Who Wants Seed Money?
Aug 03, 08 in Angels, Entrepreneurship, Startups 4 Comments
The comment stream generated by the word "discuss" in my quote of the week Friday is simply amazing. The quotes are not that important. Read the comments. Some really good stuff in there.
Several of the comments pointed out the need for a seed stage investment company like Y Combinator in the Southeast. I was a bit surprised that no one mentioned the previous efforts to create such entities in Atlanta. There are two. Boostphase, which Stephen Fleming, Wayt King, Keith McGreggor, myself, and others attempted to form last fall. And Profounder (that has a slightly different model) which was put together by Merrick Furst this year and in which I am involved.
So the comments got me thinking. Is it time to try and wind up Boostphase again from an angel perspective and do we have enough entrepreneurs in the Southeast, to quote Wei, to take a shotgun approach. So I am interested in knowing how many of you entrepreneurs out there believe you can answer the following questions, pulled straight from the YC application, in a compelling way.
What is your company going to make?
Please tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together. Include urls if possible.
How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet?
What's new about what you're doing? What are people forced to do now because what you plan to make doesn't exist yet?
What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don't get?
How will you make money?
How long will it take before you have a prototype? A beta? A version you can charge for?
If we fund you, which of the founders will commit to working exclusively (no school, no other jobs) on this project for the next year?
And if you can answer the questions in a compelling way, would you accept a deal where you got $25K and some expertise on how to get your concept to the angel/VC/buyout stage for 5 - 10% of your company?
I am going to try this one more time.null
Lance Weatherby steps up to the plate and tries to relaunch Boostphase, a YCombinator style fund that failed to launch last year. If you have a startup, step up ATLiens.
