Last week, I was on a panel with other investors discussing the “do’s� and “don’ts� of angel and venture capital investing some one from the audience fired a series of intriguing compounded questions � why are the VC’s so illusive?, So let’s talk about the truth about the Angles and the Venture Capital firms; here is a few points to start with: 1- Looking for Money Vs. why don’t they have all their information available? Why don’t they disclose how they come up with their valuations?

In the appearance, Mark helps to answer one of the most important questions for entrepanuers, “Is VC right for you?”. Local VC Mark Suster recently appears on Fox news to discuss raising venture capitol. 8221;. Check out the video below and visit Mark’s blog to learn more . (Picture

If the limited partners who fund venture firms either a) change the percent of funds they allocate to VCs or b) don’t come through on their capital calls, we’ll all quickly find the venture community becoming drastically constrained. Erick Schonfeld writes about the current state of affairs in his TechCrunch post: “ The End of Venture Capital as We Know It ” There has been a lot of conjecture about how the Venture community will respond to the economic downturn. My personal opinion is that its going to be bad, really bad.

San Diego-based KidZui, a venture-backed startup which develops a kid-safe Internet browser, said Monday that it has added new social networking features and homework help to the firm's suite of services. KidZui--which is venture backed by Maveron, Emergence Capital Partners and First Round Capital--said that it will let kids aged 3-12 keep up and connect with their friends, express feelings and opinions, and share content. The new social networking feature requires mutual parent approval, and also includes the ability to befriend adults such as Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

When you do get time the advisers are often too removed from the details of the company to help.  Let’s face it, to help a company you really need to understand the details.  But I would argue that you can develop relationships with many advisers, mentors and VCs that will help with introductions for no equity.  This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice .  Many startup companies hire advisory boards. 

This is part of my ongoing series about Raising Venture Capital . Look at Josh Kopelman over at First Round Capital .  They’re active, helpful and wise.  But if you already had a VC chances are they tried to find a way to help you preserve your business in the down market. This posting was inspired by an email from Rajat Suri who wrote me an email in response to Chris Dixon’s blog post (link below) from August, which recently re-ran on Business Insider and has generated much Twitter chatter. A

Find ways of helping the VC – If as an entrepreneur you get to know other interesting entrepreneurs / companies it is a good technique to send intro’s the the VC and ask if they’re interested in meeting the company.  Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice startup technology vc venture capita This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC” – the outline is here . You’ve pitched several angels and VC’s. 

This kind of a simple model also helps: Define the early proof points for the company. If these numbers work out, then often scaling is more a question of capital. A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Normally, when I am talking to the founder of any startup trying to figure out what they need to do, one of the things I always try to do is understand their business at its core.

The partner you saw is probably sitting on 5-6 boards which means he or she will be busy helping existing portfolio companies.  They And they have responsibilities for helping to manage their fund.  Plus, If any junior people attended send them separate emails and help them get up to speed on the product.  It This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC .” 8221;  Getting a meeting with a prominent angel or VC is difficult enough.  Some

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. Getting his / her buy-in to your approach is important as they can help you steward the meeting in the right direction. You need to have a relationship with your sponsor that after 2 rat holes you’ve agreed with Congratulations.  You’ve found a VC partner or principal who has invited you to the Monday partners’ meeting.