There are many great ideas out there, but few ever make it from the concept phase into an actual product, and even fewer end up as profitable business ventures. Money, while not the magical pill as was proven by countless .com companies towards the end of the nineties, can however go a long way of at least helping you get out of the starting block. But with so many ideas, and just as many failures, it is not surprising that venture capitalists are very selective about where they choose to invest their assets. Any tips that might help score that money are therefore much appreciated. Conveniently, CNNMoney just published a short article titled 5 Tips to Score Venture Capital Funding, in which venture capital representatives from Safeguard Scientific, Beringea, Cross Atlantic Capital Partners, and Kodiak Venture Partners comment on what they like to see in a startup. According to the VCs the people that are behind the business plan are more important than the plan that got them in the door in the first place, since the plan is likely to change over time and it will be up to them to make sure that it does as market conditions change. Thus, the things they look for are: passion, focus, the team that has been assembled to take on the challenge at hand, uniqueness of the approach or in other words innovations, and finally a potential product that will make enough money to make it a worthwhile investment. Generally, pretty logical things and what one would expect VCs to say, the only point that I would elaborate on is the innovation part and that statement that the product needs to be different as opposed to more and better. There has to be some innovation for sure, but what needs to be kept in mind that the innovation does not need to necessarily come on the product itself, but can be on the process for creating a similar product. The market place is littered with examples where the first company to deliver a new and unique product eventually fell by the wayside after being outdone by someone who had a better process of creating a very similar clone.

The intervals at which EETimes.com updates their emerging startup list is very inconsistent, and so it comes that just three months after publishing their 6.0 list, which we analyzed here, they’ve published an updated 6.1 version. There really is not that much new on this updated list. Two companies have left the list, namely Tarari and Clear Shape Technologies. The former has been acquired by the LSI Corporation and the latter has been acquired by Cadence Design Systems. The respective press release for the acquisitions can be found here and here. Newcomers to the 6.1 list include Kenet Inc., Perpetuum Ltd., and Phiar Corporation. Kenet Inc is a fabless semiconductor company that specializes in mixed-signal solutions for portable electronics. It was founded to commercialize the FemtoCharge technology that was developed at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. Perpetuum is a startup that focuses on vibration energy-harvesting, enabling wireless and battery-free sensors. Finally, Phiar is developing nano-scale stacks of metal and insulators that enable devices that can operate at terahertz frequencies.

History is littered with examples where better technologies or vastly superior products did not end up dominating the marketplace. An established company with deep pockets can on occasion tolerate an unsuccessful product, although the company’s stockholders might beg the differ; however, for a startup company the success of the initial product is likely to be a life or death event. Ground-breaking technology is a start, but unless it can be productized into a solution that solves actual customer problems, the likelihood of success is minimal. The job of taking this new technology and effectively converting into a product that can be sold to consumers usually falls to a seasoned marketing executive. The problem is, finding one who is able to flourish and succeed in a startup environment is quite difficult, especially since most marketing executives are used to outsized budgets that tend to be available in large corporations. Good thing then that the Caltech Industrial Relations Center together in collaboration with Chris Halliwell have recently started the Technology Marketing Center, or TMC for short. The TMC website is easy on the eyes and has several useful resources including blogs, case studies, and executive interviews which are presented in audio format.

One of the latest interviews is titled: What VCs Want in a Marketing Executive with Charles Beeler and Patty Burke. Charles Beeler and Patty Burke are both associated with El Dorado Ventures, a venture capital firm that provides early-stage funding for technology companies, and present some useful information with regard to hiring a marketing executive for a startup. Topics that are discussed during the interview include: marketing differences between established and startup companies, interview tips for hiring marketing executives, the voice of the consumer process, common marketing issues, marketing tools, and common mistakes. The Q&A session is a little bit too short in my opinion but overall the interview provides some very interesting insight. There are several upcoming interviews that might be of interest as well, including one titled: Creating Market Leadership in China with Patrick O'Doherty from Analog Devices on September 25th at 10 am Pacific Time. All interviews are archived so that they can be replayed later, run about thirty minutes, and are freely available to the public – simply put, there is no reason you should be missing out on them.