How to Attract Venture Capital

This article was written by Jim Casparie of Entrepreneur.com. Jim is the "Raising Money" coach at Entrepreneur.com and the founder and CEO of The Venture Alliance, a national firm based in Irvine, California, that's dedicated to getting companies funded.

Have you ever been to a conference where selected entrepreneurs are invited to present their ideas to a panel of investors who then critique their chances of getting funded? If not, then you've really missed out -- these meetings are probably one of the best ways aspiring entrepreneurs can get a glimpse of what professional investors are looking for in what they call a "fundable company."

Recently, the Software Council of Southern California asked if I'd like to attend their event, VentureNet, to see what the latest trends were. I eagerly accepted, but my interest was not so much in what was going on at the stage level, but in picking the brains of the professional investors to see what they'd say "behind the scenes." Now, before I share what I learned, let me just make a few qualifying statements:

1. Every professional investor has a slightly different perspective on what's important. Yes, there are some things we all seem to emphasize, but our differences can be extensive. Thus, this article represents the opinions of just the particular cross-section I happened to interview on this one occasion.

2. The individuals I interviewed were very candid and, to protect them from being "profiled" with any one statement, no direct quotes will be made.

The professional investors offering opinions from which this article was extracted include: David Cremin, managing director of DFJ Frontier; Michael Song, a partner with Rustic Canyon; Bill Collins, managing partner of Publex Ventures; and Robert Kibble, managing partner of Mission Ventures. Some additional comments and insights were also provided by Jon Kraft, chair of the Software Council of Southern California.

So what do these gentlemen prefer to see in a company before they get excited enough to write a check? What, if anything, has changed from what they used to look for during the dot.com craziness of the late 90s?

Here's what they said is important now:

Seasoning. They're looking for more experienced, older entrepreneurs who have "been there, done that." The time of investing in the 19-year-old kid who's a tech-genius isn't necessarily gone, but the kid had better be able to find an older, seasoned executive to join his team.

Customers. Contrary to putting the emphasis on the team or the revenue numbers, there seemed to be a new emphasis on the customer: