linkroll: multible angel rounds, ff shares, plan b

what are "series ff preferred shares"? they can bring early money to the founders of start.up companies, like powerset. details are described in the post "putting founders first". also found on the updated start.up linkroll.

how to deal with multiple angel investment rounds is the the 2nd add to the linkroll. if you can not decide whether to take convertible debt or make an equity round, this blogpost is a good read.

finally a common history of a venture based start.up called "plan b for fund raising", written by guy kawasaki. a bitter-sweet history. as entertaining as we expect from guy, he indirectly referes to the bootstrapping idea in his book "the art of the start".

challenge your start.up idea before pitching investors

venture and business angels money for web start.ups is scare around vienna. thus, when approaching them, there is just this "one" first chance to leave a good impression. meeting other entrepreneurs and discussing your start.up idea before can be crucial therefore. there are three different approaches to that. work up from step three to one.

one, compete and challenge on an international or european level.
participipate at seedcamp, pitch at library house or apply for the upcoming demo in munich (if you can afford so). find more on those competitions on the start.up mindmap. this international exposure gives a good indicator on the competitiveness of the start.up sector.
there are plenty of good ideas, smart brains and enthusiastic people out there, all fighting for investments, staff, customers and media attention. fearing to compete against them is no different then to hide one´s head in the sand. like last years bootcamp finalist, zemanta, funding can get a lot easier.

two, go out an present at the national level. look out for the barcamps around. there are plenty around. spending 30 minutes to present and discuss your start.up in from of a smart bunch can not only be challenging, but as well inspiring. do not mind to present more then once, showing your progress every time. there you can expect to get feedback from hardcore tech topics, user interface desing to grafical ideas, depending on the crowd present. barcamps are no one way story though. just trying to "get" something will not work. share your insights, give opinions and trying to help out others with what you already learned is an imperative.

three, again one scale smaller, visit even more casual community events. visit webmontag or open coffe club. for the webmontag @ werkzeugH or metalab in vienna, be prepared for a five minute pitch, no more. open coffe club is more casual. just sit down and talk with people. at the 6th open coffe club vienna for example, there were around 20 people. star.ups in every stage, bloggers, people which just came back from international engagements or just moved from london to vienna. willingness to share information is required, such that events like these work.

this three steps require little in funds but a lot in willingess to take feedback and give it back tho the community. they can substantially increase the likelyness to succeed.

barcamp track "start.up finanzierung"

anbei die im track entwickelte mindmap als jpg, bis die verlinkung auf mind42 funktioniert. auf mind42 sind dann auch kommentare zu den einzelnen elementen ersichtlich.