Comments on: My Funding Toolkit

By: What I learned at SXSW « FoundRead

What I learned at SXSW « FoundRead — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:39:10 +0000

[...] has written previously for Found|READ about fundraising for her startup, BabbleSoft, in My Funding Toolkit and A Founder’s Tale: Angels vs. VCs and on the cost of acquiring customers. No comments [...]

By: Cost of Customer Acquisition - What Is It? « FoundRead

Cost of Customer Acquisition - What Is It? « FoundRead — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:19:08 +0000

[...] has written recently about her experiences fundraising for her current startup, BabbleSoft, in My Funding Toolkit and A Founder’s Tale: Angels vs. VCs. Today Aruni shares with us her insights on another [...]

By: Kyle Reese

Kyle Reese — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:46:23 +0000

Good post, Aruni. I’ve added your blog to my bloglines list - so I’ll be expecting more!

By: Yusuf Motiwala

Yusuf Motiwala — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:37:10 +0000

Very good post!

Yusuf

By: Don Jones

Don Jones — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:54:11 +0000

Aruni,

May I add a link to my free eBook guide to getting funding from Angel groups?

(link)

Hope you and your readers find it helpful…

Cheers

By: Cloudy Thinking » Blog Archive » Aruni Gunasegaram: Funding Toolkit

Cloudy Thinking » Blog Archive » Aruni Gunasegaram: Funding Toolkit — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 04:20:06 +0000

[...] Gunasegaram writes about her Funding Toolkit. Check out her blog for an article about other people’s money, and see her (still under [...]

By: entrepreMusings » My Fundraising Toolkit

entrepreMusings » My Fundraising Toolkit — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:38:06 +0000

[...] Jan 12, 2007: Found|Read republished this very post on their blog and called it My Funding Toolkit. Check out that post for some great comments! They have many more readers than my blog [...]

By: Aruni

Aruni — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:47:42 +0000

@Knox - thanks for the link to the angel association. I did not know a larger organization existed. I know they have groups in Texas in each of he major cities.

@Mike - thanks for linking back to the article. I hope it helps other entreprenuers.

By: Mike Blake

Mike Blake — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:04:39 +0000

Good post and good comments. I’m posting a link to this to my own community, startuplounge.com.

– mike

By: “My Funding Toolkit” «

“My Funding Toolkit” « — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 04:14:52 +0000

[...] “My Funding Toolkit” From FoundRead.com: [...]

By: Knox Massey

Knox Massey — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:58:26 +0000

Good assessment! You are pretty much on target. Executive summary is right. Financials(or lack thereof) is right. Visuals is right. Investor leads list is right. This one is very important. Do your homework on any and all angel groups. The good ones will respond well if you know a little about the group. Doing your homework will keep you away from the bad ones. Passion for what you do does count.
Here’s a list you might want to take a look at:

(link)

Good luck!

By: Aruni

Aruni — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:48:18 +0000

Neil - thanks for the link. I had not checked the site out recently using Firefox on a Mac. You are very right about waiting as long as possible to take money. If you can find the right founding team who will work for free and get everything out there and start showing significant traction then you are in a much better place to negotiate. Sounds like you have the right approach.

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:40:14 +0000

Aruni - I think Steve was referring to Firefox on Mac. It’s unlikely that potential investors will be visiting the site on that combination, but there are some issues on the landing page. I’ve taken a screenshot so you know how it looks;

(link)

Tell your designer to add the ‘clearfix’ fix to the stylesheet, and to apply the rule to the floated divs; the table element containing “Whether you need breast feeding support….” has floated up into the element above because of a ‘float: right’ rule.

Back to the original topic: For the last few months I’ve been going through the same ordeal as you. However, I’ve been in the bizarre position of being offered angel money right from the inception of the idea (I can put together front-end interfaces, so I was able to demonstrate what looked like a finished product, and I have lots of very helpful, high net worth contacts), but I now strongly believe that Web businesses are far better-off finding the right founding team (i.e. capable of getting the product to market) and building the product without doing the investor dance - especially VCs. You’ll always struggle with VCs if you’re pre-revenue, even if you have the right introductions. I’d rather hang on to equity, get the right founders on board, and find a revenue stream that supports the businesses’ growth.

If you have to go in to angel or VC negotiations without customers, revenue, or some kind of adoption, you have to be 100% confident and have completely unwaivering faith in your business proposition. Being able to talk an investor through the customer experience, step-by-step, is also a must. This is especially true for Web start-ups, for which the customer (user) experience is everything.

By: Aruni

Aruni — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:53:36 +0000

Hi Philip - you are right about including the risks in there. I will definitely make sure to address some of those.

Hi Steve - as far as I know our application site and website works with firefox. the one we’ve had more issues with is safari. if there is something in particular that doesn’t work, please let me know. It works on my firefox browser.

By: steve

steve — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:49:44 +0000

I think you should also get a smart CS student to get the babblesoft website to work with firefox.

By: philip wilkinson

philip wilkinson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 09:57:14 +0000

Hi Aruni,

Definitely need a section in there about the “risks” your business and market has going forward and some ways you might be able to prepare or counter them. Needs to be a really honest assessment.

Good Luck!