgang on what’s an entrepreneur to do in the context of a fundraising process when time is their enemy, but the VC’s friend? One piece of advice is to simply recognize this difference in this attitude towards time and try not to fight against it.  One wizened general partner at a top firm once remarked to me about a particular deal:  “They told me I had to make a decision in the next few days, so I told them I’d save them a few days and simply pass.  It’s VC 101 – anytime an entrepreneur puts a gun to my head, I pass.  There’s always another deal.”   If you can create a sense of urgency in the fundraising process, you’re running an unusually charmed process.  More typically, you can expect to run a fundraising process where you simply have to give VCs the time they need to “soak in” the deal, live with it for a few months and then, at the right moment, try to call their interest to question.  Rushing the proce...

Extracts from a great post in SiliconValleyWatcher.com by Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow Technologies: -If you start by selling your concept to potential prospects (rather than stock to VCs), you will either end up with initial customers or a conviction that your idea won't work. Why raise money and then find out which one it will be? -Raising money takes time away from understanding your market and potential customers. Often more time than it would take to just go sell something to a customer. Let your customers fund your business through product orders. -Adding VCs to the mix early gives you an additional set of masters you must serve in addition to your customers. It is always hard to serve two masters, especially in a startup. -With no money you can't make a fatal mistake. This is a blessing. Without VC money, you are forced to figure out how to extract funds from your customers for value you deliver. Ultimately that is the only thing that really matters. -Raising VC mone...

Today, a lot of start-up acquisitions come with a “earn-out” provision for the founders – i.e., a part of the payment that is linked to their sticking around and meeting some performance targets. A Business Week article advises entrepreneurs on how to deal with the earn out agreement. The key to a successful earnout lies in negotiating smart, achievable targets, making sure they're spelled out clearly in your contract, and keeping some power over decisions that directly affect them. You'll also want to nail down your own position in the new company -- and your eventual exit from it. ...Many experts recommend using revenue targets instead (of profits). "It's harder for buyers to do things that will depress sales than to depress income," says Mihanovic. ...No matter which type of target you use, fight for sliding-scale rather than all-or-nothing payments. That ensures that "if you're within 80% of the threshold, you'll get 80% of the payout," says...

From Tom Evslin: My advice to entrepreneurs on this clause is to say politely and firmly “what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.” The no shop should prohibit the VC from entering into financing discussions with competitors broadly defined of the company during the exact same period when the company can’t talk to other investors. If your VC won’t agree to this, don’t hesitate to ask what discussions they are engaged in In general it is good negotiating advice to make sure that every clause which can be mutual is mutual. Often this technique helps in reaching agreement. For example, with a truly mutual no shop neither party will want it to be very long and both have a strong incentive to complete negotiation quickly.

BernardMoon of GoingOn Networks, Inc. has some good advice in this AlwaysOn post: The bottom line is that no matter how good your team appears to investors, what really counts is how your team works together in the trenches. Poor team dynamics and failed chemistry can sink even the most promising companies—a fact many founders and investors discover too late. ...Partner with people you trust. My first piece of advice for any budding entrepreneur, and one I always overstate is, "Trust is essential." If you have any doubts about a potential partner, clear the air or steer clear completely. As John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers puts it, "You must ask, 'Are these the people I want to be in trouble with for the next 5, 10, 15 years of my life?' Because as you build a new business, one thing's for sure: You will get into trouble." ...Keep the communications channels open. Don't horde information. In today's fast-paced technology world...

Make sure your angel round doesn’t make you walk off a pier, advises this post on the IBD Blog Angels tend to have higher valuations than venture firms. The angel investment instrument is often a bridge loan to the close of the Series A round. The problem with high valuations is they may stop the VC from investing. Angels must feel comfortable that a Series A will close. Otherwise, a bridge that doesn't get finished is called a pier, and you don't want to walk off of a pier.

We primarily fund early-stage companies looking for 1st round funding, which is typically $3-5 million. I want to see the potential of a $100 million revenue per year company. It’s interesting to me when I see company projections and forecasts based on compound interest. I don’t think about compound interest. I can do Excel, too. I invest in companies to get 2-3 times the multiple of revenue (implying at least a $200M exit valuation). And sure, VCs have bigger appetites these days to build smaller, more targeted companies, in less time. And yes, M&A is the more likely exit. That’s the trend. I look for deals that will get 10x the return, and I don’t really care if that takes 3 years, 5 years, or 8 years. -- George Zachary, Partner of Charles River Ventures in IBD Network

"I would say that I'm an Ace Greenberg P.S.D. Ace has a saying: 'I won't hold an M.B.A. against you; but I prefer Poor, Smart, and a Desire to be rich.'" -- Bear Stearns vice-chairman Fares Noujaim in New York Magazine .

There’s a great audiocast of an entrepreneur panel at The Churchill Club – moderated by Guy Kawasaki - that discusses tactical information for building a successful startup. Example: Never use a headhunter for start-up hires. Hire only people you have worked with and if that’s not possible, people who have worked with people that you have worked with. Just download and listen . Its both fun and useful.

Jason Caplain, a partner with Raleigh, NC (USA)-based Southern Capitol Ventures, shares a list of "exceptional strategies implemented by some of our portfolio companies and others in the market to give them an advantage over their competition": 1. Service your competitor's customers when they have problems Are some of your prospects using the competition, but they struggle to get help when they need it most? Offer your assistance at this pivotal time. Furthermore, tell them to call you anytime. Eventually, they will bring their business to you as they realize that you are readily available and your competition is not. 7. Work with partners, not service providers Think of all the people you work with: lawyers, accountants, bankers, etc. Are they thinking about just the tasks you give them or are they thinking about you and your company? There is a big difference. A lot of local firms with help make introductions to potential customers, employees, partners and venture capi...

Venture capitalists never like deals where their money is used to buy the shares owned by founders and other early investors. They like the money they bring in to go "into building the company" - ie, towards hiring people, building a product, etc. Unless, that is, they are desparate to get in on the deal. Gary Rivlin of The New York Times reports that such "founder sales" deals are now becoming more common in the US. Companies like eHarmony, Webroot Software, Fastclick, etc., have witnessed the founders "using venture deals to cash out some of their equity without the bother of a public offering or an acquisition". If the VCs are so hungry for the deal, why do the founders want to cash out early? Are they not as confident as the VCs about the success of their business and hence, a getting a much larger payoff at a later point? The reason, Woodside Fund partner Thomas Shields explains, is since a founder is typically "stock rich but cash poor". S...

Sunil Goyal , who is with Gurgaon-based mobile content technology start-up Wirkle (where all employees blog! ), has a great post on why he thinks more people in India can now afford to venture beyond wage slavery: I think there is NO risk at all. And if any to the minimum. My perspective to this question is "What's the worst situation I can be in ?" May be I loose out on money, spent months on something which didn't work, may be at the end I don't have a job. I can't think of a more worse situation, if you can please do let me know.. On the other hand, any one who joins a startup will have steep learning curves both in technology and management, see how small startups need to work, how product has to be conceptualized, developed, deployed. Everyone in the team works for that. One enjoys the journey which might be bitter at times. Experience and the work that one learns, I think a corporate environment lacks that dynamism. So you can learn in 6 months what you...

Brad Feld points to an article by Dennis Jaffe (Saybrook Graduate School) and Pascal Levensohn (Levensohn Venture Partners) titled "After The Term Sheet: How Venture Boards Influence The Success Or Failure Of Technology Companies." "Written in 2003, this is one of the best articles I've ever seen of the issues and dynamics surrounding the board of a venture backed company," Feld says. I agree. An Extract: The Board, and the roles and behavior of its members, evolve with the venture in three developmental stages: • Start-up/Seed: An embryonic Board assembles as soon as capital is invested and VCs join the Board as preferred shareholders. Their first joint task is to recruit talented employees and define their roles. The optimal size of a start-up Board is between three and five people.This breaks down into one management representative and two venture investors, or two management representatives and three venture investors. • Early Commercialization: A typical...

Fred Wilson has great advice on what entrepreneurs need to do to protect from investor deal fatigue: Bring new investors into the syndicate every time you raise money. The investors who wrote the checks in the A round might be tired by the E round, but the D round investors will have fresh legs. Third, start with a low valuation and slowly and carefully build it in each investment. The investors will be less tired if they see the value of their investment increasing in each round. But if you start at too high of a price and then get stuck there or worse, go down, then you are in for trouble. There is nothing worse than a tired investor with a paper loss on his or her hands. Arun Natarajan is the Editor of TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Fred Wilson has great advice on how start-ups should plan for their next round of financing: So how do you go about hoping for the best and preparing for the worst? I think its best to start with the downside scenario. What happens if your company can’t get anyone to step up and do the financing on terms that are acceptable? Well there are a couple approaches to this. The first is to do the financing when you don’t really need the money. That’s a great strategy. Maybe you’ve got nine months of cash left in the bank. Maybe you go out and talk to three or four potential investors to see if you can get something done with them on terms you’d like. If you can’t, you stop the process, go back to work, and come back to market in another six months. If you don’t have that luxury, then you need to turn to your existing investors as your downside scenario. There are a couple of ways to think about this. The first is to get the existing investors to tell you on what terms they’d be willing to d...

Adam Shah has some good tips for recruiting - especially on interviewing and checking references: # recruiting. [Apr'04] Recruiting is the single biggest determinant for success, with the people you hire literally being the DNA of the company. The challenge of recruiting is often under-appreciated by people who've never been responsible for it. First, you need to "sell" people on joining your venture, which isn't easy. Remember the old adage "good help is hard to fine"-- that's because smart, reliable, hard-working, no-nonsense people are never without work, so you have to lure them away. Here's some basic tips: (1) strategize: list reasons why people would join your venture instead of others, including reasons they wouldn't. Then, use this to source candidates. For example, when talking with recruiters, let them know these things. When considering how to source candidates, emphasize channels that tend to fit your criteria. (2) treat hiring ...

Adam Shah has some good advice: Before getting too excited about your latest idea, ask yourself if it's a project, a product or a company. A project is some useful and innovative tool or service, but unlike a product, it's unclear if anybody will enough pay for it to justify its manufacture (and delivery, i.e. through channels) -- much less whether this is still true in the presence of substitutes and knockoffs. Products are projects that are sellable-- they have financing, designs that incorporate feedback from prospects or customers ("people who can pay enough"), reasonable quality controls and processes, legal representation, etc. A company is a product with headroom: infrastructure to grow, a fleshed-out management team, the ability to create multiple products, etc. Since companies can be tiny and have one product, the real distinction between "product" and "company" is whether the financial returns of the product justifies the corporate struc...

Adam Shah has a good "must read" list, including: # High Tech Startup . Some financial and legal subtleties of the game. It is worth noting that the normal rules of business simply don't apply, and you need startup specialists to help you in HR, accounting, legal, office management-- and of course, financing. Nesheim's book explains many of the important details. # Crossing the Chasm . How to get a general-purpose, new technology to be embraced by a mainstream audience. This is the startup playbook, read by virtually everyone in silicon valley. # Selling the Wheel . A light-hearted, fictional account of how the wheel was brought to market. A great complement to the Moore books above -- but an easier, faster read. Arun Natarajan is the Editor of TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Guy Kawasaki explains why in his Forbes.com Q&A column: What stops someone who already has the money from implementing your idea? Time, expertise and passion to name three factors. Venture capitalists don't want to be entrepreneurs. They want to invest in entrepreneurs. They don't want to do the work, they want to find people to do the work. The deal they want is: I give you money, you create something great. ...Here's another way to look at it. If merely telling someone your idea means that it can be ripped off, then you hardly have a defensible product. If secrecy is your main weapon, then it will be hard to find investors. By the way, what happens when you ship? Are you going to ask every customer to sign a nondisclosure too? There is no way to force a nondisclosure agreement with any potential investor whose money you'd want. If you can get an investor to sign it, just to learn what you're doing, then that's dumb money. Even if you get a nondisclosure a...

Extracts from a recent IBD Network event on Venture Capital (held at Menlo Park, CA) featuring Ron Weissman, Apax Partners (as Moderator); Raj Atluru, Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Tim Chang, Gabriel Venture Partners; and Venky Ganesan, Globespan Capital Partners: 1. An idea that fits with one of the VC's investment theses 2. A rock star team 3. A business model that is highly capital-efficient 4. The VC having good chemistry with the team 5. The ability for the VC to really add value (helping with liquidity events, or helping to hire talent) Arun Natarajan is the Editor of TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Don't smell like you're trying to get liquidity. That's not very attractive. Pursue your core business, grow smartly, and others (VCs or potential acquirers) will see what an integral part your business could play that will benefit them, and that's where you will find yourself - cutting the deals. - Michael Markson, VP, Business Development, Topix.net in IBD Network Arun Natarajan is the Editor of TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

David Beisel , a VC and former entrepreneur, explains: For example, I know of one firm that formally assigns both an “advocate” partner and a “skeptic” partner to evaluate a potential investment. Others will consider an investment less formally. Some will write diligent investment memorandums based on specific, itemized checklists to ensure that all basis have been covered. Others rely on more of an intuitive approach to evaluation. Some have regularly-scheduled investment meetings, while others will convene when a deal is “hot.” Some firms have a formal voting process, while others are consensus-driven. Arun Natarajan is the Editor of TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Jeff Bussgang explains: Well, a critical thing for an entrepreneur when fundraising is to find a firm that's going to fit their capital profile. After all, if a VC is trying to force too much money down the entrepreneur's throats, it will mean more dilution than they'd like. And not having deep pockets means there's a risk of getting caught short just at the moment when a few extra million might be needed to get to the next level. Thus, the Goldilocks Rule applies to VCs and fund size: not too big, and not too small, but just right. How much capital does fund X really want to put in behind each company? The marketing materials may say one thing (I once saw a VC claim they would do deals from $50K to $50M!), but the reality is there's a sweet spot that every firm has and if you are in their sweet spot, you're better off than if you're not. The nature of that sweet spot comes down to the size of their current fund, not their total capital under manageme...

Seth Godin on why "Small is the new big": Enron (big) got audited by Andersen (big) and failed (big.) The World Trade Center was a target. TV advertising is collapsing so fast you can hear it. American Airlines (big) is getting creamed by Jet Blue (think small). BoingBoing (four people) has a readership growing a hundred times faster than the New Yorker (hundreds of people). Today, little companies often make more money than big companies. Little churches grow faster than worldwide ones. Little jets are way faster (door to door) than big ones. Today, Craigslist (18 employees) is the fourth most visited site according to some measures. They are partly owned by eBay (more than 4,000 employees) which hopes to stay in the same league, traffic-wise. They’re certainly not growing nearly as fast. Small means the founder makes a far greater percentage of the customer interactions. Small means the founder is close to the decisions that matter and can make them, quickly. Small is the ...

BusinessWeek has an interesting article on how entrepreneurs should prepare for growth: Doing it all may be encoded in entrepreneurial DNA, but it's hardly the best way to manage a growing company. Entrepreneurs risk burning out and taking down their businesses and their personal lives with them. ...Managing growth successfully comes down to getting the right help at the right time. At the outset, it's important for entrepreneurs to develop relationships with professionals such as accountants and lawyers, then make sure the right hires come on when they're most needed. As the company grows, it may be wise to explore partnering or outsourcing -- or even stepping back from the helm of your company. ...It's important to keep an eye on the future, even if you're working out of a spare bedroom. "Start out acting like a big company from the beginning," advises Marty Schmidt, president of Solution Metrix, a small business consultancy in Boston. At a minimum, cre...

Rick Segal of J.L. Albright Partners has some interesting tips on how entrepreneurs can check out VCs they plan to do business with: Ask different questions. The purpose, like the above, is to get insight into who you are dealing with so, go down a list of things like: A. What's your favorite blog? B. What kind of laptop do you have? C. Which cell phone do you favor? D. Do your kids do the SMS thing? E. What do you hate about serving on boards?... ...Show up unannounced to the firm just to drop by. See what kind of reaction you get. Think about it. We are family, working close together, long term relationship, blaah blaah. Right. Show up unannounced, ask to use an office, the phone, grab a free pop, whatever, but note the vibe, it will be telling. Arun Natarajan is the Editor of TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and repo...

Will Price reports from Microsoft's VC Summit in Mountain View on what MSFT - according to its CEO Steve Ballmer - looks for when it considers acquiring a company: * technical innovation with impact * protected IP (patent portfolio) * market understanding * engineering excellence * alignment with sales capacity (can you sell it?, do you know how to sell it?) * timing and tenaciousness * understanding of value chain and how to partner to win Arun Natarajan is the Editor of TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Jeff Cornwall points out quite rightly that "in the rush of meeting orders and collecting enough cash for payroll, many entrepreneurs don't take enough time to celebrate accomplishments." But why is celebrating important? Celebrating on-going accomplishments is a way of building a positive, growth-oriented, and hopefully 'fun' culture within your business. Arun Natarajan is the Editor of TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Advice from a recent panel discussion organized by IBD Network on prepating your company for M&A: * Don't... o ... run your company without contemplation of a sale o ... sell from weakness, not from strength o ... be piggy: don't expect to double the initial bid o ... tip your toes in the M&A pond: be in or be out * Issues that make buyers walk away from a deal: the buyer's lack of comfort that may not stem from anything as dramatic as fraud or misrepresentation, but from a feeling that the seller's processes are not solid * Valuation o Sellers tend to use public market comparables or deal comparables: they are easily obtained and tend to increase the valuation o Buyers prefer to use multi-year discounted cash flow (DCF) analyses * Structuring deals o Buyers do small deals for cash, not for shares; if they want IP or a team, they will structure the deal as an asset purchase ...

Wonder why VCs place more emphasis "on the secondary stuff" - like what you and your other team members have done before - rather than your actual product or service? Kevin Laws has an interesting explanation and analogy - to the mating behavior of peackocks!: Are you really worth $2 million more the day your first two customers write $10,000 checks? No, you’re worth $20,000 more. However, both a bad company and a good company can claim that they will sign up two paying customers in the next month. Only the good company can actually show you the checks a month later. Before you had the check, you were facing the “uncertainty discount” – you might be a bad company (or more likely, a well intended but overconfident company). That’s why VCs pattern match on credibility factors when deciding to spend more time with a company rather than diving directly into the details. When having such a wide selection of available mates, sorting out the good from the bad can be a matter of loo...

Business Week has a nice article explaining how a sales person can refuse to pay the bribe - and still make the sale. Arun Natarajan is the Editor of TSJ Media, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.