The Capital Hunt

As we continue to have conversations with angels and other seed investors, and we continue to actively look for more folks to be having conversations (and hopefully term sheets with), I find it shameful that there are so many websites out there asking entrepreneurs to sign up and pay for access to "funding resources" or angels/capital groups.

I've been spending a bunch of time looking at these different websites and browsing their lists of limited information (you have to sign up if you want to contact the company or person on their list), and I cannot imagine a worse use of the limited capital any startup has on these sites.

As long as you have a company name, and maybe one or two more details, this is the day and age of being able to gauge the legitimacy of someone who may either fund your business, or just waste your time. A couple of great examples I found today on the "GoBigNetwork" listings of "Investors: Los Angeles:"

Investor

Company Name	latonya pleace
Location	los angeles, CA (USA)
Investor Type	Private Equity
Investment Amount	$25k to $75k
Funding Stages	Angel
Industries	Advertising
Geographical Focus	United States, Los Angeles Area
Accept Business Plans?	Yes
Investment Preferences	ONLY WITH INVESTOR THAT DEAL WITH REAL STATE PROPERTYS THAT WANTS TO MAKE MONEY AS A PPROFIT.

Oh yes, this is one we should definitely talk with.

Then there's this:

Investor:

	CaliforniaInvestmentNetwork.com
Location	Los Angeles, CA (USA)
Investor Type	Angel
Investment Amount	$100k to $2 Mil
Funding Stages	Angel
Industries
Geographical Focus	United States, Silicon Valley
Accept Business Plans?	No
Investment Preferences	Online California Investor Network seeks brief entrepreneur proposals for potential investments.

Oh, BUT WAIT, that's not an actual angels forum or even a financial advisers network, it's simply, you guessed it, another network that you pay $199 to for access to whoever is on THEIR investors list (Hey! Maybe they've got GoBigNetwork listed?!!!)

Give me a break.

I'm endlessly grateful for the personal introductions and referrals to legitimate places like LAVA.

Other entrepreneurs... don't waste your money on these sites, just cursory checks on the veracity or legitimacy of just a few of their listings by company name or persons names will tell you an awful lot about the quality (or lack thereof) of their listings.