FountainBlue offers networking, education and support for entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley by conducting monthly entrepreneurs' forums for high tech and life science entrepreneurs. These monthly lunch meetings are designed to share successes and challenges in a safe environment, focused on helping fellow members run and grow their entrepreneurial ventures.
Our High Tech Entrepreneurs' Forums are open to high tech entrepreneurs & their teams (such as staff members, advisers, board members or investors) with a wide range of entrepreneurial experience, at various stages of growing or supporting a new or existing entrepreneurial venture. Please note that these forums are for entrepreneurs only, no service providers except for presenters and sponsors.
We are grateful to Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP http://www.klng.com for their generous sponsorship of FountainBlue's High Tech Entrepreneurs' Forum through 2006! Because of their generous support, these events are free for pre-registered life science entrepreneurs (no service providers please). (A $20 fee applies if you are not pre-registered.) Below is a typical agenda for our meetings.
11:30 Registration, Lunch and Networking
12:00 Welcomes and Introductions
12:10 Brief Comments from Facilitators on the Theme
12:40 Introductions from Each Entrepreneur and Question or Challenge About This Month's Theme, with questions, suggestions and feedback from everyone
1:25 Meeting Review, Follow-Ups Assigned, Next Meeting Announced
The theme for the November 13 meeting is Alternative Funding Options for Entrepreneurs and our guest facilitators are Ed Lambert, Senior VP of Emerging Technology, from BridgeBank, the fastest growing bank in the United States, and Jake Schwarz and Dirk Michels, Partners with the Corporate Law Group at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart http://www.klng.com.
Jake and Dirk are experienced business professionals and lawyers who are passionate about proactively helping their small and large client companies address their early stage company challenges. As partners for K&LNG's San Francisco and Silicon Valley practices, Jake and Dirk assist the entrepreneurial high-tech community in proactively addressing their corporate structure and legal challenges.
Ed has extensive experience as a banking and business executive working with early and later stage entrepreneurs as well as Fortune 500 companies. He has counseled early- and later- stage companies on their funding needs and enjoys brainstorming with entrepreneurs on optimizing and managing resources to meet sustainable corporate objectives.
Jake, Dirk and Ed will share real-life stories of how companies they've worked with struggled with resource and financial constraints, and how entrepreneurs balanced the long-term and short-term needs for their organizations.
Covering Your Bases: Legal Checklist for Entrepreneurs, with Gail Hashimoto and Mark Heyl from Hopkins & Carley facilitating
Selling Your Company's Unique Value, with Jennifer Vessels from Next Step facilitating
Creative Funding Options for the Enterprising Entrepreneur
Ask yourself some thought-provoking questions before seeking funding. What you are going to do will bias how much funding you will seek and from whom by when. (e.g. a fabless chip company may require a multi-million-dollar investment while a web-based company may require far less)
Be conservative about the amount of time and money you will need - estimate high
If you don't seek enough money for example, you may find yourself in desperate need of cash, and the 'center of gravity' from shift from you as the entrepreneur to the funder
If you don't allocate enough time to get the funding, you may have to make do with far less money until the funding comes through, and the financial burden may force your hand
Do some market research to determine how receptive are about your idea and the space in general
When doing the research, peel back the onion. Don't just investigate which got company funded by whom, but also why did they get the funding. Was it the technology? The management team? Domain expertise? User base? Strong revenue ramp-up? This information will shape how you build the company prior to funding, how much funding to seek and who to seek funding from.
Have a plan B if you don't get the funding you're seeking - is it a bridge loan? An asset-based line of credit? Founders? Friends, Family? Angels? Corporate investment?
If you seek funding and get turned down, take the opportunity to learn from the experience. Ask for specific feedback on why. When gaps are identified, ask the prospective funder if they know someone who can fill the gap.
You are welcome to join us for our upcoming forums - on the second Mondays of the month from 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. for the High Tech Entrepreneurs and TBD for the life sciences and energy entreprenerus. Please also join our mailing list at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SVEntrepreneurs for invitations to future events.