Paul once blogged that his core competency is his ability to type 55+ words per minute on his blackberry. He may have some competition in Bijan Sibet.

EntrepreneurshipWeek USA is here! As an EntrepreneurshipWeek USA partner, FundingUniverse wants you to know about the events going on this week.

To celebrate entrepreneurship, thousands of activities in all fifty states have been planned. The events, which go from February 24 to March 3, 2007, include various types of activities such as business plan competitions, speakers, a policy summit, etc. Visit http://www.entrepreneurshipweekusa.com/activities/index.asp to check for specific activities in your area.

According to the EntrepreneurshipWeek USA website, “the underlying message of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA is one that resonates with people of all ages, of all ethnic backgrounds and from all walks of life. It is a celebration and an acknowledgement of what has made America great from the start. Its impact will be significant for not only those involved, but for the future generations of entrepreneurs as well as the economies to which they contribute.”

Determining a company’s valuation can be a sticky situation. An entrepreneur who has worked to create a company often has a higher valuation than what it may actually be. Be sure to consider the following areas when determining the valuation.

• Management Team

• Size of the Opportunity

• Product or Service

• Sales Channel

• Stage of business

• Other Factors (Competitive Advantage, Intellectual Property, etc.)

As you work with the entrepreneur to determine the real pre or post valuation of the company, remember you will be working with each other in the future. Bill Payne, entrepreneur-in-residence at the Kauffman foundation, provides the following advice. “Contentious negotiations on valuation create hard feelings that can last through the duration of the “marriage” and are really unnecessary…If the entrepreneur and the angel investors are both in the [$1-$2.5 million] range but separated by a significant number, split the difference and get on with building a company. If the company eventually sells for $50 million, everyone wins. If the company goes out of business, the original valuation was not important.”

Remember, it may be more important to show the management team you value the work they have done so far. By coming up with a fair valuation you can instill a desire for the management team to further prove themselves.

Jeremy Liew raised a great question on the Lightspeed Ventures blog this morning: What's the fastest way build an online media business to $50M in revenue?

Jeremy points out three strategies towards building enough traffic to reach $50M:

1) The Bebo.com/MySpace.com approach -- broad reach, not a lot of targeting.
2) The Facebook.com/Terra .com approach -- demographic targeting.
3) The Endemic Advertising approach -- create a website about cars that car companies would naturally want to advertise on, an electronics site for consumer electronics companies to advertise on, etc.

Jeremy I agree with Jeremy's ultimate suggestion that #3 is the best way to go of the three scenarios listed, but I think that the best way to get quick cash flow for an online media company is the subscription model.

I know it may be a little Web 1.0 to bring up subscriptions, but I don't know of another way for a media company to get to cash flow positive faster than with a subscription model. Augment your subscription service with a call center, and your conversions go through the roof and you're immediately bringing in cash.

In the long term, its all about automating the process so the call center fades out and margins go up. There's no reason to pay someone a commission on what a website alone can do. But if you want quick cash, subs with call support is where it's at. It also gives entrepreneurs something to help pay the bills while they build traffic and tweak their UI in order to generate more paid sign-ups and pageviews.

I'm not talking about a WSJ subscription model where you basically get no value out of the site unless you pay. I'm talking about a Pogo.com/espn.com/Skype model that gives you good service for free and great service for a monthly rate.

What do you think? Is the 1.0 subscription model broken, or are 2.0 junkies looking past a simple answer that has been under their noses all along?

I just installed a MyBlogLog widget in the sidebar of my blog. Contrary to the text in the widget, this blog currently does not have a posse, but you can see what a blog with a posse looks like by here (scroll down on left) and here (scroll down on right).

Go to MyBlogLog and create an account. The next time you come to my blog, your picture will appear under the widget and you will officially be part of my blog's posse. Not that that means anything special to anyone but me ... :)

Going to a networking event with entrepreneurs is a blast. As you go around the room, every entrepreneur that you talk to makes it sound as if their company is on the edge of world domination. "We're about ready to close a huge deal with ..." "Our partnership with so-and-so is starting to really pay off ..."

Of course, 90% of it is total garbage. Most entrepreneurs do not have the physical capability to say anything negative about their comapany. It's like asking a snake to tap dance.

If you want to hear the truth about a male entrepreneurs company, ask his wife. She'll give you the truth.

If you've ever been an entrepreneur leading a bootstrapped pre-cashflow company, you know what I'm talking about. Your buddy asks, "How's business?" You say, "We're stoked about what's happening and we're accomplishing some great things right now." Your wife says, "Yeah. He really likes it and he's having alot of fun. I just hope we get paid soon."

Nine times out of ten she isn't saying it maliciously, she's just telling the absolute truth without any of the fluff. When I began my carreer, Anna unknowingly did this to me a few times. I have since coached her on the art of entrepreneur-speak.

If I were an angel investor, I'd be on the phone with the spouse of every entrepreneur I was looking into financing.

Just in case a few VCs and angels read this and catch on to my idea ... all of you spouses out there, repeat with me, "Business is going very well. I'm excited about this month's revenue!"

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the launch of TechStars and mentioned that David Cohen and I were trying to figure out a way to work together.  Over a few conversations, we decided to throw together a LivePitch and Networking event for EntrepreneurshipWeek USA in Boulder, Colorado.

In 2 days, we planned the event, got a few sponsors, and we are now expecting to have around 100-200 entrepreneurs in attendance.  Here’s the idea:

• We’re accepting applications from entrepreneurs in the community to be able to pitch at the event.  We’ll probably select around 10 deals to make LivePitches to a panel of investors and the live audience.

• We’ve attracted a panel of angels to attend to judge the event and provide feedback.  The angels that have committed to attend are:

• David Cohen, Tech Stars
• David Brown, Tech Stars
• Jared Wandry, Norseman Capital
• Bob Smart
• Bill Treadwell
• And others…

• To get the audience involved, every member of the audience will receive $100 in “play money” that they can “invest” into their favorite company pitch. (by the way…this idea was the brainchild of Carolynn Duncan and Phil Burns — want to make sure that I give credit where credit is due.)

• At the end of the event, we’ll announce 2 winners — an audience favorite and an angel favorite.  The CTEK Angel Group and Holmes Roberts & Owen have joined the sponsorship club to provide prizes to the 2 winners.

Most of all, we just want to provide a fun event for the entrepreneurial community.  If you’re in CO, come check it out — it’s free.

• Entrepreneurial expertise: Blue-collar truck gizmo beats high-tech in start
  It wasn't the glitzy setting of "American Idol" or "America's Next Top Model," but the stakes were as high for five entrepreneurs who did their best to convince a panel of investors at the Governor's Utah Economic Summit that their start-up firms deserved a $100,000 prize.

If you are a company in Utah, you should take advantage of this…

FundingUniverse has partnered with Grow Utah Ventures and Governor’s Office of Economic Develop to host a state-wide funding competition. An investment of $100,000 will be made in the winner of the competition. I’m seriously stoked about this.

Here are the details:

1. Any Utah-based company can apply. Applications are being accepted until March 6th.
2. 5 semi-finalists will be selected to present LIVE to the audience and a panel of angel investors at the Governor’s first-ever Economic Summit. We’ll be soliciting audience participation through Q&A and an audience vote.
3. The angels will analyze the pitches in front of the audience to provide a learning experience of the angel process.
4. Governor Huntsman will announce the winner during his keynote speech over lunch.
5. After lunch, we’ll announce the audience favorite and compare the differences with the angel’s favorite. We’ll also have a panel of angels that will be available for Q&A.

While we are still in the process of solidifying the panel of angels, here is a preliminary list of those that will participate:

- Tony Howells- Olympus Angels

- Bill Payne- Vegas Valley Angels

- Alan Hall- Olympus Angels/ Grow Utah Ventures

- Paul Campbell- Cache Valley Angels

- Ron White- Olympus Angels

- Damon Kirchmeier- UTFC

- Kent Thomas- Olympus Angels

- John Richards- Utah Angels

If interested, go to www.fundinguniverse.com/goedsummit to apply.

FundingUniverse is a proud promoter of the entrepreneur magazine Launch. Grow Utah Ventures is the sponsor and they have done a great job to provide content that entrepreneurs will enjoy. Check out the latest issue here.