December 2009 Entrepreneur's Forum
Bootstrapping vs. Venture Funding
Topics:
- Objectives of this panel
- To help entrepreneurs determine whether venture funding or bootstrapping is more appropriate for their project.
- Understanding how to position your company for financing success under each scenario.
- The investor's perspective
- What is a venture fund (limited partners, general partners)?
- Expected returns on portfiolio companies (~80% failures, ~15% breakeven, ~5% blockbuster)
- Motivations of a venture capitalist in making an investment decision
- Characteristics of a fundable company (concept, market size, team, barriers to entry, etc)
- Venture funding success stories: Google, Amazon...
- The bootstrapper's perspective
- What is bootstrapping?
- Characteristics of a bootstrap-able company (early revenue, low capital requirements, low burn rate, etc)
- Bootstrapping success stories:Placebase, PlentyOfFish, MacRumors.
- Funding sources for bootstrappers: founder savings, full-time job, consulting, organic growth, etc.
- Would
I ever want to seek funding for a company that could be bootstrapped?
Would I ever want to bootstrap a company that could be venture funded?
Why?
- The right time to seek funding. What is the right "state" of the venture for seeking funding?
- Pitfalls to avoid - Common outcomes for non-fundable companies which seek venture funding.
Moderator:
- Owen Davis, Managing Director at NYC Seed
Panelists (alphabetic order):
- Art Chang, CEO of Tipping Point Partners
- Brian Cohen, Founder/President of iFluence PR and Board Member at New York Angels
- Mark Davis, IT Venture Capitalist at DFJ Gotham Ventures
- Dennis Mortensen, Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! and founder of Canvas, Evonax, and IndexTools
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