ATDC spends innumerable hours every week coaching entrepreneurs on their investment pitches. We see many entrepreneurs with good intentions make common mistakes and help them avoid common pitfalls as they prepare to present their companies in the best possible light. A great opportunity to observe fellow entrepreneurs in action is next Tuesday May 19th at MIT Forum of Atlanta’s Run it By the Pros workshop.
At Run it By the Pros four new companies will present their business plans to a panel of experts. The Venue : Law Offices of Carlton Fields, One Atlantic Center, 1201 West Peachtree Street, 49th Floor, Atlanta, GA, 30309; Time: 3:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. You can register here (members only but TAG members are eligible and can attend at the MIT Forum Member $25 rate). Clarification: You must be a member of the MIT Enterprise Forum to attend.
ATDC graduate entrepreneur Patrick Taylor of Oversight Systems will serve as the experienced entrepreneur on the panel along with VC’s Mark Johnson of Total Technology Ventures, Linnea Geiss of Arcapita, and Lawrence Gold from Carlton Field.
In addition to attending Run it By the Pros many an entrepreneur will find our articles on Telling a Compelling Story and Top VC Questions valuable resources when prepping to pitch their own deal.
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Thursday, May7, 2009
7:30 to 9am
Ashford Club
75 5th Street, NW
5565 Glenridge Connector # 100
Atlanta, GA Map
Click here to register!
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This week the TAG/ATDC Entrepreneurs Society partnered up with the TAG Featured Speaker Series to present Don Yaeger, New York Times best seller and author of "What Makes the Great Ones Great" on Thursday at the Ashford Club.
Yaeger, author of 16 books, was formerly Associate Editor of Sports Illustrated, and has led to guest appearances on every major talk show in America – from Oprah to Nightline; from CNN to Good Morning America. In his 20-plus years as a journalist, he has conducted interviews with some of the greatest athletes of our time – Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, Emmitt Smith, Serena Williams, Jimmy Connors and countless others. He has lived with Walter Payton, writing the NFL legend’s autobiography as Payton courageously battled cancer, and even interviewed the President of the United States in the Oval Office.
Using lessons learned from a lifetime in sports, Don will share the formula that he has seen in the great winners he’s worked with – and explains how that formula can work for others.
Characteristics necessary for entrepreneurial success are in many cases quite similar to those of great athletes – a PHD – persistence, hard work and determination.
As an athlete, I look forward to getting inspired by Don and perhaps hearing some interesting stories about the great individuals Don has worked with over his very interesting career.
ATDC’s Lance Weatherby has made a big impact in his almost 3 years at the incubator. It is no coincidence that during his tenure at ATDC, many great community initiatives have started and been hosted by ATDC, including StartupWeekend, BarCamp, CloudCamp, and Meet the VC.He is also a friend of the StartUpChicks in Atlanta.
One of Lance's lasting contributions to the ATDC is his creation and leadership of ATDC’s blog, www.peachseedz.com. This blog is a great resource to Georgia's entrepreneurial community and has a growing subscriber base of over 3,000.
The enthusiasm that Lance has for web technology is inspiring and is bringing momentum to Atlanta. The ATDC has brought in more web companies since he began here as a
venture catalyst and he has inspired me, an early majority at best, to become active on Twitter and to experiment with Facebook. Along with Lance, a handful of other companies are
making Atlanta an exciting center for tech entrepreneurship. The
leaders of Shotput Ventures are a great story of current tech
entrepreneurs investing in future tech entrepreneurs – a good sign of
the maturation of Atlanta’s tech community.
Follow Lance on Twitter @lance and also consider following his personal blog, Force of Good, to learn from one of Atlanta’s biggest proponents of Atlanta tech startups.
If you are a subscriber to TechView Atlanta (subscribe now), check out a detailed profile of Lance in the April 13th release.
This Wednesday, April 15, StartUpChicks will be hosting their 2nd event here at the ATDC. StartUpChicks is a community designed to connect and inspire women entrepreneurs. The group launched last month at TAP in Midtown Atlanta and, since then, membership has grown to over 140 people.
The April event will be a panel featuring four prominent, successful, women entrepreneurs and promises to be a great networking and educational opportunity. The featured panelists include:
- Joan Lyman, a nationally recognized serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple technology companies
- Karen Robinson, an experienced leader who has managed and grown numerous companies, including Prime Point Media
- Lynn Do, President and CEO of Renovo Data
- Radhika Subramanian, CEO of Emcien
- Cindy Cheatham, a venture catalyst at the ATDC, will moderate the discussion
Chicks Only.
6:30pm – 7:00pm: Networking
7:00pm – 8:00pm(ish): Panel Discussion
8:00pm(ish) – ???: Networking @ The Cypress Street Plate & Pint Restaurant
NOTE: There will be a $10 admission fee.
For more information and to register for the event, please visit the StartUpChicks website.
The level of excitement at the ATDC was high this week with news of member company SoloHealth's recent funding and expansion plans. SoloHealth makes EyeSite™ vision testing and new patient generating kiosks that you can find in stores like Walgreens and Kroger. In the press release, SoloHealth announced that it will be teaming up with Transitions Optical, Inc. and other leading eye care companies to deploy a large number of the EyeSite kiosks in a major US market this summer. This recent investment, which includes funding from various private investors, gives SoloHealth and its partners the opportunity to grow and expand the innovative EyeSite concept.
A quote from the recent press release:
“SoloHealth, combined with these optical industry leaders, is helping to create new ways to drive additional traffic to eye doctors,” said Bart Foster, CEO and founder of SoloHealth. “Results have shown that of the people who have used the EyeSite kiosk, over 25 percent have never visited an eye care professional and 49 percent reported family history of eye disease. Many of those have gone on to book appointments with a local eye doctor. EyeSite self-service vision testing kiosks educate people about the health benefits of seeing an eye doctor on a regular basis.”
SoloHealth has had great experience with the kiosks in Atlanta and has screened over 100,000 people since late 2007. The nearest location to ATDC is in the "Fresh Fare" Kroger in Buckhead. Check it out!
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Thursday, April 2, 2009
7:30 to 9am
Entrepreneurs-only Roundtable 9:15-10:15am
Centergy One Building
75 5th Street, NW
Hodges Room (335)
Atlanta, GA Map
Click here to register!
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"Georgia Innovators in Financial Services and Payments Technology"
The TAG/ATDC Entrepreneurs event for April features a panel of two ATDC member companies, FTRANS and Cardlytics, and the Georgia-based VC firm, Total Technology Ventures. Blake Patton, our newest entrepreneur-in-residence, will be moderating the session and brings his own experience in financial services start-ups to the discussion. This panel will be an informative resource as executives from the featured companies discuss their business models and best practices. The event will be a great way to showcase some of the exciting developments in Georgia's technology industry.
Check out the bios of the panel participants:
Lynne Laube, COO and Co-Founder, Cardlytics
Daniel Drechsel, CEO, FTRANS
Gardiner Garrard, CFA, Investment Partner, Total Technology Ventures
Register now!
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Thursday, March 5, 2009
7:30 to 9 am
Entrepreneurs-only Roundtable 9:15-10:15am
Centergy One Building
75 5th Street, NW
Hodges Room (335)
Atlanta, GA Map
Click here to register!
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Come meet TechOperators, a team of experienced and successful entrepreneurs-turned-VCs, at the TAG/ATDC Entrepreneurs event in March.
Dave Gould, Glenn McGonnigle, and Said Mohammaidoun formed TechOperators last year because they believe that early-stage investing means helping companies operationalize ideas for success. Their collective experience includes Witness Systems, ISS, and Synchrologic.
Their willingness to share the lessons they have learned is a valuable asset to the Georgia technology community.
You don’t want to miss the practical advice this team will be providing, so register today!
If you want to be good at something, you need to practice. A new Harvard Business School working paper shows that this sensible advice also applies to entrepreneurs. The study compared entrepreneurs with a successful track record with first time entrepreneurs and those who had failed in the past. Not surprisingly, the entrepreneurs with past success were more likely to succeed with subsequent ventures (30% vs. 18% for first-timers and 20% for entrepreneurs who had previously failed). Their success derives from two factors: their own skills, especially in terms of market timing skills, and the perception of those skills by customers and investors. Investors who recognize an entrepreneur’s market timing skills are more likely to provide outside funding, and this funding helps contribute to more successful company outcomes. In effect, success begets success. Interestingly, top-tier investors did not seem to make a difference in this study in terms of successful outcomes relative to the experienced entrepreneurs. The authors theory of “success begets success” shows that successful entrepreneurs are able to attract better resources and thus in the case of investors, do not have as much need for “added-value” as the less proven entrepreneurs.
You can access the 2008 Harvard Business School Working Paper, “Performance Persistence in Entrepreneurship,” by Paul Gompers, Anna Kovner, Josh Lerner, and David Scharfstein paper here (pdf).
Charlie Paparelli drew a huge huge crowd recently at ATDC where he spoke on how to get to a second investor meeting. Charlie entertained and spoke plainly about the most critical aspects to building a successful and fundable business. Charlie also shared his deep passion for entrepreneurship, quoting Shakespeare "to thine own self be-true." He shared how Richard Brock brought him out of the boring world of being a CPA doing paid management work to his true passion of entrepreneurship. He encouraged all entrepreneurs in the group and applauded their efforts.
The #1 hot tip was in Charlies’s own words, I’m asking myself during that first meeting "Do I think he can do it?" In other words, you’re selling yourself. You’re selling investors the confidence you can pull it off. In addition to selling yourself have have to prepare to sell the opportunity, the business and the team.
Charlie shared a simple but important two by two. On the vertical was the "fog factor", defined as the uncertainly of your market and its adoption. The horizontal was time to money. Getting a referenceable customer is one of the surest ways to reduce your company’s fog factor when trying to get an investor on board. And of course, a paying customer who demonstrates your early business model does not hurt your ability to show you can make an investor money. His second major hot tip – People and Market Focus reduce time to investment.
Charlie also emphasized the importance of qualifying prospective investors. He noted that the best salespeople are also the best qualifiers. Their time is their most valuable treasure and raising money is a sales process. How do you qualify and how do you get to investors? First of all, you need to know the market of investors. On the one spectrum are the friends and family and wealthy individuals, what he calls the ignorant and the uninformed. On the other are the informed and experienced, the VC. If you’re qualified to get VC money, you’re pursuing a small piece of a very large pie vs. on the other spectrum, likely to keep a larger piece of a small pie.
Charlie was adamant that investors do not respond to cold-calls, and they don’t. He shared a chart of all the key organizations and people that should connect you to investors if you have the right value-add partners. These include lawyers and other expert professionals. And of course, Charlie kindly and rightly put ATDC on his chart – thanks Charlie – I just happened to set up 5 investor meetings with Seven Rosen funds last week.
Charlie is a great contributor to our community. He tells informative stories and makes them fun. Despite some of these businesses being "boring" as your sales tax company they sure are wildly successful.
ATDC is at the tail end of completing a 7 week fundraising bootcamp, CapVenture. After completing two solid days of dozens of practice pitch sessions, some of the companies like most startups are struggling with how to tell their story in a compelling way.
Tech entrepreneurs tend to be in love with their product or service. They are frequently technical in nature while the investors they are pitching to are not. Instead, angels and VCs tend be financially oriented or have backgrounds in consulting or general management.
Entrepreneurs start with the assumption that everyone will love their idea or product. Investors start with the assumption "Why should I care? What’s wrong with this opportunity?"
Take the time to put yourself in the investor’s shoes. Investors hear dozens of pitches a week. Telling a story makes it easier for them to “get it.” Prior to going to market with your pitch, test drive it with savvy entrepreneurs, your executive team and friendly investors — investors that are not targets for you. This will help you develop and practice your pitch so that you can deliver it successfully when you’re in front of that key investor.
Here are some other resources to help you prepare your story: