What I Learned about Raising Capital from Ron Conway

Not long ago we posted about a private event in the Valley about raising capital that we were able to giveaway spaces to a few of you.  The panel was moderated by Jay Ward and featured Ron Conway, MC Hammer and Brian Patterson.  Five slots were held for Black Web 2.0 readers and we gave four away.  Wesley Michel was one of the four.  He is working on launching a real-time app for local markets.  Here is his first person account of the event:

Ron, kicked the event off explaining his vision and interest in the real time web space. His vision is that he believes that the data behind the real time web along with social media can one day lead to a multibillion dollar industry. His vision stems from the idea that a successful company in this space can utilize the data and present it in a meaningful way as Google did for web search and one day that same company can be just as powerful as Google is today.

The night was very informative with topics ranging from raising capital to protecting intellectual property with patents, and ideas about monetization and the best time to seek investments.

People that attended the event ranged in different industries from high tech to medicine.

Mc Hammer, was a quest at the event, he provided insights on the early stage investments that he participated in and his vision for the value of social media as the new medium.

The highlight of the evening came for me in the moment of Q&A where learned that most entrepreneurs felt the same pain in raising funds and felt that both MC Hammer and Ron both addressed those questions with ideas and innovative ways in which early stage companies do today.

As a company in the real time location based services space I not only gained key insights in the industry but contacts that have the potential to advance our company as well. Overall the event was very interesting and I look forward to another event in the near future.

Jay Ward also shared key points that were learned from the panel:

• The real-time web is vastly more interesting and complex, consisting of what people’s thoughts and views are on an infinite number of topics throughout the world.  There’s a fortune to be made and a lot of value to be created in technologies that harness the trove of content being created on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking platforms.
• Conway stressed the importance of team and chemistry in looking at investments.  He said the most important thing he looked for in a deal is whether he can get along with the entrepreneur.  He said that business models change all the time and he looks for entrepreneurs that he can ride through the bad times with, as well as the good.
• Hammer stressed the importance of momentum.  He commented that MySpace’s audience, while currently larger than Twitter’s, is contracting, not expanding.  Twitter, on the other hand, is seeing a hockey stick growth curve.  All entrepreneurs should aim to show metrics that illustrate such meteoric growth.
• Both Conway and Hammer emphasized the importance of being networked in order to get connected to angel money.  Conway and his team review 1,500 proposals a month.  Only the ones that get referred in realistically have any chance of getting funded.

Copy. Paste.

As if that wasn’t enough to feel like you were actually there take a look at some of the pics from the evening:

Audience Getting Ready

Panel Getting Ready

Jay Introducing Panel

Presentation

Ready to Learn

Panelists

Ron Conway Speaking

Audience taking it all in

What an engaged audience

Hammer dropping more knowledge

And the info doesn't stop flowing...

Let the networking begin