Re: UKNM: anyone got capital?

[Sean Phelan]

At 12:11 pm +0100 18/6/99, Ray Taylor wrote:

>If you ask capital funders why they don't invest in new media startups they

>will tell you that for the most part the people who are starting them do not

>have a clue how to start up and grow a new business, how to write a business

>plan, how to talk to potential investors, etc.


As usual, I agree wholeheartedly with Ray.  Most of the UK startups that have

substantial funding have people in their management team with the background

to write a solid bizplan.  The lastminute people are ex-Spectrum Strategy (a

world-class boutique telecom/media consultancy); the QXL founder was a journo

on (I think) the FT; these people can reasonably be expected to be able to

write, create financial models, do market research and network properly.


By contrast, the impression I get from the many aspiring entrepreneurs that

call us up here at Multimap.com  (notice the name change? We've got .com on

the end of our name and we've got half a million users; are we worth a bill

yet?) is that they are very young... many of them can write compelling copy

but most have done no competitive market research and I very much doubt that

they have financial forecasts beyond the "we're small now; we're going to

be big" variety.


On the other hand, I hear rumour that McKinsey et al are having trouble

getting enough MBAs this year, because half the output from London Business

School, INSEAD, Harvard, IMD, etc. are going into internet startups. And of

course it is more-or-less the better half - the ones the consultancies all

want.


If this is true then the next six months are going to be interesting; these

people can write, they can most certainly do real financial models and they

consume more market research that New Labour at its peak :-)  I saw five

or six business plan presentations by LBS MBA candidates a couple of months

ago, and they were all superb; they could all have got several million in

1st/2nd round funding, and these people had just done them as term projects.


I would probably start a flame-war if I said "advice to internet entrepreneur:

go do an MBA, now. The internet will still be here in a year's time; and by

that time there will be more money around, more users and you will be able

to talk with the big-money guys in their own language".  Of course that is

a massive overgeneralisation and probably underrates the commercial and

financial acumen of many young entrepreneurs....   but I'd like to hear what

VCs think about that.


Come to think of it, I've never seen a posting from a real VC on this list.

Are they in read-only on UKNM, or just not here?  Maybe that's a question

to ask a few at the next First Tuesday...


Cheers all...

Sean


=============================================================

Sean Phelan

seanmultimap [dot] com

     http://www.multimap.com

phone (within UK): 0171 433 0460      fax (UK): 0171 209 5194

phone (Int'l):  +44 171 433 0460      fax:   +44 171 209 5194


********************

UKNM is sponsored by Excite UK, visit us at http://www.excite.co.uk.

Email Khalil Ibrahimi

khalilexcitecorp [dot] com (mailto:khalilexcitecorp [dot] com)

 to advertise on Excite.

********************

Change your UKNM subscription use http://www.chinwag.com/uknm.html