Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Best place to look is www.fundinguniverse.com. They have a huge network of angel investors. Give them a try.


-------------------------

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do."
-- Edmund Everett Hale, writer

Did you use this site (funding universe) ?  How did it work?

 

-------------------------

Business Growth Masters, LLC -
Capital Catalysts for Entrepreneurs
Home of the Scalable Business Plan and QuikStart Capital Programs
http://www.bizgrowthmasters.com
info@bizgrowthmasters.com

I haven`t used the site. The owner is a friend and he is helping us find funding for a larger project than what is typical of the site.(this is where I heard of the site) As with all funding nothing is guaranteed  but they seem to have a good program. I can say this, I totally recommend the owners.


-------------------------

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do."
-- Edmund Everett Hale, writer

If you are doing 30,000 page views a day, or nearly a million a month, after only four months and the site is not based on copyright violations or the like, you are doing something right.

The question is how much money you need. Anything up to, say, $500,000, puts you in the angel investor zone. The best bet there is to find a local angel investor network. Pretty much every area in the US now has some kind of organized or semi-organized group of angel investors that will get together and hear pitches from local startups. There are more (and more sophisticated) angel investor networks in the traditional start up capitals like Boston and Silicon Valley, but no matter where you live there is probably one near you. Do a search on Google or ask around to find out what your local option is.

I am a registered investor with some of the online groups (GoBigNetwork, FundingPost) but I`ve never invested that way (as opposed to offline, where I have several times). That`s mainly because there is no screening and all the proposals that reach me seem to be pure crap, although there is the additional factor that an investor is investing first and foremost in people and it is hard to get a feel for the essential people qualities online. A lot of people have concluded that it would be really cool to connect investors and entrepreneurs online, going back to the original Garage.com iteration back in the original dotcom boom days, but no one has ever made it really work for either investors or entrepreneurs, so far as I know.

If you are adding registered 200 users a day (and, again, if the value proposition is something other than links to illegal DVD or MP3 downloads or the like) I`m not sure you want to spend money on paid advertising. You seem to have good word of mouth working; I would work on turbocharging that and save the money for bandwidth and programmers.

Sorry that i have to ask this again but...usually with these Angels...what is the repay back terms for these fundings like this??  Thanks in advance!!!

Andyngo76,

It`s difficult to give a single general answer because there are many variables. However, "professional" angels will be looking for a liquidity event - which may be a later stage VC round or some form of sale; either public or private. These folks look for double digit returns.

When one deals with different investors - one may have other ways to meet their objectives.

-------------------------

Business Growth Masters, LLC -
Capital Catalysts for Entrepreneurs
Home of the Scalable Business Plan and QuikStart Capital Programs
http://www.bizgrowthmasters.com
info@bizgrowthmasters.com

Thank you so much for your post Hardknocksmba. You just made my point for me. The idea of an online venue where investors and talented entrepreneurs can interact and associate is great; however in reality the only ones that seem to profit from these matchmaking sites are usually the operators.

The problem with these sites is that most operators really don’t have the expertise and experience to put together a portfolio of quality investment opportunities that investors might be interested in. And even if they do, having to decline about 60%-70% of the proposals that aren’t up to par, would mean that they would be loosing 60%-70% of their business. Since they can’t charge a contingency fee because they are not licensed as broker dealers, this only leaves them with accepting anybody who’s willing to pay their fee.

On the other hand, those who possess the required expertise, experience, and licenses to focus on quality investment proposals, can’t really generate the necessary deal flow to maintain the interest of hundreds or thousands of investors.

So, from an investor’s point of view these sites offer literally zero benefits.

Other than that I agree with ConsultNow that social networking is facing imminent consolidation. The initial hype is over and while many sites are still extremely popular, they are also struggling to come up with a viable strategy to turn their popularity into revenues.

So unless, the dynamics of your business or social networking niche is substantially different from mainstream Web 2.0, arranging financing will probably not as easy as you want it to be. If you can, try capitalizing on your site’s popularity and focus on an internal growth plan.

I hope this helps.


Mark



-------------------------


Jackson Steiner
http://www.JacksonSteiner.com

Advanced Document Design for entrepreneurs, intermediaries, and the financial services industry.
http://www.Publications.FastVentures.com