Recently I was invited by my friend Rob Johnson (from EventVue — http://www.eventvue.com) to a TechStars (http://www.TechStars.org) panel discussion about finding investors and raising money. The panel members included executives and founders of Mobius VC, The Foundry Group, PayPal, Inktomi, and Sequel Ventures.

There are several strategies that companies can use to help with early stage growth:

• Consulting – more organic growth while working a day job
• Bootstrapping – includes maxing out credit cards
• Friends and family – you might decide to skip out on Thanksgiving this year
• Partners – you must know your partner’s strengths and weaknesses before accepting any investment
• Angels — sometimes angel investors want to invest time as well as money into the business
• Venture capital – usually venture capital can offer strategic partnerships as well as financing

Listed below are several important concepts that I took away from the event:

• Founders will give away 30% - 35% of the Company during every raise, so make sure to raise at least $5 million, not $50k
• Before you consider funding, think about how you can NOT fund the company (and keep your equity)
• Look at where the money flows in the industry and structure your business in such a way that you don’t have to inject money
• Raising money from investors also comes with a non-cash price tag
• Develop a group of advisors that can help you – its best to find people that have done it before
• When networking, understand that networks are not a homogeneous group

The panel also discussed several mistakes they have seen entrepreneurs make over the years. These included:

• Trying to close on the 1^st meeting – during the first meeting, founders should focus on getting the investor’s attention and setting a 2^nd meeting time
• Not listening to investors – founders must listen to potential investors and engage them during meetings
• Not listening to investor ideas – when investors are critical about a business that usually means they have an interest in it

Another great takeaway from the meeting was that we all should learn at least one thing during every meeting we attend – if you do this, then no meeting will ever be a waste of your time.