jbrasunas

Well, the Start-Up Connection, version Deux, has come and gone; we've released this website to the world; Sierra Ventures has visited and liked what they saw; we continue to get more and more interest in what ITEN is all about, and new companies keep coming out of the woodwork (no offense), so maybe it's time to sit back for a moment and look at the bigger picture of what ITEN can be and how we might get there.   First a confession:  my modest hope for the ITEN website is that it will become the absolute go-to place for anything and everything for start up IT companies in the region.   And to continue with the modesty, ITEN will be the leader in the turn-around of the St. Louis economy and our collective self-image (assuming cities can have a self-image).   To do this, we need to get our best young ventures funded, and funded well, and launched towards success.   We also need one or two of the more advanced IT start-ups here that are already into their B, C and D rounds of funding to have an exciting liquidity event.   There are 4 of them right off the top of my head that are candidates for that success, and hopefully soon.

We've got a lot of chicken and egg dilemmas to deal with in the start-up world, and one of them is early stage investors putting money into local early stage deals.   There's plenty of money in this town, and a lot of it is invested elsewhere.   That's not a knock......money goes where it thinks it can multiply.  If we get a few deals here to spin off some millionaires among the brave folks who have options because they joined the company instead of opting for a corporate gig, or who invested in common stock or the A-round of an early deal, then more will follow.   We can't shame each other into creating a buzz around the IT entrepreneur community here, we have to create it.......the hard way.   Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was Silicon Valley, or RTP or Route 128 (now called I-495 I think).

So how do we do that and what's in going to take?   Here are a few ideas I'm working on; let's hear some of yours:

• Full contact mentoring of inexperienced entrepreneurs.   We have mentors (in ITEN) that have done it and been successful, and then we have a lot of first-time entrepreneurs.   Investors don't like to see their money going into on-the-job-training if they can help it.  Take advantage of experienced mentors, admit they know more than you do, and beg them to get as involved as possible into your deal.   Your management team needs to have a lot of credibility.  If it does, it will attract investors much faster than any whiz-bang idea (but you do need the whiz bang, too!).
• Broaden the exposure of our best new deals.  Expose our Mongel Training graduates to investors from across the region and the country.   This is going to be a priority for ITEN during the next 6 months.   I've been building relationships with investors locally and beyond, and in spite of the economy, I'm finding an appetite for good deals.   We're marketing ourselves as a region of surprising deal flow, offering valuations that are likely better (for investors (sorry!)) than what they'd find on the coasts.
• Keep at it.   St. Louis will become a happening kind of place where deals are done, and you'll be bragging about these days and how you were there at the exciting beginnings of things.  No way is it going to happen overnight......but it will happen, oh yes, it will happen.

Tags: Director