LearnVC.com » admin

The importance of grants and applying for them

admin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:55:31 +0000

Today is NC IDEA and IDEA Fund Partners appreciation day, as determined by those that have received grants and funding from them.

First off, the initial value of the NC IDEA grant program is the application. I’ve heard complaints about the application’s restriction on number of characters. Having reviewed the applications myself a few years back, I completely support these restrictions. As entrepreneurs, we tend to be overly verbose where we shouldn’t be in applications/pitches/etc.

We first applied for a grant in the Fall ’08 cycle. We were rejected, primarily based off the weakness of our application. When we applied and received a grant in the Spring ’09 cycle our application was much, much stronger. That is part of the process and helped us immensely to refine and clarify how we pitch our business.

The fact that the money is non-dilutive is fantastic. Up to $50,000 meant to help your company meet milestones that make your company more attractive to angel and VC investors. Absolutely no downside, in my opinion. Only thing is, the Fall ’11 cycle’s deadline is August 26… so get busy with the application.

If you can find other programs similar to NC IDEA’s grant program, I would recommend applying. We recently found one that we applied to, Innotribe $100k Start-up Challenge.

Statsheet’s post on their experiences with NC IDEA and IDEA Fund Partners.

-Jeff

LinkedIn Group – Best Practices for Startups Raising Capital

admin — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:56:41 +0000

In an effort to help entrepreneurs find answers to the difficult questions when raising capital we’ve started a LinkedIn group. This group consists of entrepreneurs, vetted services providers, and investors.
Join here.

Our very own shortened URL, lrn.vc

admin — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:36:47 +0000

I know a few have wondered about new content for the site. I can assure you that we’re actively working on some new content. In the mean time, check out our new shortened URL, lrn.vc. We’ll be using this more going forward. Thanks to @ericboggs for making the process easy with @argylesocial.
– Jeff

VCIC Training video

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:07:57 +0000

Watching the YouTube playlist

If the playlist is shown at the bottom of the YouTube screen, just hit the red bottom-left icon.

There are 5 videos comprising the training (YouTube limits the duration of the videos). In total, there is just more than 30 minutes of videos as part of the VCIC training. In addition, we have a VCHub product orientation video separate from these 5 videos.

New LearnVC.com web-site design/layout

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:05:51 +0000

Hi everyone
We’ve updated our web-site! We are going to start updating with new content now, and take advantage of this new layout focused on more graphical ways of navigating the content. To this end, we have our economic levers highlighted on the main page. Please check it out and give comments.

Shark Tank – extreme negotiation

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:29:40 +0000

Pitching Element Bars, with entrepreneur Jonathan Millers, is one of the best negotiations I’ve seen on either Shark Tank or Dragons’ Den.

Watch, enjoy, learn.

Liquidation preference in Dragons’ Den negotiation

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:16:53 +0000

Two shows I watch every week are Dragons’ Den (BBC) and Shark Tank (ABC). After watching a recent episode of Dragons’ Den, I was surprised by James Caan offering a liquidation preference as part of his offer using participating preferred stock. Typically in either show the negotiations are only focused on valuation with common stock.

In Dragons’ Den: Series 6: Episode 3 – 5 of 6, fast forward to 4:30 for the beginning of the pitch and negotiation.

It is the first time I’ve seen any Dragon or Shark refer to preferred stock type features. It was a very odd attempt, given that there were other offers at the same valuation without these features.

I’ll include this post in the VCIC section of our site in the hopes that teams prepare by watching some episodes before their events.

Summer 2009 Internships

admin — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:53:39 +0000

LearnVC.com, Inc. provides a web-based application for entrepreneurs and investors to model investments into startups. On LearnVC.com we have free educational material with interactive examples for the “levers of valuation” powered by our modeling software. Our full modeling software is currently in an invite-only beta and will be demonstrated to those interested in working with us this summer.

We are seeking technical and business people for non-paid summer internships. For the technically inclined, the majority of the tasks will be developing functional tests of our web application using Selenium (www.seleniumhq.org). For the business oriented, we have a variety of potential projects depending on the interests of the person.

If you are interested, or know someone who is, please contact me directly at moc.cvnraelnull@ffej with a resume and list of interests.

(Updated) Example Term Sheets and Term Sheet Generator

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:46:35 +0000

In November last year, I posted about a few great examples of term sheets and related equity financing documents. Since then a few things have happened warranting a new post to summarize everything.

First, there’s the Class F stock documents created by Wilson Sonsini and hosted on TheFunded Founder Institute. This is by far the most entrepreneur friendly of the three example term sheets.

Second, the Y Combinator hosted Series AA documents, available here. These are representative of Angel funding documents, and were created by Wilson Sonsini.

Third, the NVCA hosted documents, available here. These are more representative of Venture Capitalists, as you may expect.

Last, but certainly not the least, is Wilson Sonsini again (seeing a pattern?) providing an exceptional tool to automatically generate term sheets after answering a questionnaire.

VCIC 2009: Pitch, Due Diligence, and Negotiation

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:57:45 +0000

The five main components of the VCIC are:

Reading the business plans
Listening to the entrepreneur pitches (15 minutes)
Performing Due Diligence (15 minutes)
Creating the deliverables (term sheet and executive summary)
Performing the negotiation (18 minutes, 7 minutes Q&A with judges afterwards)

#2, #3, and #5 are shown in even tighter time constraints on BBC’s Dragon’s Den TV program. This show (available on BBC America) has Dragons (the VCs) hearing entrepreneur pitches, asking some due diligence questions, and then making decisions to invest or not. Absolutely fantastic for a variety of reasons, but most importantly a great way to get some perspective for VCIC participants.