Sex & the Investor - revisited Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I'd forgotten about the presentation I did below at Barcamp London Feb 06 until I got a email today telling me someone had marked it as a favourite on Slideshare.com. So, when I checked the site I was thrilled to see that it had now been viewed over 8900 times [thanks Mom]. Reviewing it for the first time in a long while, I was still happy with the content and believe it's still relevant to entrepreneurs seeking funding.

Hope you agree.

SlideShare | View | Upload your own

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posted by John Wilson @ 8:38 PM Permanent Link ,

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Should you issue debt instead of equity for seed financing Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Venture Hacks has an article suggesting entrepreneurs should issue convertible debt instead of equity when doing seed financing.

Extracts
- Why is debt a great alternative to equity in a seed round? Convenience, suitability, control, cost, and speed.

- With convertible debt, the lender and your company both expect to convert the debt into equity when you close the Series A.

Interesting article and you should check out the discussion in the comments which included the following suggestion

If lenders are concerned about giving up a security (equity) interest in the assets of the company, consider securing it with founder’s shares instead (company has relatively few assets).

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posted by John Wilson @ 8:54 AM Permanent Link ,

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We don't fund a "one man band" Sunday, May 13, 2007

Unlike a record company, investors don't ordinarily fund one man bands. There's many reasons for this, including the dislike of key man reliance i.e. if the founder gets bored and walks then your investment is screwed. However, it also raises questions about why the owner hasn't been able to persuade anyone else to join them in the endeavour - can't they persuade anyone of the merits of the idea or is the founder unable to work with others? Neither are great for an investor. It's also alleged that no one is good at everything and even if that's not true, can they really do everything simultaneously without compromising on quality?

Someone I met at last week's ContentMixer event at the Savoy in London suggested to me that entrepreneurship is a lonely affair - well, investors prefer it not to be. As they say on "Who wants to be a millionaire", would you like to phone a friend?

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posted by John Wilson @ 11:34 PM Permanent Link ,

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