Foresight Ventures

From innovation to market leadership

Team - Venture Partners

Vladislav Sviblov, PhD in Economics.

In 2002-2006 Vladislav built an outstanding career from operational manager toSenior Vice President at leading Russian diversified holding "Rosbulding", gained hisbonuses and created metallurgy company "GK GOLD" (nickel and gold). Activeinvestor in real estate and venture businesses.

Andrey Kazakov, MS in Economics.

Founded and initially invested Cloudmach Inc, Cloudmach’s tech brings 3D to any webenabled device. Before that was Sales executive for Image Analysis systems andsoftware outsourcing for US market. Started his career as software engineerdeveloping operating systems and enterprise software at EMC

John Zdanowski – MBA, Harvard Business School.

Former CFO of Linded Lab(Second Life)

Partner & CFO at River Forest Financial, LLC;

CFO Advisor at Avatar Reality, Inc. Board Member at RentJuice Corp.

John is a well know expert in Hi-Tech Startups, M&A, Fund Raising, High Growth & IPO

Advisors

Andrew Cheeseman – ex-IBM sales professional. Director of Emerging technology at Mattel.Andrew is expert in solution and platform sales, social networks and virtual worlds

Ralphael Bennet is the Founder and CEO of NeuStep, Inc and has been behind the companyand its flagship product WebWalk™ since its humble beginnings. With a unique background inbusiness and technology, Raphael has spent over a decade pursuing creative and innovativesolutions to some of the most common issues plaguing businesses today in the growing worldof web-based marketing and commerce.

Kick Starting a New Business

• DO NOT WRITE BUSINESS PLAN & KEEP YOUR JOB

• Write brief and simple product/service description: Describe problem and solution: Collect as much feedback as you can. Make sure that problem exists

• Build wire-frames for product/service, collect as much feedback as possible According to the feedback:Make sure that product/service solves the problem

• What’s your business model?

• What is your market is it big?

• What is your “unfair” competitive advantage?

• Build prototype and make sure that you can implement core functionality for the product/service

Build Team

• Hire result oriented product thinking engineers:• Motivation is stock, and position in a company when it is incorporated and funded

• Hire guys that you’ve been working with

• Look for passionate team members

• Build team as early as you can

• Think how you will fire them - stock vesting

Idea takes no more than 20% of the success the rest is execution

Execution ~ People

Build your MVP

• Invest your $ into the project and leave your job( you have to have savings to live for 6 months)

• Share your concept documents among your social network – try to raise $ from an Angel (better: successful entrepreneur)

• Design and build your MVP( Minimal Viable Product)• Design user/customer acquisition • Gather user/customer traction and iterate on early user feedback

• Attend events like Web-Ready, network as much as you can

• Raise Capital and keep building a product

Write an Executive Summary

• Executive Summary• Problem• Solution• Team• Market• “unfair” competitive advantages• How much are looking to raise• Goals to be archived with the capital• Exit Strategies

• Finance model & Financial Projections, plan till you breakevenBuild detailed P&L in spread sheet, make it estimates and projections safe

ALL THIS SHOWS THAT YOU HAVE ENOUGH BRAIN TO PLAN AND UNDERSTANDYOUR BUSINESS IN DETAILS, THIS IS NOT WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN A FUTURE

Reaching out to VCs

• DO NOT SEND YOUR EXEC SUM TO “SUBMIT YOUR BUSINESS PLAN” E-MAILS

• Use your network to bring exec sum to the partner/associate/principal

• Talk to guys who has raised capital, ask them about process

• Get people excited about your project, they may do a reference to VCs if they like it

• Participate in competitions, get someone to introduce you to VC on an event

• Get your elevator pitch and live demo ready and polished

Reaching out to VCs

• Do not send all material about your project right away

• You must provoke interest and secure the personal meeting, but not let VCs build an opinion about your project when you are away.

VCs are looking for

• COMPANIES THAT CAN RUN ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT VC FUNDING

• One leader – champion, no shared leadership is possible, CEO is the one that raises funds

• Big markets to monetize

• Big exits

• Clear exit strategies

• Teams of serial entrepreneurs

• In-depth understanding of your business, market and competion is mandatory

General Tips

• NEVER MAKE FUNDRAISING A PRIORITY, PRODUCT IS IMPORTANT

• Successful fundraising comes from a good well thought product/solution not from Executive Summaries, Business Plans, Advisory Boards and e.t.c.

• Plan and watch your burn-rate, have multiple scenarios

• Hire team that is product oriented, capable of valuable initiative

• Have enough savings to treat your start-up seriously

• Prove your decisions against feedback, make product decisions customer feedback drivenDo not drink your own cool-aid

Thanks!

Andrey Kazakov

kazakov@f-ventures.ru