This is about as complete a manual as an entry-level entrepreneur could hope for. Harmon not only covers the basics of searching for capital, he offers inspirational stories of the true VC successes (Amazon.com, Netscape, @Home) and includes interviews with the VCs themselves, letting them say in their own words how they pick the winners, and how you can become one of them. --Lou Schuler
Anyone interested in how business works should find something of interest in eBoys. From the organizational structure and corporate culture of Benchmark to the histories and personalities of its partners to its adventures in the world of Internet startups, it's a digital snapshot that reveals how successful businesses look, think, and mine gold in today's economy. --Lou Schuler
Prospective entrepreneurs may think they know everything there is to know about starting a business in Silicon Valley. They can draw up business plans, have meetings with venture capitalists, maybe even get funded and actually launch a startup. However, in The Monk and the Riddle, Silicon Valley sage Randy Komisar reasons that's only half the equation for success. And it may not be the important half. Komisar has worked with a number of companies--Apple, LucasArts Entertainment (the gaming division of George Lucas's empire), and WebTV among them--and has come to a rather startling conclusion: if you can't see yourself doing this business for the rest of your life, don't start it. In other words, he wants to see passion and purpose in business, not just spreadsheets and a by-the-numbers business model.
Confessions of a Venture Capitalist
Many people would love to pick the brains of a venture capitalist to uncover exactly what gets their juices (and checks) flowing. Some books promise such advice from the recipient's point of view, but rarely is the story told from a financier's. As its title promises, however, Confessions of a Venture Capitalist does just that. Ruthann Quindlen, a one-time investment banker now with Silicon Valley's Institutional Venture Partners, lays it on the line in this revealing glimpse inside her world. Short, humorous chapters make it an easy read--a fact that might lead some to suspect that specifics are lacking. But details are there, as evidenced in a section called "Less Is More, or Subtraction by Addition." "Rather than coming to us with just themselves and their bright idea, they believe we want to see business types as part of the initial management team," she writes. "Often, we like the technology entrepreneur and the plan, but end up in the awkward position of not being able to back the business types.... Focus instead on your idea and why customers will love it and how you and only you can make it happen." Such suggestions should prove useful to entrepreneurs, and anyone else interested in today's venture-capital economy. --Howard Rothman
According to Robert J. Robinson and Mark van Osnabrugge, so-called business angels--those generally unheralded private investors who usually specialize in high-growth fields and often involve themselves directly in the endeavors they fund--now provide 30 to 40 times more financing each year than their more famous counterparts, venture capitalists. In Angel Investing, Robinson and Van Osnabrugge use personal interviews, anecdotal evidence, and more than 300 research studies to show exactly who these financiers are, how they operate, and where they can be found. Robinson, an international management consultant, and Van Osnabrugge, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, also compare various financing options, explain precisely how angels and venture capitalists function differently, describe proven ways to attract them, and provide relevant resources. "The vast size and power of the business angel market in the United States is not well understood but is of incredible importance to our entrepreneurial sector and, indirectly, to maintaining our economic growth and standard of living," the authors write. They pack their book accordingly with valuable information for serious fund-seekers who have exhausted the traditional three F's (founder, family, and friends), as well as those who are considering entrepreneurial investments of their own. --Howard Rothman
If you are concerned your company may not hit the radar screens of Venture Capitalists, Angels, or Regional Investment Bankers, this book will give you the funding approach you need to meet your capital raising challenges from these professional investors and from individual investors, boutique broker-dealers, money finders and strategic corporate investors. And it works. By modifying your business design and by applying the proven equity financing principles, methods and steps you will learn in this book, you will attract the investors and money raisers you need to fund your launch.
Fundamentals of Venture Capital
Written in highly readable layman's language, Fundamentals of Venture Capital is a concise introduction to the key issues facing both investors and entrepreneurs as they embark on the journey of turning a good idea into a profitable reality.
"Fundamentals" is a distilled version of certain chapters in Bartlett's "Equity Finance: Venture Capital, Buyouts, Restructurings and Reorganizations", a 3-volume set available at most major law libraries. "Fundamentals" is really lawyering at its best in that Bartlett unselfishly shares many of the key business points underlying venture finance negotiations but does so in a manner which is easily accessible to most readers. Even for an experienced venture capital attorney, Bartlett's book is useful because it provides a relatively complete overview of the process and delivers the finer points without significant fluff. I would recommend this book to most entrepreneurs, young attorneys and others interested in a quick and practical overview of the venture finance process.
InternetWorld Guide to WebCasting
Using the latest generation of Web technology you can build your own "television" or "radio" network as an Internet Broadcaster. It's called "webcasting," and Fortune 500 companies use it today for a variety of purposes, including in-house education and training, infomercials, marketing campaigns, advertising, public relations, customer support, corporate communications, and more. Find out from international webcasting expert Peggy Miles how organizations worldwide are using webcasting to give them a powerful competitive edge, and how to make the technology work for you, too
This is THE book broadcasters need to chart their long-term Internet strategy. Discover how the decade's most powerful communications tool is revamping the entire broadcast industry and how you and your station can benefit.
The race for the global digital network is taking off via the Internet. In just a few short years, Internet activities like e-mail and the World Wide Web have become commonplace. Now the Internet is leaving its digital imprint on the broadcast industry with Web pages and signals that can be pushed, pulled, and delivered to PCs, TVs, mobile devices, and across wireless networks. The implications for your station are staggering. Written by industry experts with dozens of examples and case studies, Internet Age Broadcaster shows how broadcasters are marrying creative and business to establish two-way interaction with audiences and advertisers, deliver better services and products, and make money in the process.
Learn from your network colleagues and your peers at TV and radio stations across the US how to create innovative partnerships, develop promotional and database marketing campaigns that work, and maximize the Internet's financial and technological potential. From big-picture economic, legal, and regulatory issues to the basic how-tos of website design and development, Internet Age Broadcaster is must reading and smart business.
One of the book's themes is that the whole venture-capital process is best understood as a cycle: from the raising of a fund; to investing in, monitoring, and adding value to firms; then exiting deals; returning capital to investors; and finally renewing itself by raising additional funds. The need to exit an investment successfully shapes all aspects of the venture-capital cycle, from the ability to raise capital to the types of investments made. Another theme is that because venture funds must make long-term illiquid investments, they need to secure funds from their investors for periods of 10 years or more. The supply of venture capital consequently cannot adjust quickly to changes in the investment environment.
The authors conclude that increasing familiarity with the venture-capital process has made the long-term prospects for venture investment more attractive than ever. Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and investors will find this book a scholarly, well-documented examination of the industry. --Scott Harrison
You've got a hot idea for a new dot-com, and you're itching to join the folks who regularly show up on CNBC and at the Lexus dealerships in Silicon Valley. But you also know your odds of big-time success are about as long as Bill Gates's position in MSFT. What do you do? John Nesheim, an adjunct professor at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management, who has personally structured over $300 million in new-venture deals, lays out the step-by-step skinny in High Tech Startup. Incorporating some two dozen case studies spanning the technology spectrum, he presents info specific to this industry that will help you get from concept to IPO. It begins with a 14-phase schedule itemizing time requirements, necessary assistance, typical participants, major costs, main risks, and desired results for each step. It then details all the critical stages (i.e., forming the company, preparing the business plan, assembling the team, dealing with venture capitalists and other funding sources). Nesheim focuses on practical strategies that should certainly improve your chances, but don't start prepping for that on-air interview with Mark Haines just yet: Only six out of 1 million high-tech ideas, he notes, ever become successful companies that go public. --Howard Rothman
Sometime during the last 30 years, the service economy emerged as the dominant engine of economic activity. At first, critics who were uncomfortable with the intangible nature of services bemoaned the decline of the goods-based economy, which, thanks to many factors, had increasingly become commoditized. Successful companies, such as Nordstrom, Starbucks, Saturn, and IBM, discovered that the best way to differentiate one product from another--clothes, food, cars, computers--was to add service.
But, according to Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, the bar of economic offerings is being raised again. In The Experience Economy, the authors argue that the service economy is about to be superseded with something that critics will find even more ephemeral (and controversial) than services ever were: experiences. In part because of technology and the increasing expectations of consumers, services today are starting to look like commodities. The authors write that "Those businesses that relegate themselves to the diminishing world of goods and services will be rendered irrelevant. To avoid this fate, you must learn to stage a rich, compelling experience."
Many will find the idea of staging experiences as a requirement for business survival far-fetched. However, the authors make a compelling case, and consider successful companies that are already packaging their offerings as experiences, from Disney to AOL. Far-reaching and thought-provoking, The Experience Economy is for marketing professionals and anyone looking to gain a fresh perspective on what business landscape might look like in the years to come. Recommended. --Harry C. Edwards