We can’t resist the opportunity to give another shout out to the twelve companies who presented at our third First Look Forum event yesterday, and the whole community of folks who made it possible! Both John Cook of TechFlash and Greg Huang of xconomy did some incredibly thorough write-ups of the afternoon showcase, so we’ll just chime in with some context around the program itself.

What is this event anyway? The forum itself is the end of a two-month application, screening and coaching program, but we hope just the beginning of a new path for these diverse companies!

A gloves-off debate at our March 12 Breakfast Buzz on “Funding: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” inspired me to dust off my old Seattle 2.0 post on the topic, and the first-date interview questions below are as timeless as such classics as “So do you have any siblings?” or “How long have you lived in Seattle?”

Friday morning, our moderator, the ever-provocative yet still charming Dan Shapiro, asked panelists Charles Seybold and Robbie Cape about what to seek out/avoid in investors. Most of the discussion centered on angels, but our fearless moderator had a couple comments on approaching VC’s. I’ll paraphrase below:

1. Size matters. Don’t be shy, go ahead and ask about fund size. And if you’re feeling bold, ask how much of the fund remains to be deployed. This should signal a bit about whether the size of your round fits their fund profile.

2. Timing is everything. You’re on a roll now, so ask about how far along they are in their fund (8 years in on a 10-year fund? They’ll have an expeditious exit on their mind, which may be better-suited for later-stage deals or quick flips). And on the subject of timing, ask about their preferred investment stage…seed? early? growth-phase companies?

Now to reprise the David Letterman-style Top 10 list. Knowing that your powerpoint presentation is like a first date with angels, usually the goal is to get a second date. But there are lots of fish in the sea, and I’ve found it a good idea to phone-screen potential suitors before that first date. Ask more than “is your money green?” Try the below:

10. What are your fees to entrepreneurs? Your time is money, but money is money too…make sure the fee structure is transparent. The range of fees is significant, from under $200 up to $6000.
9. No, seriously, what are your fees? This is the part where you ask about application fees, presentation fees, cut of proceeds, or any additional obligations or hidden fees throughout the process.
8. How long does it take to close the deal? From submitting an application through due diligence, getting funding from an angel group may take longer than you expect (or like). Turn-around times range greatly from group to group, and expectations should be set for how much time will be required, and over what period of time.
7. How much money did your forum invest last year? Not how much investment did your network facilitate, not “how much did your members invest in start-ups in general”, but “what was the dollar figure of investment made only by your members in deals that you screened?

You already know the elevator pitch is critical to your business, not just for pitching but to crystallize the goals of the company in your own mind.

You might also have developed a one-line positioning statement — a single sentence that defines the company in a simple, clear, sentence.

A business plan, an elevator pitch, a pitch deck — the number of different things you have to have to successfully pitch your company is amazing. Now add in the one pager. Whether you call it that or an executive summary or a company overview, it’s an essential part of the whole story. Like the one-page resume, you want a single, concise one-page document that you can hand to potential investors and business partners. There are lots of advantages to having it be a single page, but I’m only going to mention the most important one — investors expect it.

To create my one pager, I started with my five-page business plan. I went through and highlighted all the most important stuff, then consolidated that in a new document which ended up about two pages long. Then I started looking for things to trim. I was pretty close to finished when I decided that I should make sure what I was doing was consistent with what I needed to submit to another competition, the Willamette Angel Conference (although I’ll be at a disadvantage because Groupthink isn’t an Oregon company, I figure the extra connections will be worth it). It was at that point that I realized I’d made a mistake. The Willamette Angel Conference uses Angelsoft, and the whole way it works is different — your one pager gets created by filling in a form on the site. Here are the items you’re asked for:

• One line pitch
• Summarize your business
• What specifically makes your management team most qualified to build this business?
• Define customer problem
• Describe the solution you sell
• Define your market
• List your current or potential customers
• Sales and marketing strategy
• Describe your business model
• Describe the competitive landscape and list your competitors
• Define your competitive advantage and list barriers to entry

Each of these items also has a longer explanation you see as you’re filling out the form. For example, the explanation for “Define customer problem” reads: Investors fund pain killers, not vitamin pills. What critical customer need does your company address? If you are a web company, you may need to make a hard decision here on whether to talk about your audience or the people who will ultimately pay you (like your advertisers). You only get 210 characters to answer that one. When you’re done, Angelsoft turns your information into a one page summary that looks like this sample:

At first, I was thrown for a loop, but then I realized that this was a much better way to do it. After all, investors looking at your one pager have a bunch of questions in their head that the’ll use to decide if they want to read anymore. If you don’t answer those questions, it’s over. So the number one task really should be to make sure you answer those questions!

In the process of answering the questions, I managed to get in every one of my key points and pretty much nothing extraneous, but the document wasn’t exactly what I wanted to best represent the company. For Angelsoft applications, I have to take what I get, but that’s not true for NWEN or other investors. So, after I finished up the Angelsoft process, I took all the information and created a new document that I could edit. Then I made a few changes:

• Combined the one line pitch, business summary, and customer problem into a new opening section which read better than the three individual sections.
• Combined target market and customers sections.
• Combined competitors and competitive advantage sections.
• Added a little bit of additional detail in a few places where I’d been constrained by Angelsoft’s character limits.
• Added a (small) illustration to help explain the product.

In each of the cases, I made the change to improve readability or punch. But, overall, it’s a lot like the one pager from Angelsoft.

I’ve gotten a lot of advice on my slide deck for the NWEN First