Benjamin Kuo’s Blog

Toni DasGupta, a local angel investor at the Tech Coast Angels, has an interesting post asking whether entepreneurs have ADD.

We’ve just posted a new article in our startup section, where we are featuring contributed articles from experts on various topics of interest to entrepreneurs.

The article, Selling a Business: Ten Tips For Enterpreneurs,  comes from Scott Edward Walker, a corporate lawyer located in Los Angeles.

Hopefully these articles are useful. In case you missed it, last week’s article was Basic Information About Patents from SoCal IP Law Group.

We’re trying to build up a good library of unbiased, useful information to entrepreneurs and the local technology community with our Startup section. To that end, we’ve just posted a good primer on patents from Steve Sereboff, Mark Goldstein, and Michael Harris at SoCal IP Law Group to our contributed article section.

Sid Mohasseb over at Venture Farm (and who is also an active angel investor) has a good post on what a lifestyle business is. One thing which I see (and I’m sure lots of angels see, as well) are businesses which — although they may be profitable and growing — are better defined as lifestyle businesses than something venture-fundable. Generally, these businesses don’t have the possibility of rapid scaling, quick merger/acquisition, or other exit that a venture investor would be interested in; however, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good business. It just means you’re unlikely to attract outside investment.

I recently emailed out information about the Technology Council’s upcoming VentureNet event (www.venturenet.org), which is a great opportunity to get exposure for your company to venture capitalists, angel investors, and others in the community. Interestingly enough, one of the companies that I’d provided with information about the event treated my email with quite a bit of paranoia, asking on a public forum if “this is a scam”.

Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that “new” entrepreneurs–that is, people who haven’t built a business before, raised money, or worked much in a business role–tend to be fairly paranoid.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked (as a journalist) about signing an NDA — which absolutely no journalist, and no self-respecting venture capitalist–would ever do.  I’ve had entrepreneurs ask for news coverage, but don’t want to release details on what their companies actually do in fear of someone else learning about it; companies asking us not to include news coverage on their firms; and other asking to have full “approval” control over what we write on them.

Successful entrepreneurs know that:

1. You’re never going to get VC funding if you ask a VC for an NDA
2. Journalists will write what they want, and they absolutely won’t let YOU drive their coverage.
3. It’s not your idea, it’s your execution, and finally
4. You’ve got to have a level of trust in human beings to succeed

Perhaps I’m just naive, but it seems to me that the bulk of people in the technology industry — at least here in Southern California — are honestly looking to help out new entrepreneurs and companies.  For those with a vested interest in growing the community, they are willing to refer people to others, offer guidance and help, and nudge others along the path to funding and success. There might be some out there (though no one comes to mind) who are just in it to scam you out of money, but the community here is very, very supportive of new entrepreneurs.

VentureNet, the local venture capital focused conference held in fall by the Technology Council of Southern California, has begun accepting applications for presenter spots. The deadline to be considered is September 14. I’m on the selection committee, but there are far better qualified venture investors who really spend a lot of time winnowing through the applications for the event to find the best presenting firms.

VentureNet is an interesting contrast to most of the Silicon Valley venture capital events I run across, not only because it’s organized by a nonprofit, but because there is a dedicated group of Southern California venture capitalists who work to make the event happen. I’ve noticed that a great number of events down here are truly community supported by VCs — perhaps because it’s only recently we’ve started to gain some attention for the great technology firms here, or because the common interest in building the technology base here — but it’s a marked contrast from what often can be a “dog eat dog” world in Silicon Valley, where you often have to spend thousands of dollars to apply, attend, or exhibit at the venture conferences. It’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and startups to connect with investors in both the local area and beyond.

“Networking” gets lots of lip service, in terms of how useful networking is in moving your business and startup forward. I’ve found that people rarely analyze and understand how to effectively network, and to make connections and go beyond just meeting people at random. A few years ago I met Dr. Elissa Grossman, a researcher who has been studying how entrepreneurs network with other people, and compares those behaviors with business success.

We’ve just posted a great contributed article from Dr. Grossman, now an assistant professor at Baruch College, CUNY on some great tips and information–based on her research–showing what techniques were most effective. Her article, Reflections on Entrepreneurial Networking, was just posted to our startup section.