Southeast VC

New CFO at SAS

Not sure this is incredibly newsworthy since the word has been out there for months this was happening, but Kevin Thompson, SAS' CFO is leaving. He is taking a position with Austin, TX-based Surgient.

I worked with Kevin at Red Hat - both in his capacity as auditor with PWC and I later when he joined us.

Surgient is backed by Austin Ventures, Seaport Capital + others.

Google Base - More Info

To follow up on my quick post yesterday about Google Base - Scot Wingo CEO of ChannelAdvisor has a lot of details on his blog about Google Base. Definitely worth reading.

Google Base: Competitor to eBay

It looks like Google will be launching Google Base which will compete with eBay and probably Craigslist. I am running off to a meeting and don't have a lot of time to comment, but this is very big - especially tied in with Google's plan to have their own online payment system, Google Wallet.

Want to Buy Your Own Search Engine and Missed Out on Ask Jeeves?

The search engine Jux2 is being auctioned off on eBay.  I never heard of Jux2 until today, but it is positioned as a comparative research tool recognizing that the major search engines often provide different results.

Anyway, starting at a penny, the price is now $27,500 with 70 bids. It looks like more than half of those bids were by 1 potential buyer.

NCTA 21 Award Finalists

The NCTA 21 Awards Finalists were announced which highlights some of the top companies in North Carolina. Congratulations to three of our portfolio companies for making the list. In addition, 2 members of our Advisory Board have companies that were selected - Constella Group and Rural Sourcing.

The event is Nov 17. For more information, check out NCTA.

When Fundraising, Get What You Pay For

Good summary on the cost of capital. Written by one of the guys from SVB's RTP office.

Pitching a VC? This Might Help

Local entrepreneurs regularly approach us on guidance on how to effectively present to venture capital firms. Here are some steps I would follow.

Research beforehand

The meeting starts well before you walk through the VC’s door. Make sure you spend a lot of time researching the firm in advance. Know everything about them. Read recent articles and press releases. Find out who is going to be in the meeting and review all of their bios. Also, see if there are companies in the portfolio that you know or your company may have synergies with.

The basics

Here are some real obvious and basic rules: look presentable and be on time. In fact, you may want to arrive a few minutes early and if you’re using a projector, it will be good to use this time to make sure everything works.

Bring handouts with you as a backup plan. I know for the companies that present to us, we ask that they send the presentation to us in advance so that we can have it loaded and ready to go when they walk in the door.

Your presentation

Keep your presentation focused: what is your product or service, what market does it address, who is involved, what competition is out there and who says your company is or can be important?

Answering questions

Get to the point quickly when answering questions. Also, if you don’t know the answer, that’s fine. Just tell the VC you’ll get back to them with the answer and make sure you do!

Spend time asking about the VC

Before you leave, make sure you also have an understanding on how that firm can add value to your company. What differentiates that firm from others in the market? How will they help you scale? Do they have the right relationships that can help?

Before you leave, ask for the order

If the VC doesn’t bring it up, you should ask about next steps. When will you hear from them? What questions do they need answered? What other material can you provide to them? And before leaving, find out who the point person at the firm is if you don’t know already. But hopefully it is obvious.

Always Follow-up

Send an email to everyone you met, thank them for their time and answer questions you promised to help them out with.