1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Financing

Raising money to build a startup is a huge challenge. To be able to raise any money at all, you must first understand how investors think. We have developed the following courses catering to entrepreneurs in different stages of their entrepreneurial journey.

An Interview With Debera Johnson, Founder And Executive Director, Pratt Design Incubator For Sustainable Innovation (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Today I am talking to Debera Johnson, founder and executive director of the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation. The incubator is a part of the Center for Sustainable Design Studies at Pratt Institute, which is an art, design, and architecture college in New York City.  Since its inception in 2002, the incubator has supported the launch of 15 companies, of which 12 are still in business. In 2010, its companies generated more than $4.2 in revenue and are currently employing 36 employees. >>>

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An Interview With Danny Robinson, CEO, British Columbia Innovation Council (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Today I am talking to Danny Robinson, CEO of British Columbia Innovation Council. The Vancouver-based BCIC is dedicated to developing entrepreneurial talent and commercializing technology in British Columbia, Canada. >>>

The Third Frontier In The Midwest: An Interview With John Glazer, Director, TechGROWTH Ohio (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

In this interview I am talking to John Glazer, director of TechGROWTH Ohio. This Athens-based, state-supported program has offered resources and funding to early stage, technologically innovative companies in the state of Ohio since 2007. >>>

1M/1M: A Policy Suggestion To President Obama

Now that President Obama has used his State of The Union address to turn the spotlight on innovation and entrepreneurship, and his CTO, Aneesh Chopra, just wrote a post on TechCrunch with some concrete steps, I’d like to reiterate the call for a tax policy that would really help bootstrapping entrepreneurs:

As I keep on saying, 99% of the entrepreneurs who seek funding get rejected for a set of specific reasons, mostly because they are too early for even angel financing or SBA loans. They need to bootstrap. >>>

An Interview With Ankur Jain, Founder And President, Kairos Society (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Today I am talking to Ankur Jain, a 20-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and founder and president of the Kairos Society. (Kairos, in Greek, means “the right moment.”)

Ankur’s vision is to shift students’ perception about the business world – to not depend on others for employment but to shape their destiny and the destiny of others through sustainable entrepreneurship.

Kairos Society members are students from all disciplines who are creating entrepreneurial and sustainable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems in healthcare, education, nutrition, and energy. >>>

1M/1M: Alternative Financing For Startups Using A Sales Channel Partner

In this post, I want to discuss today’s news: 1M/1M Announces Partnership With Persistent; CrowdEngineering First Beneficiary, and explain the thought process behind it. It is a creative sales channel strategy that acts as alternative financing to mitigate some of the severe limitations of early stage startups.

In my experience, building a marketing channel/sales channel is one of the most expensive pieces of a startup P&L, and a notorious contributor to small companies running out of cash and going out of business. Typically, this happens for a number of reasons: >>>

An Interview With Joe Migliaccio, Manager Of Innovative Programs, Maine Technology Institute (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the fifty-second interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. We are talking to Joe Migliaccio, manager of Innovative Programs at Maine Technology Institute (MTI), an industry-led non-profit corporation that offers early-stage capital and commercialization assistance in the form of competitive grants, loans, and equity investment for tech entrepreneurs in Maine. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Jason Stoffer, Principal at Maveron (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the fifty-first interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Jason Stoffer, principal at Maveron, a venture fund founded in 1998 by Howard Schultz, the founder and CEO of Starbucks, and Dan Levitan, the banker who took Starbucks public in 1991. (The name “Maveron” was coined from the words “maverick” and “vision.”)

With offices in Seattle and San Francisco, Maveron manages $750 million in capital and invests only in consumer-facing business, mainly in Web-enabled consumer services, education, and health and wellness. >>>

An Interview With Marianne Hudson, Executive Director, Angel Capital Association (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the fiftieth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Marianne Hudson, executive director of the Angel Capital Association.

Overland Park, Kansas-based ACA is is a non-profit trade association. It counts among its members more than 150 angel groups throughout the United States and Canada that represent more than 6,500 angels. The mission of ACA is to support the growth, financial stability, and investment success of member angel groups.

It provides professional development, best practices, networking, and collaboration opportunities for angel investors who belong to member angel groups. The organization also serves as the public policy voice of the angel community and is focused on advancing state and federal policies that support and promote angel investing. >>>

An Interview With David Monkman, President And CEO, National Business Incubation Association (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the forty-ninth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to David Monkman, president and CEO of the National Business Incubation Association.  Athens, Ohio–based NBIA is a trade association that services business incubation programs around the world. Founded in 1985, this non-profit organization today has about 2,000 individual members, representing about 1,000 organizations in 65 countries worldwide.

Irina: Hi, David. Where are you from?

I was born in Illinois, raised in the States. I lived in Northern California for about seven years. I lived in New York for a couple of years. I lived in London for a year, the Netherlands for a couple of years, South Africa for five years, Pakistan for three, and the rest in the States. >>>

Revenue-Based Financing (RBF) For Entrepreneurs: Andy Sack, Co-Founder, RevenueLoan (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the forty-eighth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Andy Sack, who is a co-founder of RevenueLoan, which gives entrepreneurs unrestricted capital for growth in return for a small percentage of future years’ revenues. In operation since mid-2010, the size of the fund is $6 million. Based in Seattle, RevenueLoan is focused on the Pacific Northwest.

Irina: Hi, Andy. Why don’t you start with your background and how you arrived at this point?

Andy: I’m a graduate of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Sloan School [of Management]. Coming out of business school, I’ve been a serial technology entrepreneur since 1994. I’ve started a handful of companies – depending on how you count, four or five, and I had three successful and one unsuccessful exit.

[Andy was co-founder and CEO of Judy’s Book, a local search social network. Prior to founding Judy’s Book in 2004, Andy co-founded three successful Internet technology companies: Kefta, a provider of real-time customer interaction solutions (acquired in 2007 by Axciom); Abuzz, an enterprise knowledge management solution (acquired by New York Times Digital in 1999); and Firefly Network, an Internet company that pioneered internet personalization technologies (acquired by Microsoft). Andy also spent time as an entrepreneur-in-residence for SOFTBANK Venture Capital (now Mobius VC), where he founded and served on the board of three companies: BodyShop Digital, Quova, and Kefta.] >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brian Cohen, Vice Chairman, New York Angels (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the forty-seventh interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Brian Cohen, vice chairman of New York Angels. The group offers early stage capital in the range of $250,000 to $750,000. Since 1997, the group and members of their predecessor group have invested over $28 million in more than 65 companies.

Irina: Hi, Brian. Why don’t you start with your background and how you arrived at this point?

Brian: I guess, to some extent, if I wax a bit poetic here, I grew up in Brooklyn, and there’s an attitude, perhaps to some degree, about people who grow up in Brooklyn and New York City of being a bit more aggressive, being more opportunistic. When you grow up in Brooklyn, there’s a sense of wanting to get out of Brooklyn. The old history of Brooklyn is made up of a lot of very interesting people who like to create things. Perhaps there’s a bit of that Brooklyn DNA in me. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Saad Khan, Partner, CMEA Capital (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the forty-sixth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Saad Khan, partner at CMEA Capital, a San Francisco–based venture firm. His focus is seed investing in early stage tech entrepreneurs.

Irina: Hi, Saad. Why don’t you briefly start with your background.

Saad: I went to Stanford, and I studied symbolic systems, which is a cross between linguistics, computer science, neuroscience, and philosophy. So, things like computer interaction and artificial intelligence, and any kind of problem that deals with mapping machines onto the human mind and vice versa. >>>

Working Capital (Debt) Financing For Entrepreneurs: Heather Onstott, Director Of Small Business, LaunchCapital (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the forty-fifth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Heather Onstott, director of small business at LaunchCapital, a Cambridge, Massachusetts–based seed investment firm with a twist. In addition to traditional seed-stage venture funding, they also offer a non-recourse blend of equity and debt financing up to $150,000, which is rather unusual in the VC world. >>>

Seed Capital: Jim Jaffe, CEO, National Association Of Seed And Venture Funds (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the forty-fourth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Jim Jaffe, the CEO of the National Association of Seed and Venture Fund (NASVF).

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania–based NASVF is a global non-profit with over 600 individual members in 43 states and four countries that connects investors, economic development organizations, public and private funds, and tech transfer professionals. Its core mission is to advance formation of innovation capital programs and by doing so facilitate early stage entrepreneurship and job creation. >>>