Name: Brian Nielsen

Title: Funding Consultant

Brian points our clients in the right direction for funding. Out of the numerous options available, he consults and recommends the best financing/consulting/credit building/equity capital source based on the individual needs of the client.

If you ever see his face on a celebrity’s body, don’t be alarmed, you’ve just become privy to his amazing Photoshop talents.

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What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received? Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration. (Thomas Edison)

Where did you work before FundingUniverse? I worked with a company called XanGo as the sole representative of their Korean language department. XanGo was featured right along-side FundingUniverse in Utah Valley BusinessQ Magazine’s ‘Top 40 Under 40′ and was also named a ‘Best Company to Work For’ by Business Q. (Spoiler-alert: I like working for FundingUniverse more)

What drew you to FundingUniverse? I have always had a passion to learn everything there is to know about entrepreneurship. One day, as I was searching through my BYU’s business school’s alumni job postings, I came across the FundingUniverse sales consultant position. I had to do a little background research but soon came to find that this was precisely what I was looking for.

How will you help FundingUniverse grow? I like to think that my personality is such that those clients who speak with me will want to tell their friends and business acquaintances how professional and helpful Funding Universe is. I want them to have such a good experience that they will want to see us grow too, and therefore help in the process.

What’s your favorite things about FundingUniverse? The team, of course. Everyone that works here is very energetic and fun. Another thing I’ve come to love is our recently organized business learning library. We have several people in the office who have temporarily donated their books to start a library from which we can borrow books to continually add to our knowledge of entrepreneurship and investing. It’s being put to good use.

What has been the funniest moment at FundingUniverse? One day, Trent came out to ask everyone to step into his office; he even threatened to fire about three people if they didn’t come in. After entering the office, he then proceeded to show us a video clip of the comedian Jim Gaffigan talking about bacon. My condolences to anyone that got fired for not watching that video. After showing the clip, he described how our consulting packages should include, not only one-on-one professional consulting, but also a five pound bag of Costco bacon. Here’s a link to the video he showed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxwCy69_YcQ. [Brian later noted that this video prepared for a company meeting should be included as "funniest moment": http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/XQ7LYJO17cmSVLEu featured are CEO Brock Blake, CTO Trent Miskin and Utah Regional Director Rob Sanders]

What has been the weirdest moment at FundingUniverse? A couple weeks ago, I emailed a particular client to confirm an appointment time; I received a response a few hours later. Well… I think this gentleman mistakenly sent his “funny” business spam-mail to the wrong person because what I received was, well…I won’t go into detail. Note that this is my “wierdest” moment and not my “funniest” moment at FundingUniverse.

What do you do when you’re not in the office? I have several hobbies. Right now, I am taking a web development class so I can make web pages–just for fun. I also took several aviation classes in the past and would like to get back into that to finally get my private pilot’s license. Also, I am taking bagpipe lessons every Wednesday night (pretty unique, eh?). Other hobbies of mine include snowboarding in the winters and longboarding in the summers.

FundingUniverse wants to help you improve your business proposition to an investor. The best way for us to do this is to actually play the role of the fund analyst.  The only real difference is we will actually provide you with constructive feedback, advice and consulting on how to make your proposition effective and attractive, rather than throwing it in the trash and never even replying to your email or phone call.

So here are a few things to understand about an investor and therefore what to expect as a client.

1.  Investors won’t read your 25+ page business plan and neither will we.  Rather we will help you carve it down to a direct and compelling document that is simple to understand and easy to digest quickly.

2.  Investors want to see your executive summary first, if you cannot convince them you are worthwhile from the Exec. Summ. then your business plan will probably just bore them. We will help you condense your plan down to the most critical material then it will be a simple process to add to it and make a good business plan.  This is much easier than reading your doctoral thesis and trying to find a few nuggets.

3.  It is best to get refered to an investor instead of spaming the transum with your B-plan.  We will help you understand the strategic and proper way to contact an investor.  Believe it or not you are probably only 2 and maybe even 1 relationship away from a funding source if you just took the time and worked strategically to tap your network.

4.  Investors are not evil but, they are in business to make money.  if you do not understand the details of deal structure, the terms of the deal and equity finance generally, you stand the risk of getting the raw end of the deal or loosing the opportunity to negotiate a better deal for you.

So, before you go looking for Venture or Angel funding, let us play the part of the fund analyst so you don’t have to face a barrage of rejection with little (or more likely) no feedback or response.

Name: Zach Mangum

Title: Senior Funding Consultant

Zach is one of two senior consultants in charge of fitting clients with fundraising solutions that meet their needs. He leads a team of consultants who contact and qualify entrepreneurs who apply for funding.

Zach’s usually the first guy in the office even if he’s been up all night taking care of his infant first-born.

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What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in business? I don’t know what the biggest one was, but a week or two ago I sent a confidential email to a few colleagues here at FundingUniverse and accidentally sent a copy to a client as well. The content in the email was enough to embarrass me more than I’d like to admit!

What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received? “do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda; “do more than is required”

Where did you work before FundingUniverse? Sage Communities - Finance Intern

What drew you to FundingUniverse? (1) I wanted experience with a startup, (2) I wanted to learn about entrepreneurship and how to effectively start a successful business, (3) I wanted experience in the world of angel investing/VC/entrepreneurship, (4) FundingUniverse had everything I was looking for as well as a great name both locally and nationally.

How will you help FundingUniverse grow? By constantly evaluating and improving our screening process to help us bring on as many entrepreneurs as possible and assist them in getting prepared to raise investment capital.

What’s your favorite things about FundingUniverse? (1) my co-workers, (2) the industry, (3) seeing businesses get funded, (4) Michael Jones

What has been the funniest moment at FundingUniverse? Watching Michael and Kendall play ping pong.

What has been the weirdest moment at FundingUniverse? Seeing broken ping pong paddles every week.

 Last week Funding Universe hosted a “Live” Pitch event on the Novell campus in Provo, Utah.  Five companies were selected to present their products and services to a panel of six investors and business experts.  Approximately 150 spectators attended the two hour event.

Live Pitch was born from another Funding Universe event called “Speed” Pitching.  ”Speed” Pitching is similar to speed dating.  In speed pitching, ten screened businesses meet in a room filled with 30-50 investors.  The goal for business owners is to pique the interest of Angel and Venture Capitalist for future funding.  For the Entrepreneur they get the undivided attention of 30-50 investors and the investors benefit because they can be introduced to 10 vetted businesses through Funding Universe in less than two hours.

Businesses are allowed four uninterupted minutes to present their venture.  They then have three minutes to answer questions and bing bam boom they are done.  Four minutes is not a lot of time to explain an entire business, so the pitches have to be precise, thorough and engaging.  Many businesses who have participated in our “Speed” Pitch event have asked Funding Universe if they could watch a Speed Pitch before participating in one.  Alas, “Live” Pitch was born.

Last week the five qualifying businesses screened to present were 

ListPipe, a new SEO company focused on providing custom content through an online subscription service.

Izatt International, a local development group focusing on iPhone applications.

Gruvie, a social utility that enables you to wrangle all your social networking accounts into a single login.

Lignin Bio Fuels, an alternative fuel company that produces transportation fuel out of non-edible biomass.

Estamar Strategy, a consulting group managing business investment opportunities

After presenting, the audience was allowed to invest $200 in “FU Funny Money” into any of the five companies.  The audience in conjunction with the six panalists produced the top two companies.  The two “Live” Pitch winners were Ian Ellis of Gruvie and Cary Snowden of ListPipe.  (In a bit of unbiased reporting, I would like to point out that I only had one client in the competition and he won)

Our next Speed Pitch event will be on October 24th at the Larry H Miller Campus in Sandy, Utah.  We invite you to come out and see how Funding Universe facilitates the interface of Small Businesses with Angels and VC’s.  

Joel Nielsen is a Venture Consultant at Funding Universe and can be contacted at jnielsen@fundinguniverse.com

Just Another Day in Paradise: Good news at FundingUniverse, another deal funded and more to come.  Nothing gets us more excited than hearing that one of our clients got a check, and that’s nothing compared to the excitement they experience when they see the green.  Now just a reminder, raising money is not really about the money, it is what the companies can do with it that is exciting.

When, I see one of my clients quit their day job and start doing what they love and are passionate about, it really makes it all worth it.  Let me tell you a little about how it went, so that you can get an idea of how our engagements can go.  (Names have been changed)

1. Joe, Mike and Pete have worked for four years developing some pretty impressive alternative energy,  Joe is an engineer with an MBA and Mike is a die hard engineer.  Pete is a business man that is well connected in the geographic market that represents their initial target.  Together they make a fine team and obviously they are committed to what they do or they wouldn’t work four years on a project while at the same time keeping their day jobs to make a living.
2. The great thing about their deal, is that they came to FundingUniverse, already having developed their technology to a prototype stage, they had gotten some market commitments and they had really done the research.  Plus they had contributed sweat equity or got donated real assets and expertise to the equivalent of about 400k, which shows ingenuity and commitment.
3. Basically this team needed help formulating their business documents, preparing to pitch and learning to network.  We spent about 6 weeks getting this done and then gave them exposure through a speed pitching event.  Within about a month of that event they had a check and are now moving forward with their plan.

This is just an example of the success that is experienced on a regular basis here at FundingUniverse.  Now I am not saying every engagement turns out this way, much of that depends on you as an entrepreneur. I will say that for those who have paid the price and need some help getting off the plateau and on to the mountain, we know how to get you there.

Comments from the client:

Funding had been the biggest obstacle to starting our business when we inquired into the services that Funding Universe offered.  At the very first meeting it became clear that we had been going about it the wrong way and needed to change course.  Funding Universe helped us refine our business plan and focus our efforts to find the right investors.  It took time but we were able to find the investors we needed and start our business even during a world financial crisis. The most important contribution that Funding Universe gave us was the ability to understand and approach investors, which helped us make the changes we needed to move forward.

FundingUniverse was conceived as a network where entrepreneurs could find appropriate investors and investors could find a lot of deals that have gone through some pre-screening to meet their criteria. Investors and entrepreneurs, can maximize the value of the site by using it as it was designed, providing a little, simple information when the site asks for it. Both groups habitually leave vital information out of their profiles and in doing so decrease the value of the FundingUniverse network for all involved.

Investors often fill in their contact information but leave their business information blank. They will just not fill out what types of businesses they are interested in or how much they are looking to invest. Would they be willing to invest nationally or do they want to stay within their state? What stage of companies and what kind of entrepreneurs are they looking for? In other words, they don’t fill out the very information that would make their contact information relevant. Without this information in their profile, an investor can search the site and hope to find what they are looking for, but it is almost impossible for someone to find them with the kind of deal they would be interested in. It’s like setting up a profile on Linkedin and not telling anyone what you do or have done. It’s of no use to anyone else so it’s really not of much use to you either. Your entry has become only slightly more valuable to the community than a white page listing would be and everyone suffers for it.

Entrepreneurs make similar mistakes when filling out their profiles. They leave blanks in their business summary or, just as bad if not worse, enter something like “see business plan.” This tells potential investors that you are either too lazy to fill in the information or just don’t get the concept of what FundingUniverse is for. The investor is also forced to download a document just to understand the basic facts of your business. I am just speculating but I am pretty sure most won’t.

This could be taken as a test of your marketing skills. Your potential investors (read “customers”) first contact with you is likely to be your page on FundingUniverse. There, they are almost certainly going to read your summary or watch your video before doing anything else. If you loose them there it doesn’t make any difference how good your business plan is because they will have written you off before ever getting to it. To avoid this, fill out your summary in as factual and concise a way as possible and then ask someone who isn’t familiar with your business to read it and see how good an understanding they get from it.

Membership in FundingUniverse is growing weekly. As more and more investors and entrepreneurs join the site, it becomes harder and harder for them to achieve their goals without comprehensive, well thought out profiles.

Aside from Exxon and the Saudis, I’m probably the only guy in the US who is thrilled with these outrageous gas prices.  If it was up to me I’d push gas prices even higher as I don’t think that there is enough pain at the pump yet.  $10 per gallon would be perfect.

No, I’m not a masochist and no, I don’t own any oil stocks either.  I’m just a regular American who is sick and tired of being held hostage by foreign countries from the Middle East, Russia and Venezuela.  Nothing would make me happier than to see all of them sit on tankers full of oil that are virtually worthless.  I strongly believe that we are getting there.

Inconvenience is the mother of all invention.  Think about all of the historical achievements the world has produced over the years.  Fire, the wheel, cars, computers, airplanes.  Almost all of them born in an effort to solve some kind of inconvenience, some kind of pain.  Using that same model, it stands to reason that being held hostage to these outrageous gas prices will encourage someone, ANYONE to invent a way to get us off of our addiction to foreign oil.  It has.

This summer, Funding Universe has been approached by a number of companies, both big and small who are working on this exact problem.  Some are working on bio fuels, others on solar power or wind power.  We recently worked with a company that developed a product that harnessed wind power from the ocean and converted it into transportable energy.  It has been exciting to see the thought, calculations and designs that have been created by each of these companies and my only regret is that we don’t have more.  Yes sir, a throbbing pain can move a lot of things, including a nation.

Joel Nielsen is a Venture Consultant at Funding Universe and can be emailed at jnielsen@fundinguniverse.com