Not the "Dragon Keeper" this post is about

Actually the "Dragon Keeper" this post is about

To all of you smelly, bearded RPG playing geeks (otherwise known as "99% of my audience"): don’t get too excited - when I say "time with the Dragon Keeper", I don't mean what you think I mean!

Many of you know that as of late, the idea bug has hit me quite hard. As a result, I ventured out to my alma mater, U of A last night to witness an extraordinary presentation.  The presenter was none other than Sean Wise (the producer of the CBC reality TV show, the Dragon’s Den) dispensing his advice on securing venture capital for your own brilliant idea. For me, this was probably the exact opposite of the Vista conference in every way, and certainly genitals-freezing worthy. It really motivated me to get going on my ideas and to start doing something with them. Since I was thus inspired, I thought I would share his advice with all of you.

Sean began by mentioning that oftentimes entrepeneurs don’t actually take advantage of all of the resources available to them, and pointed out two excellent books for reading: Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start, and Denzil Doyle’s Making Technology Happen.

The main points of Sean’s talk, as given to him by the infamous venture capitalists on the Dragon’s Den show:

Be able to capture your idea in 4 minutes or less

Make sure your idea/pitch fills 4 criteria: that it is irrefutable, succient, easy to understand, and greed inducing - after all, these guys are investing because they want to make money!

An elevator pitch should be composed of a pain statement and a value proposition – how does your venture solve that pain? An example from an anonymous friend of mine:

Pain statement: “I live in Winnipeg”

How does the venture solve the pain: Okay, in this case, nothing can solve this problem. It’s intractable. Let’s try a different one:

Pain statement: “My friend keeps trying to give me a slap on the @$$ when we meet up for coffee, and I feel awkward and confused. How do I fend him off? Please withhold my name as I am embarassed about this attention.”

Well, Steven, I think the value proposition for your situation would be:
“The new “porcupine underwear” shoots razor-sharp quills out of your butt every time you get an unwanted slap!  Nothing fends off unwanted advances like poison darts.”

Nobody cares about you

Don’t overvalue your efforts here! It's not about what *you* want; make sure that you are providing the VCs with what they want, which is to make money on a great idea.

Have passion and be likable

Be enthused about your idea. You’d think this would be obvious, but some people still give pitches where it’s obvious they just want to get rich quick and don’t really care too much about the idea.

Likewise, being a jerk is possibly the single biggest obstacle to getting a deal, aside from having a completely retarded idea. Why is this? Because ideas and directions are easy to change, but people are not.

“Be prepared” isn’t just for Boy Scouts

Every initial venture capital meeting is just like this, only with more touching

There are several “first date” questions you should know the answer to, including:

- Your market size
- Your competitive landscape
- Margins
- Use of funds
- Timelines

Don’t BS; everything gets checked. Test your idea on more than just your friends and family – investors want third party validation. Many of them want more than just money; they want to be your partner in this endavour and that requires due diligence.

Have fun, profit will follow

If you’re going to be doing this for 10-14 hours a day, 6-7 days a week, you’d better be enjoying it.

Sean then followed all of this up by strongly recommending Dale Carnegie’s classic book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, saying that this one should be read prior to Guy’s and Denzil’s. With that, he gave his web site address (www.seanwise.com), invited 2 guys to give their own elevator pitches, and called it a night.

One other thing – the Dragon’s Den 2nd season is accepting applications now at http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/apply; definitely sign up if you’re interested in pitching! Who knows, maybe you’ll see me there. I’m sure at least one of the Dragons thinks that the idea of a Gino Vanelli KITT car is a license to print money!!