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Ideas For Your Next Tech Startup
prostoalex writes "Business 2.0 magazine enumerates tech ideas that venture capitalists are currently interested in, listing the amounts they have ready to invest." From the article:"A column that appeared on Business2.com the next day described the company Armstrong envisioned and his wish list of criteria. Those who thought they had the right stuff could send Armstrong a business plan. A few weeks later, Armstrong had a new gripe: He'd received more than 20 solid plans and couldn't decide which of three finalists he wanted to fund -- not just for $1 million, but for as much as $5 million. He has since winnowed the list down to two.
That got us thinking. Why not ask dozens of VCs a tantalizing (but often unasked) question: What types of ideas would you fund tomorrow if the right pitch landed on your doorstep? After a few weeks of trolling Sand Hill Road and beyond, we got 11 leading venture firms to spill their most promising business ideas -- and to pony up $50 million in funding to the entrepreneurs who can pull them off. "
Seriously, though...
This isn't a new idea. Twenty years ago, I was trying to raise funds to build a recording studio. A friend of mine, studying for his MBA at Harvard brought me a spiral-bound book that listed VC firms categorized by the fields that they were interested in (e.g., biotech, software, hardware, defense, etc.). All of them were way out of my league, but it made for interesting reading, in a "follow the money" sense.
Ten years after that, when I was involved in a dot.com startup, we ended up pitching to some of the VC firms listed in that spiral-bound book (on Wall Street, not Sand Hill Road).
From what I've gathered from the experiences of friends involved with vulture captial funding, it's a last resort, the only option if angel funding, friends and family, and lines of credit don't pan out.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I have personally overseen the patenting of at least 75% of these ideas. Considering that's just within my own firm, and without a reviews of the prior art, any firms attempting to implement these concepts will probably be faced with serious legal obstacles.