 |
|
|
|
Venture capitalist gives entrepreneurs tips on the best pitch
|
|
Several dozen budding entrepreneurs and tech minds, many armed with iPads and MacBooks, surround venture capitalist Jason Mendelson as he holds court in an intimate coffee shop.
He tells them that a business plan should include estimates on revenue and expenses, even though he knows their projections will always be wrong.
He says that if they're not social, they should find a business partner who is. He won't invest in your company if he doesn't want to have a beer, or an iced tea, with you. And he compares meeting a startup to a first date.
"I want to feel that energy climb," he says of subsequent meetings.
Mendelson is co-founder and managing director of Boulder-based Foundry Group, which holds investments in tech startups, including locals such as Orbotix and Trada.
His session was part of the recent Boulder Startup Week, which featured five days of free training, networking and drinking at various businesses around the city. It is part of a growing number of local events that aim to help start ups at various stages. Organized by local techies, the events come as the Denver area is increasingly recognized as one of the nation's leading tech hubs.
This weekend will mark the second version of Denver Startup Weekend, a slightly different version of Boulder Startup Week. Entrepreneurs speed pitch their ideas on Friday, then work through the weekend to refine their vision, find business partners and polish their pitches.
BlogFrog co-founder Holly Hamann, who attended the Mendelson session and several others, used startup week to learn about the venture capital process and to fill job openings. The Boulder-based company helps bloggers create a community of like-minded users on their sites. It also connects top bloggers with companies such as International Delight that are looking to generate online discussions about their brands.
"We don't want to just be (a) $5 million company. We want to be a $50 million company," Hamann said. "In order to get there, I need to be listening to people like Jason who sees 1,000 pitches a year and invests in tons of companies and has enough data to recognize where some of the pitfalls are and things to be aware of."
With $1 million in angel funding locked up, she asked Mendelson about potential roadblocks to growing the company.
He explained that if the company fails, it'll be most likely be a result of butting heads and other personal problems. He said that out of 38 investments at Foundry, only a couple of the companies had technology didn't work out.
"For me, it's about the tremendous networking," 28- year-old entrepreneur Dan Lynn said about startup week.
Lynn is co-founder of Rainmaker, a member of the current class of startups at TechStars, one of the nation's top accelerator programs.
Rainmaker has a service that it bills as "caller ID for e-mail." It instantaneously gathers information about e-mail senders from various websites and displays that information with each new e-mail received.
|
|
|
|
|
