January 23, 2010 - Saturday
Finding, Pitching, and Closing Investors in today's brutal funding environment - without banks, VC's or Angel Capital
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How to fund your company in today’s brutal funding environment—without banks, VC’s or Angel Capital
Are you struggling to find the money to launch your business? Well, you are not alone. But if you're reading this email, you're on the right path. The answers you are looking for will be revealed this Saturday.
NOTE: One of the winners of the Nov 3, 2009 Colorado Inventor Showcase started this program in November, raised his first $10,000 within 26 days after getting started, and has raised considerably more since then.
Funding is essential to startups—it’s like oxygen to the body. Raising money to fund your business is often essential to get your idea and product first-to-market and to accelerate the growth and profitability of your business.
This workshop will teach you the insider’s tricks-of-the-trade to find, pitch, and close investors. It will be an individualized hands-on session where we will dive into specific strategies for your business, put you on the hot seat, and help you formulate a personalized approach to funding your company in today's brutal funding environment—without banks, VC’s or Angel Capital.
This isn't rocket science. Rather, its a straight forward approach that savvy entrepreneurs can learn quickly, and begin to implement.
Michael Bissonnette (bio below) has founded and built four multi-million dollar companies and raised over $50 million for his companies through 21 successful rounds of funding.
He will be sharing case histories from a variety of his fundraising campaigns to demonstrate what has worked and what hasn’t. In particular, he will discuss how he raised money for his last company, AeroGrow International, and share the successes and challenges from the initial $225k of funding, through to the $2.5m Direct Public Offering, which set the company up to go public on NASDAQ.
What You Will Learn
You will learn practical tools that you can put into action immediately:
Finding & getting in front of large numbers of investors
- Reach a new, untapped pool of high-probability investors
- Use referrals and “bird dogs” to extend your current network to reach ready investors
- Creatively leverage your existing networks, including current or past customers, to find affinity investors
- Creating marketing materials to excite, entice, and motivate investors to come hear your story
Pitching Investors
- Learn how to set the stage to ask for a check
- Understand the psychology of investors and how to structure your offering so that you can raise money in today’s market
- Refine and repackage your business into a more exciting and compelling investment opportunity
Closing Investors
- Learn how to increase your closing ratio to 35-50%
- Understand techniques to increase your average investment size by 200-300% through incentives
- Learn one powerful method that Michael used in every one of his fundraising efforts that closed 85% of his investors in 5 working days
- Understand how to follow up with potential investors to convert maybes to yes’s
EVENT: Finding, Pitching, and Closing Investors Boot Camp
DATE: January 23, 2010 - Saturday
TIME: 08:30am-12:30pm
WEBSITE: http://www.davinciinstitute.com/events/537/finding-pitching-and-closing-investors-boot-camp-tuesday-june--7-2011
LOCATION: Wolf Law Building, 2450 Kittredge Loop Road, Boulder, CO 80309 (Corner of Baseline & Broadway)
DIRECTIONS: Driving Directions
COST: $69, Members: $49, SuperMembers: Free
PHONE: 303-666-4133
TOPIC: Finding, Pitching, and Closing Investors in today's brutal funding environment - without banks, VC's or Angel Capital
SPEAKER: Michael Bissonnette
SPEAKER: Michael Bissonnette
Founder and former CEO and Chairman of AeroGrow International (Inventors of the AeroGarden), Current Founder of Bissonnette Fund
Michael Bissonnette is a serial entrepreneur and fundraising expert with over 28 years of proven experience in funding, launching, and expanding start-ups into successful companies. He has built five businesses from concept to reality—including three multi-million dollar companies and two global enterprises. These include AeroGrow International, producer of the world’s first kitchen crop appliance, and Voice Power Technologies, which developed the world’s first hand-held consumer product that used voice recognition.
Having researched raising money through conventional channels including banks, angels, and venture capitalists, Michael quickly recognized the long odds of getting funding. He turned to a little-known (and quite revolutionary) fundraising approach that allowed him to market his offering direct to individual investors.
In 1982, he launched his first fundraising campaign and raised $1.5 million in less than 100 days. Michael continued to use “Investor Direct Funding” for the next 27 years to fund his companies. In total he has launched 21 funding campaigns in good times and bad, and he has been successful all 21 times. He has raised a total of over $50 million and funded five companies with this process.
Michael has likely raised more money from small individual investors using Investor Direct Funding than any other entrepreneur in the United States.
Over time, Michael refined and improved his process into a streamlined, battle-proven methodology, which he now uses to help entrepreneurs fund their companies.
8:00 - 8:30 - Registration
8:30 - 9:00 - Welcome and Introductions - Thomas Frey
9:00 - 10:00 - Finding & getting in front of large numbers of investors - Michael Bissonnette
- Reach a new, untapped pool of high-probability investors
- Use referrals and “bird dogs” to extend your current network to reach ready investors
- Creatively leverage your existing networks, including current or past customers, to find affinity investors
- Creating marketing materials to excite, entice, and motivate investors to come hear your story
10:00 - 10:15 - Break
10:15 - 11:15 - Pitching Investors - Michael Bissonnette
- Learn how to set the stage to ask for a check
- Understand the psychology of investors and how to structure your offering so that you can raise money in today’s market
- Refine and repackage your business into a more exciting and compelling investment opportunity
11:15 - 11:30 - Break
11:30 - 12:30 - Closing Investors - Michael Bissonnette
- Learn how to increase your closing ratio to 35-50%
- Understand techniques to increase your average investment size by 200-300% through incentives
- Learn one powerful method that Michael used in every one of his fundraising efforts that closed 85% of his investors in 5 working days
- Understand how to follow up with potential investors to convert maybes to yes’s
12:30 - 12:35 - Thank you for joining us - Thomas Frey
