This was an etech talk by Marc Hedlund, Chief Product Officer, Wesabe Geeks and venture capitalists often don't speak the same language. This talk provides a look at venture capital financing from the point of view of the technologist. If you have an idea for a technology company or a technology you'd like to make into a product, should you look for VC backing? What should your expectations be going into the process? What are some of the common pitfalls technologists encounter when they try to find VC funding? How can you talk about your technology and your company in a way that will appeal to potential venture backers? We'll approach the topic of venture backing without getting bogged down in the finance terminology common to VC primers (though references for those topics will be provided). You'll be given a more informal set of advice; rules of thumb and cautions will predominate.

1. vc funding for geeks [email_address]

10. okay

11. #1: vc’s don’t start new companies

14. #2: focus on the business first not the funding

15. if ($vc->will_fund()) { $company->accelerate(); } // need an else {} statement!

21. #3: no means maybe yes means maybe

22. // pitch() returns an int, not a boolean int reaction = vc.pitch(); while (reaction <= 0) { Thread.sleep(MONTH); reaction = vc.update(progress); }

23. if (reaction > 0) { }

24. #4: funding is more than a full-time job

28. #5: some things about vcs

32. okay

33. what you need

35. on pitches: Brad Feld: The Torturous World of PowerPoint http://www.feld.com/blog/ VentureBlog: Presenting Your Company http://www.ventureblog.com/

36. the technologist’s trap