After: As an example of how they later learned to ask for referrals, Marcus says, “A potential adviser called us and said, ‘Come to New York.’ How connections that you don’t realize you have can help with funding. The role that confidence plays in the funding process. If you read the recent announcement that UserVoice riased, $800,000 this program will help you learn the small changes that allowed them to do it. Marcus Nelson, the company’s co-founder, came to Mixergy to talk about the changes so his experience could help you if decide

Very few people fund individuals.  I Professional angels / former entrepreneurs / seed funds – In Silicon Valley there are people like Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Mike Maples and many more.  In And whenever I needed to round up signatures for future fund raisings it was difficult to track him down / get him to care.  The This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC . Last night I attended a DealMaker Media (whom I love because they always host such great discussions) panel on raising angel money moderated by Dan Gould and with panelists Rob Hayes (First Round

Please be able to provide me with a few specific examples of different types of customers, what they need, what the system will do for them. Tell me about the business. How are you funding this? What level of funding do you currently have? I just had an all-too common conversation with the founder of a startup who had spent more than a year working with a software development company who had produced a mess. The mess really comes from a developer who was willing to get started on a product that was not fully thought out. I always take a very different approach

One reason is that these individuals frequently appear as the missing link--a shortcut to the expertise, or funding or connections we need. Another reason is that we question "who would be brazen enough to take my $3,500 to prepare paperwork that would virtually insure my funding?" Have an example or story to share about your experiences? The recent economic turmoil has witnessed the destruction of many businesses and jobs. At the same time, new opportunities are cropping up everywhere.

Paul Graham, founder Y Combinator which funds startups, said entrepreneurs need to be “ relentlessly resourceful ,” which made me think of the story of how I got the money to launch my first company . If you have any examples of relentless resourcefulness, share them so we can inspire others. When I graduated from college I was hell bent on starting a business right away, but I was dirt poor. One day, I looked at the flood of catalogs that J Crew sent me and was bummed out.

Here’s an interesting data point in terms of Southern California’s position over Silicon Valley in terms of the clean technology industry: this interactive map of “green businesses” in California created by the Environmental Defense Fund shows that LA has 398 companies, San Diego has 202 companies, compared with 173 companies in Santa Clara County and 131 companies in Alameda County. (hat hat tip to Earth2Tech for running the numbers). My quick count finds 213 companies in Orange County, 63 in Ventura County, 42 in San Bernardino, and 23 in Santa Barbara. ...Tags:

So for an example lets assume a $500k investment in a company with a $600k pre money that professes to have an exit plan that will garner a $5m sale in 5 years.  Excel quants will be able to calculate these fairly simply, and in this example come to $828k (at 10%) and 35% respectively.  As someone looking for funding, lay out your case as to why your company will be bought for $5m in 5 years (in the above example).  Following on the heals of last week’s post from Andrea Belz, we have another guest blogger, Bob Aholt. Bob is a Director and long-time member of the

invited Mike Michalowicz on Mixergy to give examples of how he was scrappy when he started his businesses, and help you come up with your own creative solutions for doing more with less. His current projects are Obsidian Launch , a cross between a venture fund and an incubator, and the reality show Bailout! You can complain that you don’t have enough money, connections, etc, or you can be scrappy and find a clever way to use the limited resources you’ve got. I

The local dry cleaner, for example, couldn’t rent the mailing addresses of people who lived within walking distance from him. They tried to get investors to fund a map application that they wanted to make, but it’s a good thing they didn’t. The first company he founded failed, but now Darrin Clement is running a multi-million dollar mapping business that he founded and bootstrapped. How did he go from having to close down his previous company to winning so many customers at this one?

Los Angeles-based Crosscut Ventures (www.crosscutventures.com) is one of the newest venture capital funds in the area, and has quietly been working on funding local companies over the last year. The fund--started by Brian Garrett and Rick Smith --has been focused on digital media investments, and so far has made investments in six companies. The fund is just celebrated Let's start with an overview of the fund. What do you invest in? Brian