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Posts Tagged ‘Entrepreneurs’

5 Questions on Entrepreneurs and Startups with Sharon Wienbar (Scale Venture Partners)

Posted in Total News Access, tagged , , , , , , , on May 20, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Recently, one of our partners, Greg Heibel, sat down with Sharon Wienbar from Scale Venture Partners for a no-frills conversation about investors and entrepreneurs. Aside from the fact that we now know Sharon would choose a beach over mountains any day of the year, she shared some really great nuggets of information about what exactly it is that investors think about when meeting with entrepreneurs or figuring out whether they want to place a bet on a particular kind of team. Here are some of the gold nuggets from the interview.

Greg: What is it that makes you take a meeting with an entrepreneur?

Sharon: Well, there’s a couple things, but the first is usually that the entrepreneur is operating in a market that we’re interested in. So it’s a place that I want to understand; I want to understand what he or she is doing. It can really help when the entrepreneur either has a background in the space or has been introduced by somebody we know, but I’m very unlikely to take a meeting with somebody who’s in a market that we’re just not going to invest in, because that would waste that person’s time.

Greg: What does it mean to be scaling?

Sharon: So, to be a scaling company means you’ve achieved the product market fit, which could sometimes take just a couple of months, sometimes a couple of years, to get the product right for what the market is looking for. [It also means that] you’ve found a sales channel that is working. And this is one of the things that we’re maniacal about is tense, right? It is working means this quarter you’re selling more than last quarter. It doesn’t mean that you’re doing tens of millions of dollars in revenue. We’ve invested in companies that have been in revenue, even three months. But, period on period the business is growing. You’ve found a way that is working to reach your customers and you want to raise capital to grow that dramatically.

Greg: When you’re looking at a company, what’s more important to you? The team or the technology?

For the rest of the interview, you can watch the interview below.

 

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Startups – How the Right Team Can Make or Break You

Posted in Quotes, Total News Access, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 16, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Yesterday, we hosted our very first women entrepreneurial session, powered by women for women.  With no surprise, it was so inspiring to watch the women entrepreneurs mind share and help one another in such an honest and open setting.  There was an instant connection between them all…entrepreneurs wanting to take the world by storm and willing to help one another get there.  The fierce leader of the pack was our guest speaker, Dianna Mullins from Glam Media.  Dianna is a serial entrepreneur herself, starting her first company before she could even drive a car.  The topics and issues that surrounded yesterday’s discussions included building a team at an early stage, how to hire the right people, retention, and finding the right group of advisors and investors.   Here were some of the highlights from Dianna and the group:

  1. Before you do anything,  it’s important to know who your team is (regardless of it being one, five or six members, etc.).  As a founder, it’s important to figure out what value you or the company will add to each individual in your team and vice versa. This will ensure that everyone has something to bring to the table and the goals and vision are the same across the board.

  2. Your team is the core of your company.  Whether it is the admin or the engineer, or the temp or the perm hire, everyone should be treated equally.  This will increase the liklihood of happy employees and longevity of a company.

  3. The Startup Wiggle – trying different levers to see which one takes.  Usually implemented at most early stage companies.  When building your team, find the individuals who are resilient and motivated to do the startup wiggle.  Choose people who have creativity, courage, and conviction.  You want someone who will challenge you, but also a balance so they’re not constantly opposing you and your visions.

  4. Don’t fear failure.

  5. When hiring, look for attitude, tone, and skill.  You want to make sure their attitude is the right fit, their tone is respectful and appropriate, and they have the skill set your company needs.

  6. Know who you are.  You have to know who you are as an individual, a company, and a founding team.  If you can’t answer this, it will make it very tough (when hiring) for you to step into the other person’s shoe and determine whether it is mutually beneficial for him/her and your team.

  7. Letting go of someone from your founding team can feel like a divorce.  So make sure you put a lot of thought and effort into who you are hiring.

  8. Advisors will give you connections to an area you don’t have much knowledge or understanding in.  If you have someone in mind to play an advisory role, don’t call them one right off the bat.  Build a relationship and see if they’ll offer you advice or help you out with a project.  Some of the best advisors never have the official advisor title.  In finding the right advisor?  It’s like courting, you just know.

  9. Figure out your plan, execute, check it, and repeat. Focus on the business first and then everything else will fall into place (fundraising, etc.).

  10. In sharing and selling your vision during the early days, you want to be like Tom Sawyer and get people to help you paint the fence.  It’s sometimes boring as hell, but you want to be the first one who gets the party started.

Participating Companies:

BabyList - a baby registry that helps new moms discover, share and buy the things they need for their baby.

CaptureProof - creating and implementing innovative technologies that allow patients and practitioner to capture, share, search and analyze pertinent media.

Clever Girls Collective - a technology-driven social media company connecting  brands with social influencers while offering social influencers exciting content monetization.

KidAdmit - apply to multiple preschools and manage the admissions process in one place.

LocoMotive Labs - assistive and play-based learning applications to empower kids with special needs to be independent learners.

LookMazing - a fashion social network that rewards individuals for transforming outfit photos into shoppable looks.

Share Some Style - a community marketplace that connects people who need fashion advice with local stylists.

Womens session 1

“You have to be naive to do what we do or else you wouldn’t do it.”
~ Dianna Mullins, Glam Media

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What You Need to Know About Board Meetings

Posted in Events, Total News Access, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

We recently hosted an event focused on board meetings and invited panelists from the company and investor side to talk about their personal experiences in dealing with this topic. The panelists shared everything from choosing board members to what a dysfunctional board member looks like.  The panelists included Dan Levin from Box, Jules Maltz from Institutional Venture Partners, Gary Swart at oDesk, Geoff Tate previously at Rambus, and Sharon Wienbar from Scale Venture Partners.  The moderator for this event was our very own Greg Heibel.  Here are some key takeaways from the event and what every entrepreneur should know to ensure the successful management and implementation of your board and the meetings.

How do you pick a board member and what should the composition be?

While most of the time a board member will be an investor, you have to view them as a source of advice and counsel first, money should be second. Most people have it backwards and think that you should take the money first, add the investor to the board, and then worry about all else later. This is usually a recipe for disaster and irritation in the long run. When thinking about the composition, it is important to understand that you essentially have three different types of people on your board: executives, investors, and independent members. You may not be able to necessarily choose your investors, but the other two are completely within your control and you should exercise that control in a thoughtful and tactical manner. If you are able to select your board member, you should try and round out your board with people who have a different skill sets from you. Much like seeking out members of your team who complement your skills, the same can be said for your board members. Nevertheless, the universal truth to bringing something onto your team is to make sure that personal characteristics are aligned, the person is motivated, and has the skills and knowledge. As Gary Swart from oDesk said, “personal characteristics are things you can’t change. You can teach a chicken to climb a tree, but you’re better off getting a squirrel in the first place.”

What is the ideal number of board members?

There is no hard and fast rule for this, it really depends on what you need and how productive the members are to the company. The general consensus from the panel seemed to be five to seven, but keeping in mind that your board composition does not have to fall within those numbers. You could have two, you could have 10, as long as all members are contributing in a productive and efficient manner, the numbers really depend on what you’re comfortable with. Having said that, too many board members can make it tough for decision making and getting things done, whereas having too few, can also leave you with limited perspective. “Early in the company’s career, smaller is better” says Dan Levin from Box. “Every time you need to get something done, you’re going to need to get everybody to sign a piece of paper. It’s harder to get a large group of people together.”

Advisors and observers, should you have them?

Advisors are those who are there to mentor and help guide you as you develop, grow your company, and beyond. These people are not necessarily your board members and don’t always hold a board seat, but they act as additional individuals who are advocates of your company and either have the experience or network to take your company to the next level. An observer is someone who is an additive to the room, but doesn’t generally sit on a committee or have voting rights. There may be instances where there certain venture funds have the right to designate an observer, but they’re rarely exercised. Observers can be great if they have limited involvement in board meeting conversations, but have value that they can bring to the table. Again, much like how many members you should have on your board, there is no definite number as to the number of advisors or observers you should have. As long as quality is there, the quantity is up to you and what you feel most comfortable with.

What should be presented at a board meeting?

A few days in advance of your board meeting, you should be sending your decks to those who are participating. A week is usually ideal. It is best that all parties receive the information they will be reviewing, prior to the board meeting so that you can make the best use of time. Many entrepreneurs think that the deck they present needs to be comprehensive and immaculate, when in reality, it shouldn’t be. This should be the easiest material to produce because the information you include, should already be logged and updated on a regular basis. You shouldn’t need to re-create anything. As Dan said, your operations review is where things get created because that’s where you run the business. You should essentially be providing your board members with your operations review along with a few other additional pieces of information such as your financials, current key issues or strategies, followed by an administrative updates.

Given all this, keep in mind that the board is not there to run your meetings or your company. That is the job of the CEO. At the end of the day, if you are deferring to your board for major decisions, something is wrong. These are just some helpful tips as you think about putting together your board.   You can click here to see the full video of our panel event, or here for a one-on-one interview with Gary Swart, and here for the interview with Sharon Wienbar.

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Elevator Pitch Roundtables and Workshop with NY Tech Investors

Posted in Events, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 7, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

elevatorHere’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs in the NYC area!  Have you ever had a discussion with someone about your company and all that resulted from it was a blank stare? Here’s your chance to fix that and get first hand feedback from investors who are experts at reviewing pitches. The elevator pitch can make or break you for a follow up engagement with an investor. It’s the first impression you make on them so it’s important to make it count. Join us for our elevator pitch roundtables and workshop on February 26! If interested, details and information about how to apply are below.

Details:

You will be broken up into groups and placed in a room with 10-15 other entrepreneurs (numbers depend on applicants received) and one investor.

Each company will need to present their elevator pitch in 30 seconds or less. The investor will provide feedback immediately following the pitch.

You will not be able to use or bring anything with you. Just you and your elevator pitch that’s stored in your brain.

When everyone in the room has pitched, you will all re-group and each investor will choose their top finalists.

The selected finalists will have 5-10 minutes to make adjustments to their pitches by incorporating the feedback they previously received.

When time is up, the selected finalists will all be brought back into the main room and present in the final pitch off (all companies, even those that were not among the selected finalists, are encouraged to stay and listen).

Here are some best practices as you think about constructing your elevator pitch (or making it even better than it already is).

Space is limited. Please make sure to read the directions below on how to participate.

Investors:

Schedule (may change given the number of participants):

  • 9:00 am – 10:40 am: Pitch Event Roundtables
  • 10:40 am – 10:50 am: Brainstorming (selected companies to make adjustments to their pitches)
  • 10:50 am – 11:00 am: Final pitch off
  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm: Networking

How to participate:

If interested, please submit a brief description of your company to Joyce Chuang @ jchuang@orrick.com by Friday, February 15 for consideration. Selections will be announced by Friday, February 22.

 

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Why Your Startup Needs an Accountant

Posted in Total News Access, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2013 | 1 Comment »

By: David Ehrenberg (CEO of Early Growth Financial Services)

I’ve seen and worked with a lot of companies that have tried to do their own accounting. It’s not pretty. In these situations, we often have to go back to redo their work and re-file taxes, resulting in a greater cost for the company than if they had just outsourced their accounting from the get go.

Even so, many early-stage startups continue to be on the fence about hiring an accountant to provide financial support. In the early stages, startups are busy trying to bootstrap, stretch limited funds, and cut costs wherever necessary. One of the ways you, as an early-stage entrepreneur, may try to save money is by choosing to manage your own accounting and finances. If you’re an experienced accountant, this makes sense. If not, this could be a serious mistake that negatively impacts the potential growth and success of your business.

I’m not recommending that you run out and hire a full-time accountant. The better, more cost-effective plan is to save on staffing costs by outsourcing your accounting services. That way you can pay for only the exact level of day-to-day transactional work and accounting support that your company needs.

When to Hire an Accountant

So when should you hire an accountant? As with so many early-stage company questions, the relatively unhelpful answer is, it depends. There are many good reasons to contract with an accountant very early on, while some companies may decide to wait. But, here are two good rules of thumb…You definitely need to hire an accountant if:

1. You have raised an initial round of funding. A $500K raise is a good benchmark. If you have raised a Series A, a larger SEED round, or a larger convertible debt round, it’s definitely time to engage with an outsourced accounting firm.

2. Your expenses are significantly increasing. If you have increased expenses to keep track of and have taken on some employees, you are in need of greater financial reporting. When your business starts to grow, it’s important that your understanding of your cash flow and burn grows as well.

What Does an Early-Stage Accountant Do?

Any accountant you contract with should be able to provide a wide range of services to support you through the early stages. Here’s an abridged list of services that accountants provide when you’re:

Starting up:

• Business licenses

• Incorporation filings

• System implementations

• Policies and procedures

• Expense tracking

• Financial planning

Up and running:

• Month-end accounting

• Revenue accounting

• GAAP financial statements

• Contracts administration

• Payroll

• AR/AP (accounts payable/accounts receivable)

• Tax preparation

• W2 and 1099s

• Financial reports

• Fixed assets tracking

Growing your business:

• Pricing

• Cash flow analysis

• Audit support and preparation

• Financial forecasting

• Budget creation

Benefits to Outsourcing Your Accounting Function

As you can see from the list of functions above, your accountant does much more than just sit around with a green eye-shade tallying numbers. An outsourced accounting firm will give you much-needed support in many areas of your business while also providing the following benefits:

Focus on your core business. Perhaps the most important reason to hire an accountant is so that you and your early employees can focus on building your product, developing relationships, creating partnerships, and marketing and sales. In other words, you have core business versus non-core business. In the early stages, especially, you need to learn to separate core from non-core and focus on your core business, without worrying about other elements.

High-quality financial information. When you’re trying to raise equity funds or obtain debt or reach out to potential investors, you need to have the kind of high-quality financial information that outsourced accountants provide. These kinds of financial statements are also essential for tax reporting purposes and providing updates to your investors. Equally important, the financial information provided by your accountant will give you great insight into the nature of your business which is invaluable in developing effective business strategies.

A valued business partner. Outsourcing your accounting function also gives you the advantage of having another trusted business partner. Outsource firms have extensive expertise working with early stage start-ups. This sort of expertise and experience can be invaluable for your company when it comes to raising funds, financial planning, negotiating term sheets, structuring deals, financial reporting, etc.

Essentially, if you think your startup may be in need of accounting support, it probably is! Remember, it’s better to get the accounting support you need early on rather than have to clean up your messy finances further down the road. It’s really never too early to put into place the financial systems and processes that will serve as a strong foundation for your startup and support its financial health.

Large Ehrenberg HeadshotDavid Ehrenberg is the CEO of Early Growth Financial Services (EGFS) which offers a complete suite of financial services for businesses at every stage of the development process. He has spent his career working with early-growth companies, and founded EGFS in 2009 to provide a service that he found lacking: high-level financial strategy consulting and day-to-day transactional accounting support for startups. EGFS offers CFO and accounting consulting services on-demand, to provide expert financial assistance including fundraising, financial forecasting, AP/AR, and tax preparation. David’s expertise includes building high-growth technology companies, venture funding, debt financings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning, accounting, and legal and corporate governance.

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Paper Money: Personal Finance for Entrepreneurs

Posted in TOTAL ACCESS Speaker Series, tagged , , , , , , , on January 7, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

By: Micah Rosenbloom (CEO of Sample6 Technologies & Founder Partner at Founder Collective)

In 1999, my internet start-up was valued at nearly $100M. I thought I had it made. Like many of my contemporaries at the time, I rented a nice apartment near the beach and spent more money going out. I momentarily day-dreamed that I’d be ringing the NASDAQ opening bell.

It didn’t end up that way and when that world came crashing down in 2001, I ended up with less than $10K to my name. I learned the hard way that paper wealth doesn’t pay bills. I was forced to re-think how to think about finances, risk and exits.

Personal burn rate

For the scrappy entrepreneur, budgeting and saving is complicated. Many entrepreneurs are living paycheck to paycheck, or in debt. Early stage founders can make $60K or less.

The key is to live conservatively and maintain a low personal burn rate. Married entrepreneurs often deliberately diversify income streams whereby one pursues the entrepreneurial route while a spouse takes a lower-risk, steady-paying job. As a career entrepreneur, I’ve never owned a home, avoided lavish spending and invest conservatively. While others may think I’m cheap, I’m acutely aware that a big win is by no means guaranteed. Though I’ve had a previous exit, I’m very protective of my savings.

The equity/cash trade-off

My father, an attorney, would say “every hour I’m not working, I’m not earning.” Unlike high cash-paying jobs like those on Wall Street or in consulting, the entrepreneur must be at ease that it is a conscious ownership/cash trade-off. One’s equity interest in their start-up often is their savings.

Start-ups are, inherently, hit driven businesses. The entrepreneur has significant earnings volatility, yet greater upside. The shares one aggregates over his/her career may be worth nothing or millions of dollars, but this often takes years to find out. I advise young entrepreneurs to take a longer term, multi-venture perspective and to diversify the types of opportunities they pursue. In a sense, you’re your own career venture capitalist.

Risk tolerance and exits

Most entrepreneurs set out to build the billion-dollar business. Somewhere along the way they realize that it isn’t in the cards. Sometimes there’s an opportunity to sell the business and make good, potentially life changing, money. I’ve long believed in staging risk and preserving exit options along the way. Too many entrepreneurs, tempted by the ability to raise lots of venture capital, ended up with smaller returns than if they had sold earlier (perhaps my mistake at Handshake.com). I encourage founders to talk openly with their teams, investors and families about risk/return throughout the journey. Always believe you’re out to change the world, and build the next great big company. Just don’t spend like it.

Original post can be found here.

Micah RosenbloomMicah Rosenbloom is an entrepreneur and angel investor. He is currently CEO of Sample6 Technologies – a venture building the “smoke detector” for harmful pathogens in the environment. He recently left Brontes Technologies, a company he co-founded in 2003 (and sold to 3M in 2006). Brontes developed a system that eliminates the “goop” in dental impressions with 3D scanning. As co-founder, Micah helped build the company from an academic project between MIT and Harvard, to Series A financing from Bain Capital, Charles River Ventures and Flybridge Capital Partners. Micah also co-founded Handshake.com (funded by Clearstone VP and SBC Communications), an enterprise software and consumer web company that sold online scheduling and pricing engines. Most interestingly, Micah worked for one of Hollywood’s premier talent agencies, Endeavor (subject of the hit TV series, “Entourage”). Micah received his BS from Cornell, his MBA from Harvard Business School and because of his experience at Endeavor, can fix any make/model of photocopier.  You can follow him on twitter @micahjay1.

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What You Should Think About When Building Your Team

Posted in Total News Access, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

By: Joseph Perkins (Managing Associate, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP)

You’ve got a great idea and your startup is ready to take off.  You realize that it’s probably time to start thinking about building out your founding team (maybe you need a technical co-founder or business partner to help in areas you’re not as strong in) and identifying the right developers and service providers to help build your company.  There are a number of things to consider when finding the right individuals to help you turn your vision into a reality.  Here are some quick tips to help guide you.

Founder Issues

Choose your co-founder carefully – trust is imperative.  Remember that this will be the person you spend a lot of time with, the person you divide the work with, and the person who can make the difference between the success and failure of your enterprise.  You want to make sure that a strong relationship will last and that founders’ expectations and differences are hashed out early on.  Be clear about what each founder is expected to contribute and what each founder will receive in return (stock allocation and vesting).  Some good questions to ask yourself when identifying the right c0-founder are:  1) How do you know them (in what capacity do you know them and are confident in how they will act)?, 2) What are they capable of (what are their skills and talents and how does that compliment or overlap with your skills)?, and 3) What are their incentives/motives (are they committed for the long haul, do they have other career plans, etc.)?  Many great companies fail because the founders find out too late in in the game that they are not a good fit or that their vision and expectations don’t match.  Best to resolve those issues up front.

Vesting

Stock is a powerful tool that can be used to align the incentives of the individuals with each other – all founder stock should be subject to vesting. Vesting schedules for founders typically consists of 4 year vesting, no cliff (though you may consider it), with full acceleration on double trigger (involuntary termination following a change of control). That vesting is about as plain vanilla as you can get and should note attract any pushback when you go to fundraise.

Hiring

Know your strengths and weaknesses (personally and professionally) and develop a strategic plan for bringing on team members. Your plan should consider what roles you need filled (technical, administrative, etc.) as well as the personality and values of the people you intend to bring in to the company. It may take a month to six months (or longer) to find the right person for the position you are trying to fill, so give yourself plenty of lead time. Mine your networks for potential team members (LinkedIn, Facebook, professional connections, etc.), including reflecting on co-workers or partners you’ve previously worked with – past experience is a pretty good indicator of how you would work together in the future. Be careful to avoid get star-struck by “super-star” candidates – a premium should be placed on people that can demonstrate competency, passion, common sense, and trustworthiness. Remember each candidate is more than a resume, so trust your instincts – impressions are typically a good indicator or whether or not a person is the right fit.

Employees v. Consultants

Many companies struggle with whether they should be hiring employees or consultants (independent contractors) – and even fewer know the difference between the two. The distinction between a consultant and an employee is the degree of control and independence that the company exercises over the service provider. There’s a host criteria that can be used to determine whether someone is an employee or consultant, including whether service provider is using its own equipment, working on its own schedule, whether the company is overseeing the work process or just the end product, etc. There is no real bright line to use in determining which category a service provider falls in, so you’ll want to become more familiar with the characteristics of each. It’s also important to understand what your specific needs are for the company (Do you need someone full time in the officer, or is part time sufficient? are you trying to preserve cash? etc.) One important thing to think about when choosing between the two is the difference in terms of compensation. With an employee, you must pay at least minimum wage and are permitted to use incentive stock options (ISOs), non-statutory options (NSOs) or restricted stock. With a consultant, no cash compensation is required (although a small amount is recommended), and you may only use NSOs or restricted stock. The shares for both employees and consultants should be subject to vesting. Employee vesting is typically 4 year vesting with a one year cliff while consultant vesting should be determined by how long you expect them to provide services to the company (i.e. 2 years), with a shorter period preferable to the full 4 year schedule that employees typically receive.

Advisors and Investors

In some cases, companies choose to use advisors and investors to help identify potential team members. You’ll want to become familiar with your advisors and investors (i.e. understand what organizations they are a part of, who else are they invested in, etc.) and make sure to communicate with them about what you need and when. It’s important to keep them personally interested in the success of the company (option grants, stock, etc.). Companies should diversify its pool of advisors and investors (i.e. find advisors with a variety of backgrounds and experiences, who have different networks). This allows you the opportunity to get a full range of trusted individuals who can leverage their various networks and relationships to help your company succeed.

Summing up

It’s a long road from concept to successful company. Trying to carry that load by yourself is often a recipe for disaster and disappointment. It’s imperative to find the right set of people to join you in the journey. Finding the right co-founders, employees, consultants, advisors, and investors can help you accelerate your company’s growth and identify potential pitfalls.

About the blogger: Joseph Z. Perkins is a corporate associate in Orrick’s Silicon Valley office.  He is a member of the Emerging Companies Group, which advises emerging companies and venture capital firms.  Mr. Perkins’s practice focuses on providing private venture financing and merger and acquisition services to Internet, high tech, and clean technology companies and has worked with clients including: Bleacher Report, Calista Technologies, CubeTree, LS9, MyShape, Say Media, Xobni, and many others.

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Free Tools that Have High Impact for Bootstrapped Startups

Posted in Events, Total News Access, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2012 | 2 Comments »

By: Justin Johnson (Co-Founder of Late Labs)

Getting organized in the early stages of a company can seem like a big task when you’re trying to get so much done with so few hours in the day. Still, keeping track of things that need to be done, who is tasked to do them, and what’s happening on a daily basis is very important. Also, tools that simplify teamwork are excellent time savers.

There are lots of digital tools to help you manage your company. The great thing for bootstrapped start-ups is that a good majority of these tools have freemium options for small companies, or are just straight up free to use!

Here is a list of some excellent tools. This list is by no means exhaustive or complete, so feel free to comment with your opinions or other tools you think are great!

Asana – A shared task list for your team. The place to plan, organize and stay in Sync.

This is a great system to use for team task tracking. It’s extremely flexible to it doesn’t define how you work, rather it lets you design the tool to work for your team.

Google Docs – A collaborative repository for all of your documents and spreadsheets

There really isn’t a better solution for document storage and collaboration then Google Docs.

Launchrock – Put up a simple landing page with social integration and tracking in minuets.

Before you spend a bunch of effort on a detailed website, throw up an interesting landing page and get our messaging out there. Test the market and you will most likely be surprised by what you learn. This is also a great way to try our different tag lines and marketing messaging.

Google Analytics – Fairly robust and always free analytics platform to see what’s happening on your website.

Just sign up and then put a simple line of code on each page of your site. You can find out where your traffic is coming from and how your audience is engaging the site.

Skype – Converse on the Web

Good platform for chat, but the real benefit of this is that everyone is on it and its great for voice calls locally and internationally. There isn’t really ever a problem with set up and as long as you have a decent internet connection it works great just about anywhere. Its also decent for screen sharing. Where Skype really breaks down is when your doing video chatting, or your are doing a conference with more then two people.

Google Hangouts – Video Chat Platform

Google hangouts can take slightly more effort to set up, but are great for having video chat with more then two people. If you have group call, do yourself a favor and don’t mess with Skype, just go straight to Google Hangouts.

Mockingbird – Collaborative wireframes

If you have space and a whiteboard, you probably won’t need this. But if you’re working with a team that is split up, or your working from your house this is a great tool for collaborating on wireframes. It is does not let you go into extreme detail, but it’s a very good start and easy enough to use that even a non-designer can grasp it very quickly.

Droplr – Cloud based image storing

We use this to track site design changes internally and store high-resolution images for our press package. The great thing is that each image gets it’s own short URL. So you never need to send files around, just a simple URL, which makes it very easy to share with people outside of your organization and control versions.

Box – Content storage and collaboration

Good repository for stuff you want to store for team access. There are a couple different options here, but we like Box because of their focus on Enterprise and their application marketplace. They will be able to grow with you no matter what your cloud storage requirements become.

Bitbucket – Store all of your Git and Mercurial source code in one place with unlimited private repositories. Includes issue tracking, wiki, and pull requests.

In a software organization this can be a relatively large expense pretty quickly. The great thing about Bitbucket is that it is open source, easy to use, and very robust.
About the blogger: Justin Johnson is an entrepreneur and the founder of Late Labs and Gokrt.  You can contact Justin on twitter @elof or hustle@latelabs.com.

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Startup Reel Contest with ReelSurfer – Win Investor Time

Posted in Total News Access, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 17, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Are you looking to raise money? Do you have a great startup and need that one meeting with an investor to get you going? Here’s an opportunity to let your creative side loose and win a 30-minute meeting with a prestigious Silicon Valley investor.  Enter now in our Orrick Startup Reel Contest!

What is the Orrick Startup Reel Contest?  We’re working with our friends at ReelSurfer to run a video mashup contest. Contestants (preferably entrepreneurs who are interested in meeting with an investor since that is the ultimate prize) will cut clips from videos all over the web to create a reel that communicates a message related to the theme: startup advice. These reels can be informative, funny, entertaining, or just about anything you want them to be.

Here are two examples of some reels to get you started: How to Raise Money and Fundraising Advice.

There will be three grand prize winners, one picked by Orrick and two picked based on total votes. Each winner will receive a 30-minute meeting with a Silicon Valley investor.

Participating investors for the grand prize winners include Garry Tan from Y Combinator, Alex Niehenke from Crosslink Capital, and Kirsten Green from Forerunner Ventures.

Here’s how to enter:

Create an account at www.reelsurfer.com

  1. Create a reel of clips on the theme: startup advice

Submission and Voting Deadlines:

  • Submit your mashup reel from September 17 – October 7, 2012 at 11:59 pm PST.
  • Winners will be announced on October 8, 2012 and will be notified via email.

 Rules and Terms:

  • You may only submit one reel a day.
  • No vulgar language, extreme profanity or inappropriateness (a “McClurism” every once in awhile is ok).
  • There is no guaranteed funding from an investor.
  • Winners will be notified via direct email once voting has closed and the contest has ended.
  • Investor time will be provided to the winners either via phone, virtual conference, or face time.

Have fun with it and we look forward to seeing your mashups!!

 

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Best Practices for an Elevator Pitch

Posted in Total News Access, tagged , , , , , , on September 14, 2012 | 1 Comment »

We kicked off our first elevator pitch workshop and roundtables event at our Silicon Valley location a couple of months ago and it turned out to be a big hit.  In preparation of our fundraising series coming up, we thought it’d be a good time to recap on some best practices for elevator pitches.

Having a polished elevator pitch is something every entrepreneur should adopt.  The purpose of the elevator pitch is to convey the message of your company in a simple and concise manner.  You need to solicit interest from an investor before you lose their attention, so the best points must be delivered early and quickly.  Here are a few guidelines to help you as you build your elevator pitch.

1.  Framework

  • What market are you in?
  • What urgent problem are you solving?
  • What is the size of the opportunity?
  • Why will you win (differentiation, barriers to entry, unfair advantage)?
  • Where is the validation (customers, investors, etc.)?

2.  If available, be sure to include strong customer validation.  What better way to prove your company’s validity than by having a clear example?

3.  Do not use industry jargon.  You can’t assume your audience has the same industry knowledge as you.  Keep your language simple.  Investors are people too.

4. Practice your delivery.  A good elevator pitch takes numerous practices before it’s perfected.

5.  Timing.  The best elevator pitches are the ones that can be conveyed in under a minute (30 seconds is ideal).  It’s called an elevator pitch for a reason.  We once heard from an investor that he had to sit through a 50 minute elevator pitch.  Make it known that he vowed to never get on that “elevator” again.

6.  Your elevator pitch is not a tagline.  Taglines are catch phrases that are intended to highlight an overall story in a few words.  An elevator pitch is the story about your business (this does not replace your business plan).

7.  The best elevator pitches are built up from an analogy or kernel that creates the “a ha” moment for the person listening to your pitch.

Some of the best pitches we’ve heard were from those who were just having a casual conversation with us.  A casual 30 seconds conversation.  Let us know your best elevator pitch.

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