SacStarts - entrepreneur

Want a healthy startup? Grow your network.

Adam Kalsey — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 03:34:07 +0000

To put it simply, this is why SacStarts exists.

After an eight-year study of successful and unsuccessful startups and their founders, researchers have concluded that founders of startups are more successful if they have a strong network of other entrepreneurs.

The authors found that firms whose managers have more social relationships with peers at other software start-ups have a better chance of surviving external shocks, such as the burst of the dot-com bubble earlier in the decade. This result suggests that cultivation of strong and relevant social networks among a firm’s managers can be an important determinant of the success of a startup venture.

Knowing other entrepreneurs can help you build your business. By hanging out with other startup folks (at dinner perhaps?) can help you with advice, sources of funding, customers, and emotional support. The only people that know what it’s like to start a company are people who have done it.

Thanks to Business Pundit for the pointer.

Get some experience

Adam Kalsey — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 06:49:16 +0000

Alex Muse from Spur has some advice for young, entrepreneurial-minded people: go work for a Fortune 500 business for a while.

Larger companies usually provide great training for their employees (they might even send him to school). Second, later in his career recruiters who are seeking candidates with resumes from ‘Fortune Company No. 743′ will seek him out. It is unlikely that they will be looking for guys who previously worked for Big in Japan. Finally, if he is interested in eventually starting his own company working at a big company is a great way to figure out what to do.

Investment by locale

Adam Kalsey — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:30:01 +0000

At last week’s dinner we were talking about the realities of starting a company in Sacramento and getting outside investment. I’d recently seen a chart on Paul Kedrosky’s blog that shows investment by locale with the SF Bay Area getting a whopping 39% of investment dollars and Southern California and New England tied for second with 10% each.

It’s not clear from the graph what investments are counted (all VC, angel, public companies…?) but it’s clear that if you aren’t in the Bay Area you have an uphill battle when it comes time to raise outside investment.

I also wonder if the numbers are skewed somewhat by the locations of the companies that are seeking investment. Did 39% of investments go to the Bay Area because that’s where investors are looking or because there’s more startups in the Bay Area? If you’re in the Bay Area, is it perhaps harder to raise money because there’s more local startups? In Sacramento, you have a much smaller pond to play in.

There’s a couple of Sacramento-focused VC funds and a local angel group, not to mention a number of unaffiliated investors in the area. The fact that there’s less startups competing for their attention may make it easier to get in the door.