Venture Workshop a hit with budding Montana entrepreneurs

Thank you TechRanch for bringing Bill Joos and his knowledge of Silicon Valley’s funding world to a packed house of Missoula entrepreneurs for an excellent Financing Work Shop.

We knew it was going to be a challenging day when Bill started asking questions: "Entrepreneurs, have you made any of the top 10 mistakes in writing your business plan? Do you address the "Big Pain that is caused by the "Burning Problems"? Do you obey the 13/30 rule? Will the dogs eat the dog food?" When you’re an entrepreneur, the last thing you want is to hear is that you’ve made a few of the 10 biggest mistakes or you don’t have a clue as to the real way to present your idea to a potential investor.

But Bill Joos of Go To Market Consulting http://gotomarketconsulting.com/ of Silicon Valley presented the best ways to fix those mistakes to a packed house in Missoula and then helped the assembled entrepreneurs, scientists and UM students getting ready for the upcoming University Business Plan Competition figure out how the correct answers applied to their business plans.

It was a day of learning how Venture Capitalists want to learn about a business before they invest and why they look at thousands of plans before investing in only a handful.

Bill brought his personal experience as a co-founder of Garage Ventures in Silicon Vally to those who may be seeking funding for their next "new new thing" that will bring them fame and fortune.

“We are excited to have someone of Bill’s caliber and experience in Missoula to share his ideas and passion for entrepreneurs of Montana. This was a great conference and provide the attendees with a number of great ideas and tools for their individual companies.” Glenn Michael of Highway 12 Ventures

Bill spent over 6 years as the VP of Entrepreneur Development at Garage Technology Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that he co-founded along with Guy Kawasaki. His reputation at Garage was that he provided their clients with effective, hand son, action-oriented strategic and tactical mentoring and coaching.

Bill has worked with literally hundreds of early-to-mid stage high technology startups and helped them polish and clarify their messages and refine their fund-raising and customer presentations; but his contributions to them extended well beyond being a "Pitch Doctor". He has mentored and coached them in go to market strategies, revenue and pricing optimization, business alliances, business development, partnerships, and marketing.

It was encouraging to see so many entrepreneurs with great ideas that ranged from protecting power grids from disasters to engine control systems to customized hand crafted log homes (with floor heat and a cooling fan) for your dog seeking the answers to the funding game that can be so important to a startup. The questions flew fast and furious as they worked at perfecting their business models and investor pitches.

The day was wrapped up with a panel of startup attorneys, Jack Manning and Jeremy Brown of Dorsey Whitney http://www.matr.net/click.php?id=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dorsey.com%2Flocations%2FOffice.aspx%3Foffice%3D22 , Liz Marchi, Director of Frontier Angel Fund http://frontierangelfund.angelgroups.net/ , Jon Marchi of Glacier Venture Fund, Glenn Michael of Highway 12 Ventures of Boise http://www.highway12ventures.com/ and John O’Donnell of TechRanch http://www.techranch.org and Buerk Dale Victor http://www.bdvllc.com/BDV/index.php giving their thoughts on the state of entrepreneurship and the funding environment in Montana.

The consensus was that we have a great number of impressive entrepreneurs but many fall short of being considered for substantial funding because they don’t have business models that have the potential to become significant companies. They pointed out that it takes the same amount of time to invest $25,000 as it does $5 Million. While they appreciate and applaud all entrepreneurs, they’d rather see the possibility of multi-million dollar returns than just the ability to build a small company that could only employ a few people. Montana’s success depends on its innovative entrepreneurs, tech transfer that comes out of our universities and those who don’t live here but would to contribute to the economic success of the state.

Developing a more sophisticated entrepreneurial community that can compete for funding with the best from Silicon Valley and Boston is a goal they all share.

Liz Marchi also pointed out that we have a large group of potential Angel Investors who could have a more important impact on our economic future if they banded into a connected Angel network. She’ll be hosting Angel gatherings in Great Falls and Helena. All interested Angels and potential Angels are encouraged to attend:

"Starting Angel Organizations, 04/08, Great Falls, MT" http://matr.net/events.phtml?showdetail=2672

"Starting Angel Organizations, 04/09, Helena, MT" http://matr.net/events.phtml?showdetail=2673

Bill will be giving his presentation in Boise in April for those who missed this forum. The event will be posted on MATR so stay tuned.

The Venture Forum was sponsored by:

TechRanch, http://www.techranch.org, is a leading business development assistance organization focused on helping entrepreneurs in the high technology markets in growing their businesses faster, more efficiently and with less investment capital than they could otherwise. TechRanch has developed expertise in bootstrapping, recruiting talent in rural markets, raising capital outside of the major geographic areas of finance, and developing near term strategic plans aimed at getting a company to cash flow positive as soon as possible.

Dorsey Whitney LLP in Missoula provides a full range of legal services to local, regional and national companies and individuals in Montana. This includes corporate, securities, merger and acquisition, venture capital and other financing, public finance, licensing, patent and trademark, international, employment, real estate and litigation. http://www.matr.net/click.php?id=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dorsey.com%2Flocations%2FOffice.aspx%3Foffice%3D22

Buerk Dale Victor (BDV) is a leading growth equity firm dedicated to delivering superior returns for our investors by partnering with private companies that have solid growth potential. Distinguished by over 200 years of investment and operational expertise, our partners help management teams and entrepreneurs access resources and make the connections to build successful, enduring businesses. We currently manage nearly $100 million from high net worth and institutional investors, and invest in growth companies across diversified stages and sectors. http://www.bdvllc.com/BDV/index.php

The mission of the eight-state Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association is to be a leading venture capital association with a strategic intent of making the region one of the top markets for venture activity. More than 180 venture capital professionals from 43 firms are actively engaged in investing in the region, and in aggregate, represent more than $6.3 billion in capital. http://www.rockymountainvca.com/

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Please join us for the next MATR Roundtable (Yes- We’re Starting Again!) "Everything You Wanted To Know From A Patent Attorney", 3/17, Missoula http://matr.net/news.phtml?cat_id=116&catlabel=MATR+Roundtable+Gatherings

and

"Encouraging The Next Generation Of Montana’s Entrepreneurs" With Warren And Laurie Miller, 3/26, Missoula, Montana http://www.matr.net/article-33362.html