Thoughts on the K4 Forum

II'm posting this a month or so after our presentation at the Keiretsu Forum so that I have had some time to digest and think about the experience. In retrospect, I think the post is still totally valid, and as we start to have other discussions to move our business ahead, we continue to get pinged by numerous other people and businesses, whose purpose in business seems to be only to prey on entrepreneurs in startup who don't know any better - oddly, a lot like the "I'll make you a star" wanna-be agents and producers who inhabit the underbelly of Hollywood, you either learn to avoid those folks early, or you don't.... but I'll post about those later.

Here's the original post from back in September:

First off, I'm tired. Larry and I met at 5:30AM this morning to load out a TV from my home so we would have something to present a (truly) badass presentation we'd spent the last 5 days feverishly working on completing ever since receiving an invitation from the Keiretsu Forum to present at their Southern California Angel Expo.

I'm not going to write anything here that was not a direct experience, since I know a good number of my readers here are both entrepreneurs and VC's. I'm sorry if it hurts any one's feelings, but as stated at the top of the blog, this my personal blog as CEO. Not particularly the companies position.

First, some backstory. As early as maybe a week or two after our incorporation in early July, we had been asked by some other (Silicon Valley) startups if we'd talked to the Keiretsu Forum.

Since our answer was "no," we investigated, and as their website indicated, we asked if we could attend a presentation strictly as observers before we decided to launch our on Angel presentation effort. We emailed and got a fabulously positive "come on out" response, and we were excited.

Until it came time to get an actual time or place for the meeting. Which after being told we could come, we never did get the particulars, and never heard again from the forum folks until after their meeting had past.

In retrospect it almost makes me wonder if there might be a reason for that.

We never heard from them again, until kind of out of the blue, we were invited to participate at an Expo as a company with a "presenting table" (or presenting company, if we want to pay for that) at their SoCal Angel Expo.

How cool! I'd made the assumption (I know, I know... *sigh*) that someone had taken a look at our (highly rated business pitch or press coverage on the web, or our (submitted) Executive Summary and someone had seen the merit in our business plan, and we were in. Awesome!!! The only, catch, it was going to cost $1500 to have a table there. (The "full presentation" companies, got a table and 15 minutes on stage for $6,000).

To put it straight-forward-like, we are totally a bootstrap startup. Everything our partners and potential investors have seen to date has been completed by sheer willpower, late nights, talent, some cash, and some credit. We've worked our asses off for everything that we have thus far. To invest our limited resources on several hours at a country club in front of "angel" investors seemed like a well-calculated risk.

Upon arrival, the first thing we were told was that we would have to split our 6' table in half. No "hello," no "good morning," no "hey, we have a space problem and could we maybe work something out with sharing your table?" Thankfully, we had a display that was so large it needed the entire table, so there was no option of "sharing".

As other folks started to filter in, other entrepreneurs started to chat with us, and the conversations were pretty much about two things from their side.

Number one: Who the hell were the investors, and how does anyone identify them (as separate from the rest of the presenting companies), AND at one point, the banter going about was that out of all of the people there, only 5 (count'em, FIVE) investors were there.

I think later in the day, that number went up to maybe 20. At any rate, it was certainly... low, and most certainly far out-numbered by companies there looking for funding.

Number two: There were a number of entrepreneurs who had presented at more than a few of the Keiretsu Forums, and were just now starting to get traction after people got used to "seeing them" and this is just "how it works." This is after they had spent $20-30k just getting in front of these people a few times, and beyond that, they were surprised to find that they were now on some kind of Keiretsu "partner list" that they don't know how they got on to (but glad to be there, of course). This was viewed as simply, "the price of admission."

To continue with the "surprise" factor, we were invited only early last week, and were excited, and as far as we knew, we were just supposed to "show up" with a cool presentation limited to our table.

We found out yesterday, (day before) that we needed to fill out a four to five page fact sheet (fine & dandy, we've got all that info, albeit in a slightly different format, but that's ok), and then upon arrival this morning, and grabbing some coffee, opening the morning agenda and finding that in approximately 15 minutes, we were supposed to be giving a fast pitch on stage. Uh... OKAY.

Again, brought up by other attending entrepreneurs, this seemed to be more the norm, than not.

To bring me to final point, the K4 Forum *really* talks about great deal flow, which is all awesome since if it actually materializes, means we can all spend less time on waiting for our lawyers with properly performed due diligence.

There is also quite a point made about the "relationships that matter."

Not once, not a single time today, did we see or hear about one of the existing members or staff of Keiretsu taking investors around to each of the (very small number of) presenters (supposedly pre-vetted companies???), and just doing a simple introduction.

This is something we already receive through a number of good networks, from whom while we've not yet secured investors, we've for sure had excellent and enthusiastic conversations with their attendees.

If relationships matter, people matter. If people matter, they need to be introduced to each other, and the people you introduce them to have to be people you're enthusiastic or at least interested in.

We thought we'd cleared that hurdle, right up until the moment a guy set up a table nearby that was honest-to-goodness trying to raise money for a company that was still producing CASSETTE TAPES. (and then, I had flashbacks to buying bootlegged Beach Boys tapes at the swap meet when I was kid).

And then there is the last question of a long day.

When I myself get to the point where I can be the angel investor in other startups, why in the world would I ever want to go talk to, or attend or even show up at a presentation if I was not enthusiastic and passionate about new businesses in general? About the ingenuity, the passion and the fire-in-the-belly that comes with creating something from nothing?

Going to any kind of investors meeting where current investors are talking about how they "tear startups apart" is not a constructive place to be.

This is a new venture for us, but we do have a lot of business experience. More than this, we really try and do our best to reach out listen and learn at every opportunity we can.

We know we have a great business model, and we will win.

We also know that there are people out there with specific experience we do not yet have, that can be an asset to growing the company in a constructive way. Those are the people we hope come on board as investors.

We are looking for you. We will respect what you bring to the table, and our business will richly reward you in both the process and in the experience.

While we did not see that in today's proceedings, we will find it in the coming days.

We're still grateful for the experience and the couple of very genuine folks we did meet today, you know who you are if you read this and we thank you.