Slashdot Mirror
Where Have All the Venture Capitalists Gone?
artlu asks: "I have a great idea for a dotcom company, and I just started to execute the initial stages of my business plan. I developed the initial website, gained a user base, and am about to incorporate in Florida. Now I need to find a venture capitalist! However, every capitalist I approach is fearful of dotcoms. I ask the Slashdot community: How do I find a post-bubble dotcom investor?"
What sort of capital are we talking? If it's around $30k or under, you should have no problem funding it yorself (I can easily raise that sort of capital myself through personal savings and personal loans; as a business one can easily receive more from the banks, not counting any business development grants available to you).
If we're talking more, how are you going to pay them back? What are your revenue streams - looks like just ad-driven to me. So as a VC hoping to have made significant profit on my investment in 5 years, what is your forecast? How much do you expect to get from advertising per user? How many users are you going to attract? How many years will it take for this revenue stream to generate $200k profit, to make it worth their while.
As with the parent, my intent is not to be negative, but as someone who is very much involved in the issues of keeping a business afloat, I think you need to come up with viable answers to these questions in the form of a solid business plan before you go asking for VC. And you have to truly belive that the business plan is feasible, else even if you did get VC you'd be opening yourself up for a miserable time.
A more direct answer to your question, though, would be to attend events in the ICT sector. You'll find there are many agencies, all in a close-knit community, with the goal to support ICT companies. They will host events which are of no interest, but you can network, network, network. Once that's done, finding VCs will be no problem whatsoever, as everyone in the community will know everyone else.
Oh, by the way - many people will be displeased that their information is being shared with a tracking company. At the least it looks very unprofessional. You're hosting PHP pages, bite the bullet and write the tracking code yourself.
"I made a website, where's my fucking money???"
No real plan. No unique concept. No market differentiation. No pressing need being met. No users clamoring for you to open. No revenue streams. No team to make it happen. No real business background. No exit strategy.
If I were a VC I would bill you for wasting my time. There are plenty of VCs out there dying to invest their money as it has a shelf life that is coming due, but no one is stepping up with a good idea. And yours is not a good idea. A good idea had a $5-20 Billion market. A good idea can capture at least 5% of that market. A good idea fills a void in the market. A good idea has high switching costs for the end user, is hard to duplicate, is expensive to get into, has large margins, has the ability to block competitors through things like patents, leverages an already installed base, and makes you wet your pants it is so good. If you don't believe in your idea to invest your own money, money you may not have, put together a team, do the research, etc. - then why would a VC invest?
I, for one, can't believe this got posted. Oh, wait, yes I can. Perhaps my next submission will be an Ask Slashdot: "How much will you pay for this turd."