Session: Liveblogging Women who want to fund, build & sell things – 1:30PM-2:15PM
Topic: 
Moderator Mary Hodder gets Denise Howell and Patricia Nakache answering questions about doing business from the POV of lawyers, VCs & Angels.
The livebloggers reporting on the sessions were Tony “Buzzhit” Gentile and Tricia.
Mary introduces herself mentioning that she recently started a new company (still in stealth mode), and raised angel money for it. Her blog has been instrumental in succeeding in her fund raising, establishing her ideas and her street creds. She recommends to have an executive summary, a basic financials spreadsheet and a definition of the market and products she is planning to build. And try and raise money from sources that can be a great reference for the company.
Denise Lowell is a lawyer with Reed Smith, one of the 20 largest firms in the US. She explains that she is sitting on the panel because lawyers can help companies get funded: making introductions, giving advice, and supporting a startup team.
Patricia Nakache is with Trinity Ventures, a $1B venture capital firm based on Sand Hill Road (in Menlo Park, CA). Her investment focus is on business and online consumer services. She explains that angels will typically invest their personal capital in opportunities, as they choose. Venture Capitalists act as proxies on behalf of their own investors (Limited Partners) investing in startups with a VC-type return (5X to 10X depending on the stage of the company) as a target. This means (as I wrote a number of times) that only a subset of companie will actually provide VC returns that can be funded by this group.
Mary has been raising/seeking $350K, in multiple tranches. It is difficult for VCs to rationalize an investment of that size, hence the involvement of angels.
Patricia shares a metric, responding to a question on “Where is the money for women”: only 4.5% of venture-funded companies financed in 2004 were led by women.
One of the key questions is: how can women get funded, and are they at a disadvantage when raising capital (Liza Sabater’s stance), especially if they are not building technology.
Mary’s experience (and reputation) are such that in her field (involving social engineering), being a woman has actually not been a disadvantage at all. Adina Levin (a SocialText co-founder) explains that what is key is to show investors the kinds of returns an opportunity can generate, and why you and your team can actually execute on this opportunity.
Another key question is: where are the Angels? How do you find them ? There are a few organized groups (Band of Angels, Tech Coast Angels,…) that can be approached with a business plan. The number one way though is networking, and accessing funding and advice sources through people you know.
Post-session remarks: There are a number of VC bloggers who address elements of the questions that were raised during the session, and could not be addressed due to time constraints. VentureWiki (when it is up) points to a few interesting posts (many from Ross Mayfield) that are worth a read.
Two points: 1) not all businesses are meant to be funded by venture capitalists, who have strict metrics in mind to determine whether a project is “worth their while” (for example, can they feel that you can reach $50M to $100M in revenue over 5 to 7 years), and 2) the best way to access VCs, angels, advisors, etc. is to network: through your friends, colleagues, school alumni, lawyer, accountant, the PTA,… there are people you know who can help reach valuable contacts who will answer for you many of these questions.
Tags: blogher, bloghercon