Mixergy Funding Forum: The Smart Way to Get Your Startup Funded
After the success of last week’s Mixergy Drinks 2.0 event for eHarmony (click here to see our coverage), Mixergy’s founder Andrew Warner, is at it again, this time holding a very informative sold-out forum last night in Santa Monica covering the topic: The Smart Way to Get Your Startup Funded. One of the biggest mysteries that all entrepreneurs have to face is how to get funding for their startup. Entrepreneurs that have just started their company or planning to launch their startup would definitely need to learn about the funding process and how to get capital for their business, and this forum covered exactly that.
With 3 presenters that have first-hand experience on how to get venture capitalists to fund your business, last nights presenters revealed the exact steps you need to take in order to meet the right people to help you network your way to investors, and how to successfully pitch your company to the right VCs. On the panel, we have Mark Suster who’s a Partner for GRP Partners, which funded innovative entrepreneurs that have achieved great success, such as Costco, Starbucks, and Bill Me Later. Mark discussed what key elements venture capitalists look for to invest in a business, what constitutes as an effective pitch, and why not all startups should try to get a VC if their company is not seeking large multi-million dollar returns, but instead go to angel investors. Daniel Gould, co-founder of Newroo, which was launched in 2004 and sold in 2006, shared his experience as an entrepreneur and his role as an advisor for Venture Hacks. Daniel pointed out the importance of the roles played by advisors, having a co-founder, and the three phases of financing. While many points were covered in this forum on funding, William Quigley of Clearstone Venture Partners emphasized heavily on the importance of businesses having a novel idea that could generate high potential growth. Clearstone Venture Partners is an early stage venture fund that not only funds entrepreneurs, but they also embrace incubation. Again, the idea here is that as long as the idea you pitch is a ground-breaking, novel business concept, then you might have a chance with Clearstone Venture Partners to incubate the company.
Mixergy’s funding forum revealed an endless amount of useful information for the funding process, and we had the pleasure of interviewing some of the presenters as well as entrepreneurs that came to this forum seeking advice on the next step of their startup. Take a look at the wrap up here.
