On December 21, we had our weekly chat with an angel with Bill Payne. Normally, this conference call chat is only available to AngelReady Members; however, this week, we started to open it up for anyone to participate.

Bill did a fantastic job discussing “5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs make when Pitching to Angels.” It was a fun discussion with some very good questions that were asked.

This recording and the archive of previous week’s discussions is available in your entrepreneurial console.

Enjoy this free recording! Click here to Download the Audio File.

We just filled one of the sales ninja positions that I blogged about last week. Ryan Booher, one of the founding members of the Weber Entrepreneurs Association, has joined our team and we couldn't be more excited about having him on board. Ryan received a full-ride scholarship to Weber State University for performing due dilligence on Grow Utah Ventures dealflow, so he knows what angel investors are looking for.

There is still one sales ninja position available. Click here to learn more about it, or send me an email at jeff at fundinguniverse.com.

You need to watch the video that Jeff Barson posted about the life of a VC. When you're done, you need to add Jeff's blog to your RSS feed. His posts are always money in the bank.

I'm looking for two part-time sales ninjas to join me in my quest to help more FundingUniverse members get involved in our AngelReady Membership.

I don't plan on heading up this project for much longer, so I'll need someone to come in, learn the ropes and take the lead in growing the team. The person I hire will be the third person in on this quickly growing project, so the opportunity to play a management role as the project grows is very strong.

Our sales ninjas are not telemarketers; our sales ninjas are consultants. Our ninjas need to have a deep knowledge of early-stage investing and raising money from angel investors. Before they pick up a phone, they receive in-depth training that allows them to make qualified recommendations to our valued subscribers.

To find out more about this position, click here or call me at 877.638.3616.

We will be interviewing from December 15th to January 5th. Those who submit their resumes early will receive special consideration.

And, no, you won't have to work out of my basement. :)

What an awesome interview! I’ve always been intrigued by Will West and his lifetime of successful ventures. Because Will has raised nearly $300 million for his 4 companies, I thought that it would be fitting to interview him to find out his secrets. Here is his BIO:

(Picture of the founders of Control4 — Will West, Eric Smith, Mark Morgan)

Will has raised more than $280 million in private capital for his 4 ventures. In 1998, he co-founded STSN (now iBAHN), the worldwide leader in broadband services for business travelers. Prior to founding STSN, Will was president, CEO, and co-founder of PHAST Corporation. Under his leadership, PHAST became the leading manufacturer of high-end home automation equipment.

Will serves as chairman of the board of the Utah Capital Investment Corporation (the State of Utah’s “Fund of Funds”). He also serves as chairman of the board for Utah Technology Council (UTC). He was named Utah Valley Entrepreneur of the year in 2004, and is on Utah Business Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the state. He was also named the Ernst & Young Master Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2006 in the Utah region.

Enjoy!

• Idea That Is Scalable
  Some might say that a "good idea" and a "fundable idea" are synonymous, but I disagree. One of the main reasons that they aren't the same is because a lot of really good ideas are not scalable. Let me explain...

Brock and I were on a conference call with our rockstar advisory board last week and we received a clear message from them:

Focus wholly, completely, passionately, 100% on sales.

This is great advice for 90% of the entrepreneurs that we work with each month and it's great advice for us.

Up until the conference call I had been coming in the office to work each day and dividing my time between consulting gigs, business development, and developing the AngelReady sales program.

This week I have decided to take the board's wise council to heart and jump into the sales program 100% with no other distractions. I've set up shop in a small unfinished, unfurnished room in my basement with five things: my laptop, a Vonage router, a phone, a pad of paper. and a chair to sit on. (See pictures. The papers on the wall have our daily registration goals and results written on them.)

Results:

• I've gained a deeper insight into the entrepreneurs that we serve and how to best help them prepare to raise angel capital, which has increased my ability to give meaningful feed back and training to our customer care team. This has lead to a vastly increased number of FundingUniverse registrants becoming AngelReady Members.
• I am not distracted by the countless "little things" that go hand-in-hand with running a fast-moving company.
  
• I've enjoyed lunch with my wife, Anna, and my boys, Jack and Brixton, every day. Can't beat that.
  

Even our CEO has spent substantial time on the phone with our members this week. I love it!

I don't expect to stay down here forever, but the exercise has been and will continue to be very instructive.

It’s been a long time coming. I finally hooked up with John May last week and had a great interview with him. What a great guy!

John has a passion for angel investing. He is the Chairman of the Angel Capital Association and a long-time angel investor. Whether you are an entrepreneur or an angel investor, you’ll want to listen to this podcast!

Here is John’s BIO from his website:

John May is the managing partner of New Vantage Group, a Vienna, VA firm that innovatively mobilizes private equity into early-stage companies and provides advisory services to both funds and private investors. Mr. May’s experience in private equity capital over the last 15 years ranges from venture capital fund management to angel investing.

Mr. May has been at the forefront of the angel investor movement. In 1991, he co-founded the Investors’ Circle, a national non-profit group of 125 family and institutional investors working to grow the social venture capital industry. Additionally in 1996, he co-founded and became executive director of the Private Investors Network, an angel network sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association, which he led until 2002. John is now Chairman of the newly formed Angel Capital Association (formerly a program of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation), is a lead instructor for their “Power of Angel Investing” seminars, and is co-author of two books, Every Business Needs an Angel, and State of the Art.

Mr. May co-founded The Dinner Club, an investment group of 60 regional angels who collectively invest in regional early stage ventures. A larger private investor pool, the eMedia Club with 75 members, followed it, and in 2000, the Washington Dinner Club with 75 members was started. In 2003, Active Angel Investors, a “pledge” fund was created. New Vantage Group administers all of these groups.

I’d love to get your comments. Who would you like to hear from? What topics would you like discussed?

This week I finished reading another great book that most of you have heard about or have even read; Good to Great by Jim Collins.  Let me just highlight a few takeaways I had from reading this book.

One of the most important points of the whole book, I thought, was getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats, with the “bus” being your company.  In an example of a great company making hiring decisions, the company put more of an emphasis on “character attributes than on specific educational backround, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience.”  The right people you hire will be your company’s biggest and most valuable assets and, as such, the hiring process should be treated that way.

The other major point of the book that I want to write about was the Hedghog Concept.  This concept consists of three intersecting circles being represented by these three questions, what are you deeply passionate about, what drives your economic engine, and what can you be the best in the world at?  If your company can find a way to offer a product or provide a service that answers all three questions, then you are on your way to establishing a great company.  By having this Hedghog Concept concept in place, every decision and strategy that your company makes will be based on this understanding, making your company extremely focused on what you do best.

Good to Great is an excellent read and even though it is based on studies of large corporations, almost everything Jim Collins talks about can and should be applied to entrepreneurs and their startup companies.