The Venture Edge

For most people, March Madness is about basketball, but for entrepreneurs who create inventions that have social impact, March brings "March Madness for the Mind," an inspirational event sponsored by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA).  NCIIA is a non-profit organization that supports technology innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education with the goal of creating experiential learning opportunities for students and ultimately socially beneficial businesses. I just returned from speaking at the 14th Annual Conference, which took place in San Francisco and I was impressed and inspired by the inventions I saw.. 

A couple weeks ago I ran a guest post -- 8 Tips for Finding Angel Investors -- written by Arnie Koss who, with his twin brother Ron, started the country's first organic baby food manufacturer: Earth's Best Baby Food. The post was a big hit on the Internet, being tweeted and re-tweeted to more than 30,000 people in less than a week's time. This time I've got a guest post written by Ron Koss on the topic of How to Overcome Start-Up Fears. This is something that every entrepreneur has gone through at one time or another in their careers, and it can be a serious roadblock to your success. You'll find a lot more great advice to entrepreneurs -- including obtaining start-up and growth funding, and dealing with angel investors -- in his new book: The Earth's Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution (Chelsea Green Publishing, March 2010).

On Tuesday, Nation's Restaurant News asked its readers to let them know how their restaurants would fare under the new health care reform bill (which is still under revision). It appears that restaurant owners, among other types of small businesses, are feeling a great deal of concern.  "This will close our business.  The downturn in the economy and the escalating cost of labor, food, and fuel has us using our own savings to meet restaurant expenses," claimed one Savannah, GA business owner. 

As you may have noticed, I have been following serial entrepreneur Kevin Daum's quest to attain New York Times bestseller status for his upcoming book Roar! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle. The book is a sales book (specifically, a parable) based on the Passover passage about the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son unable to ask. Coincidentally, Passover starts in a week.

Back in 2005, James Surowiecki wrote a book by the name of The Wisdom of Crowds. The basic thesis of the book was this: "Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." The book went on to become a bestseller, and it spawned a new movement: Crowdsourcing.

Peter and I seem to be on a funding streak lately with our recent posts, probably because so many people are asking for advice on how to fund their businesses in these difficult times. In the past week alone, I've been contacted by four entrepreneurs looking for money from me or my network.  To a person, they all approached the issue in the wrong way.

Continuing with our recent discussions about angel investors and FFF (friends, family, and fools) money, I just heard about an interesting new way to raise funds for new ventures: Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com). According to the website, Kickstarter is "...a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, and explorers." Kickstarter leverages the power of online crowdsourcing to gather together potential investors for new creative and business ventures. Current projects include someone building a Bussard fusion reactor ($3,099 pledged from 71 backers), a cinematic exploration of Calvin and Hobbes ($21,369 pledged from 302 backers),  a new video game by the name of Glorkian Warrior ($10,417 pledged from 109 backers), and 8-Bit NYC, a map of the city rendered to look like something out of Zelda ($3,374 pledged from 54 backers -- pictured at right).

 I want to follow up Peter's great post about angel investors with my two cents from the perspective of an angel investor.  In addition to all the great advice in that post, it's important to note that angels are generally bypassing companies that don't have customers yet.  They might get involved to mentor the team to prepare them for money, but they won't risk their money in this economy until the business is revenue generating.  

In 1985, brothers Arnie and Ron Koss started the country's first organic baby food manufacturer. The company they started -- Earth's Best Baby Food -- was eventually acquired by H.J. Heinz for $30 million, but not before Arnie was removed as president of the company by the same venture capitalists who provided the funds they needed to survive and grow. The brothers recently wrote a book about their experience: The Earth's Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution (Chelsea Green Publishing, March 2010). The following guest post -- 8 Tips for Finding Angel Investors -- was written by Arnie Koss, a man who knows a thing or two (or three) about angel investors.

Tuesday I had the pleasure of meeting the producer of the documentary film The Triumph of the Dream, Norman Seeff, a medical doctor turned photographer.  In a a visually intimate and compelling style, Seeff explores the human and emotional side of the Mars Exploration mission during which engineers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) successfully landed two Mars Rovers on the surface of the planet. It turns out that the technical achievements of the mission served merely as the context or backdrop for the very real inner journey experienced by the team members as they struggled to overcome the inertia of previous failures with the Mars Polar Lander mission in 2000.