Venture Adventure

“Can I have your business card?”

That question comes barreling down my ears, breaking my train of thought. I was just outside the entrance to a meeting rooms truggling to tap out a text message a few minutes before the start of an SVASE event. Looking up, I’m surprised to find someone very close to me. So startled, and preoccupied by my other task, I dig in my card wallet and hand him my card.

“Thanks,” he says, and starts to walk away. So I ask him who he is and what he does. He tells me his name, and that he’s looking for a CEO to replace him because he can’t raise any funding for his project that does [...] He then walks away.

At that point, I realize that ‘ve done this dance with him before. And that it’s no surprise that he can’t find a CEO.

I figure he was treating the event the way some people treat LinkedIn - the name of the game is to get as many cards (links) as possible, regardless if you actually have a real relationship.

Shouldn’t you establish a relationship, and a common desire to communicate in the future before trading contact information? If I give you my card (after asking if I may), shouldn’t you reciprocate, and give me yours? What if I’m not part of the event, and just happen to be standing in front of the door?

[As a side note, I often violate the Japanese business card etiquette, in that I write notes on the back of the card to remind me of who the person is, where I met them, and what we talked about. All of this data goes into my outlook contact database when I get to my computer. However, I never do this in front of the person, as that would be truly insulting (especially to the Japanese, who would consider it writing on their face. When I receive their card, it stays in front of me until I'm sure I remember their name, and then it goes into my portfolio, business card wallet, or briefcase. It never goes into my wallet, where I would 'sit on their face'.]

Whatever happened to networking etiquette?

This month’s SVASE/Startup-U event in Silicon Valley had a change of agenda, and featured Ed Van Deman of Financial Navigator and Ofer  Ronen of Sendori, both of whom prepared some simple slide decks.

Ed started, giving a quick overview of Financial Navigator, and talking about how it came together.  Financial Navigator is a software package to help those with high value net worth (>$5M) manage their money and taxes.  Some interesting facts:

• Founded in 1983, it’s a 24-year old startup
• It’s outlasted its VC funder (which folded after 5 years)
• It’s outlasted its major customer - at one point, most of Financial Navigator’s customers were the big-8 accounting firms, with Arthur Anderson accounting for 60% of revenue.  Of course, the big-8 is now the final-4, and AA is no more.

Ed’s key thoughts and comments:

• Focus on who is going to be your customer; define the target market, very general, back of the envelope calculations when you’re just getting started
• Spend a lot of time building relationships with potential customers
• Understand your buyer/customer demographics and psychographics
• Find out where your market already has relationships, and then find a reason for them to work with you
• Be friends with everyone
• The sooner you can talk to your customer the better - beta or earlier
• Find other places where your customers hang out, and go there

Ofer Ronen then discussed Sendori, which is a marketplace to bring advertisers and the domain name parking market together.  Currently domain name parkers rely on keyword searches to drive revenue.  With Sendori, they can hook into additional revenue streams such as eBay.  For instance, the owner of cellphones.com could have someone land on his page immediately see an eBay cell phone auction.

Sendori’s challenge, as he sees it, is to bring two diverse types of people together in the same marketplace, and strike a deal — the advertisers are corporate types, and the domain name folks (until very recently) are hacker types.

Ofer echoed many of Ed’s thoughts, including be friends with everyone, and view your competitors as potential partners, using co-opetition as a tactic.  He also supported getting together with decision makers at conferences, and building relationships.  One tactic that worked well was to span the breadth of a trade show and make sure you introduce yourself to everyone there, and start the relationships.  They paid $800 for an ad in the convention map, and said it was very worthwhile in getting their brand recognized by the end of the show with all their potential customers.

On hiring, Ofer argued the opposite of Philip Kaplan regarding hiring - at least for sales, claiming that experienced, well connected people are extremely valuable.

Ofer  also claimed that in reality, everyone knows that there  really aren’t  many barriers to entry.  When asked by the VCs, he claims patents, API tie-ins, and existing customer relationships.

Overall, the information was very useful.  Surprisingly, the crowd was about twice the size as I’ve come to expect from previous SVASE Startup-U events, which made the networking useful but noisy, and the post-talk question and answer sessions very busy.  As I had another meeting, I bailed out pretty quickly.

The Open Coffee Club is a concept started by Saul Klien of Index Ventures in London as a way for entrepreneurs and investors to meet and network in a casual atmosphere.  It seems to have really taken off in Europe, probably because, unlike here in the valley, there aren’t other venues for this type of activity.

While not as popular in the States, there are small gatherings here and there.  In Palo Alto is one such group.  The meeting organizer, Keith Teare is the CEO of Edgio.com.  On Tuesday, I meet Keith and James Littlejohn, both of whom are ex-pat Brits.  We had a nice conversation and their both really interesting people.   Keith said that he’s not really publicizing the meetup just yet, as it seems to be more useful to the Europeans, particularly those coming to the states.

For me, it was fun and useful, and I’ll probably show up every couple of weeks.  I always like meeting new people.

My entrepreneurial spirit has always burned strong. So, when I decided to pull the trigger, and head out on my own, one of the issues was deciding exactly what to do. I’ve detailed some of those issues and decisions previously.

Now my problem is that new ideas keep jumping into my head. Some have merit, others are easily rejected. But still they keep on coming.

So, I’m now building a ranked list, and working on the first one (with a partner). If that doesn’t fly, I’m moving to the next. I’m going to keep trying until I drop!

Too many ideas? Never!

Getting real estate in a tech or business magazine is challenging here in the Valley, where competition is fierce. It is particularly daunting for startups, who are still proving themselves and the value of the news they make.

This event will bring together a panel of prominent venture, technology and business reporters who cover companies and life in the Valley to talk with moderator Len Rand, managing director at Granite Ventures, and our audience about what it takes to get covered in the Valley.

What makes news, and what doesn’t? Why are some launches well received and others spark, fizzle and burn out? Will you get coverage as part of a trend story, or do reporters care once that first story on a new technology or concept is written?

Hear what the reporters have to say, and how that maps back to what most VCs are looking for when they invest in early-stage ventures.

This event is targeted toward startup executives making news in the Valley.

Moderator: Len Rand, Managing Director at Granite Ventures

Panelists:

• Jeanette Borzo, independent journalist for such outlets as Business 2.0, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, and Wired News
• Ryan Brenner, director of private companies and columnist, AlwaysOn Magazine
• Alastair Goldfisher, managing editor, Private Equity Week and Venture Capital Journal
• Paul Kapustka, managing editor, GigaOm
• Rafe Needleman, editor, CNET
• Sean Wolfe, venture journalist, Red Herring

COST AND REGISTRATION:

$45 VC Taskforce members, $55 Affiliates, $75 General plus CVENT fees.

http://guest.cvent.com/i.aspx?4W,M3,bc1ace0d-2fca-4800-92e2-f766db01aa98

MORE INFO:

Event Website: http://www.VCTaskForce.com

Event Email: jr@vctaskforce.com

Event Phone: 650-968-1304

Venue website: http://www.weil.com/wgm/pages/Controller.jsp?z=o&sz=Silicon%20Valley&d=0

Sponsored by VC Task Force

VC TaskForce was established in 2001 to create a variety of programs that provide information and insight on current strategic and tactical concerns of the venture capital community and the management of venture-backed companies. VC Task Force provides a forum for real-time information exchange and dialogue through panels, workshops, and roundtable meetings conducted by business/industry experts.