1: Keep it short and sweet.

Verbosity is not your friend. Set the hook in the first 5 minutes or you’ll probably lose them, said Joe Caruso, an angel investor speaking at a Friday morning Unconference panel in Boston. Don’t bring 50 Powerpoint slides. Bring 15 if you have to. The goal of this first meeting is not getting money, it’s getting the second meeting, said Jo Tango, of Kepha Partners, channeling Highland Capital’s Paul Maeder.

2: Be conversational.

Most VCs want a conversation more than an outright pitch. Be interactive and don’t get defensive responding to probing questions. Pushback is critical to this process. Investors want to see how you handle obnoxious questions. Skip the marketing speak, and get to why your idea is important.

3: Don’t name drop.

This is a pet peeve for Highland Capital Partners’ Sean Dalton. It’s like they’re saying “I know everyone but you. Now let’s talk about you.” VCs really just want to get to the point and see your value, not the value of your contact network.

4: Do your homework.

What has this VC firm done before? What are they interested in? Why does your vision jibe with theirs? Don’t pitch every VC in the zip code. Get the best introduction you can — if it’s a lawyer or a banker, the VC knows that they’re introducing you to 50 other funds. Targeted pitches beat scattershot pitches any day. Some funds are one and done — invest once and like the quick exit. Others are in it for the long haul, participate in every round — and take a bigger chunk of equity. Does that suit your plan?

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date and spiffy. They will study it before agreeing to meet.

5. Be honest.

When a potential investor asks why you left a job after a year, tell him. You don’t have to go into gory details but you can say “Hey, we didn’t really get along but I learned a lot from that experience. “If it seems that your idea isn’t impressing the investors, ask what it is about it that fails to excite. You never know if one of the partners in the room is the cousin of the CEO you parted ways with.

Be prepared to talk about your biggest success — and your part in it — and your biggest failure — and your part in that.

6: Embrace ambiguity

If you’re not equipped to deal with uncertainty and the very real prospect of failure (2/3rds of venture funded companies don’t return capital), don’t go this route.

Feature art courtesy of Shutterstock user Keith Bell

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Photo by Selena Marie

In previous posts, I’ve talked about attending local events and meetups or scheduling new ones if you can’t find any that meet your needs. In this post, I wanted to talk about something bigger than the typical meetup: community-organized events. BarCamps, unconferences, and similar events have been popping up all over the world in increasing frequency. I’m an organizer for the local BarCamp in Portland, and I have attended many of these types of events. I’m planning to attend BarCampAustin this weekend, which is running in parallel with SXSW.

The organization of these events is very different from typical commercial events. While commercial events tend to be organized by professional organizers who are being paid to produce the conference, community organized events are often organized by unpaid volunteers from the community who are passionate about the topic. Both types of events have their strengths and weaknesses and their place in the industry, but both are also very different in both organization and attendance.

Attendance

I have noticed that many organizers and a high percentage of attendees of BarCamps tend to be web workers. Maybe web workers tend to enjoy the self-organizing format and are passionate enough about their work to attend these events, many of which are held on weekends. Since many of us are self-employed, the free or very low cost nature of unconferences may appeal to those of us who don’t have a big company’s training budget to pay for the more expensive events.

Organization

Community organized events come with a special set of challenges for organizers, including:

• Putting together a really solid team of people who can meet deliverables and commit the time to organize the event without getting paid.
• Dealing with sponsorships and other monetary contributions by partnering with or forming a legal entity to handle the money.
• Finding sponsors or other contributions to fund event expenses.
• Budgeting for the event and dealing with unexpected costs.
• Estimating attendance and finding an affordable venue with a space that works well for your needs (unconferences have different needs than traditional conferences).
• Promoting the event to make sure that the right people know about it.

I frequently attend both “traditional” commercial conferences and community events, and my preference is starting to drift toward community events. I feel like I get a broader perspective, and I seem to learn more at community events. I would love to hear more about your experiences with community events, including advantages and disadvantages, and challenges and opportunities.

What is your experience with attending or organizing community organized events?

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