Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I am about a year and half into my building an Internet based service offering.  I have taken my idea from paper to functioning product.  I have paying subscribers to my Internet service and my cost to acquire these customers is just about break even with the revenue they generate.  Additionally, I have happy customers that send emails exclaiming their satisfaction with the service.  These are all good things.

I feel that I am at the point in which I need to hire a CEO to take the company to the next level.  This person will need to raise money to fund the sale and marketing effort and then orchestrate the sales and marketing channels to allow the service to reach its potentail. 

How do I do this?  Where does one find such a person? Recruiters?  Craigslist?  I want to find a group of people that are looking for their first CEO gig, but have a technology background with a few successful "exits" in their past.

Where to search?

This is a tough problem. Finding a CEO to raise money might not be the right approach. Do you have hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of customers? If you`re looking for qualified individuals, there are two easy places you could ask: 1. banker. 2. lawyer. Bankers and lawyers always know people or they know people who know people. You get the idea. Also, depending on traffic you get, you might put a notice on your site.

Are you at the tricky point where grow requires cash, maybe a lot of cash? But you`re not generating enough cash to grow and feel that you need to spend more money to attract more customers and produce more cashflow for growth? This is sort of a paradox with respect the math involved. Have you decided how much money you need to grow? If so, who ran the numbers and do they have the right expertise.

Many times, marketing and advertising won`t help in the way you might expect. Neither will raising money. I`ve raised money before and never has it had quite the effect I expected. So I`m asking if you`re really sure of the reasons why you want to raise money for marketing. Marketing dollars do not necessarily lead sales increases. Also. Growth capital must be spent very wisely, and marketing/advertising expenditures are often black holes of cash. It is often far better to invest growth funds in the company and use a small amount of money for public relations.

Hope this helps!

What if you were to take CookieMonster`s thoughts and "pretend" for the moment that you`ve already got as much money as you could use. How much money do you need, and what exactly do you intend to do with that money? What specifically do you expect to happen when you get this money and do what you`ll do?