I suspect highly that this is a joke by Google or else someone there is on some good crack…

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

Google is allowing you to BACK date your e-mails and send e-mails to the past (but of course only until April1, 2004 - launch date). This is such a weird April Fool’s joke, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense…

How do I use it?

Just click “Set custom time” from the Compose view. Any email you send to the past appears in the proper chronological order in your recipient’s inbox. You can opt for it to show up read or unread by selecting the appropriate option.

Here is another one…

Ahhh Google and their sense of humor - keeping it real and great culture.

All you entrepreneurs and CEOs can learn something from them!

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Part 8 of CEOs Dinner…

Just to follow up to the stat we released earlier this morning (where less than 15% of the Inc 500 fastest growing companies actually take outside funding),  here’s another stat from the same angel investor (I told you he was chalk full of stats) that will knock your socks off!

Out of 19 Million small businesses, can you believe that only 15,000 are venture backed!?

So, again, if you’re looking for outside venture…

A) Now you know how hard it is
b) You also know that MANY are doing without it (actually an eclipsing majority are)…

I guess these “dinners” and “networking” really does work - I never knew all this!

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CEOs Dinner Part 5

Just wanted to take a minute to describe the difference between an angel investor and a venture capitalist - it’s very important to know if you’re looking to raise money any time soon.

The bottom line to use is the number $500,000. If you’re looking to raise anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000, your best option is to use angel investors - most Venture Capitalists don’t want to get into any deal that small.

If you’re looking to raise $1M or more, now you’re out of the angel investor range (for the most part) and looking for venture capitalists. But, honestly, even $1M for most VCs is not interesting - typically they don’t want to talk for less than $3M to $5M. As you saw from yesterday’s post, the average investment by a VC in 2007 was $7M.

With that out of the way, what’s the DIFFERENCE other than money given?

Mostly, they are the same - they are people who are giving you money for a share of your company. However, Venture Capitalists do this for a LIVING, they are professional money sources. They also tend to take larger stakes and be much more ruthless about management - they also really meddle in your business much more (typically) than an angel investor will.

An angel investor on the other side tends to just be a very wealthy person looking for good places to put their money. Many times angel investors are investing for other reasons than just the financial aspects. They could be investing because they believe in you, are related to you, believe in your cause, etc…

Most angel investors will be much more relaxed and will also probably take LESS of your company.

The other benefit of an angel investor is that sometimes the deal can be crafted as a “debt” too - so they have “rights” to convert that debt into stock later, but for the time-being, they’re just loaning the money to you. Each angel investor has their own thought/view point on which one they prefer.

 A big thing to be careful of when you use angel investors…

Don’t give yourself a ridiculous valuation in order to sell LESS % of the company. It may seem like a great idea at the time, but when it’s time to do a venture capital raise later, your valuation may be too high for anyone to get involved!

Oh, also, positive side to angel investors is that venture capitalists like seeing some of that money in there - they feel just a BIT more confident (especially depending on WHOs money is in first).

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Part 4 from my first “CEOs Dinner…”

There was an angel investor at this dinner who seemed to be FULL of yummy stats, every now and then he would shout some out. Here was one of my favorites…

Last year, in 2007, the average Venture Capital investment into a company was $7 Million…

So, you can tell, if you’re thinking about starting an internet company and think that it’s a GOOD thing that you only need a few hundred thousand dollars…think again.

Many times, VCs (venture capitalists) don’t even want to get involved unless they can put in a few million (it’s not big enough fish for them otherwise). In a case like that, you likely want an ANGEL investor - but there are down sides there too.

I’ll talk more about the difference between an angel investor and a venture capitalist soon…

Popularity: 24% [?]

Part 2 from my first “CEOs Dinner…”

After the banker spoke, they had a local Venture Capitalist come spend 20-30 minutes giving some tips for anyone looking to raise money through VCs. He gave one tip that I’ve actually heard before as well and that makes a TON of sense.

Anyone who’s getting ready to go raise a “VC round” whether it be round A, B or even later will first develop a list of the firms you are going to prospect. By nature, you probably have a list of VCs that are your “top list” or the ones you really hope you’ll find.

Do yourself a favor - put those ones away for a bit, contrary to what your gutt may say - DON’T pitch them first.

Find the ones on your list that you are “OK” - nothing special and you wouldn’t be too heart-broken if they turned you down. Pitch THEM first.

Basically, it’s batting practice. You’ll need to refine your pitch, you’ll see what the common objections are and you’ll get much better at it.

Save the real goods for the VCs you really want. If you pitch the good ones first, you’ll screw it up (potentially). Also, it can’t hurt you to walk into the good ones with other VCs already interested - just knowing that gives you a TON of credibility.

So, think of pitching VCs in reverse order - save the best for last.

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Part 2 from my first “CEOs Dinner…”

One of the active angel investors there shared MANY stats with us, one of the stats he shared was the following:

“80% of venture capitalists invest within 100 miles of where they are…”

This does not surprise me and it can a major impact on you. If you’re sitting in Wyoming, trying to build a “web savy” business and need to raise money…you’re likely going to find investors in the Silicon Valley area.

So, start thinking - are you willing to MOVE to get the money? Venture capitalists know a certain area, they also feel they can have better hands-on control - convincing them to invest far away is an un-likely task.

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I was recently nominated to join a local, fairly exclusive, “CEOs Club” where we meet once a month for dinner and have guest speakers from all around the “business building” spectrum.

Late last week was their second meeting (the first I attended) this year, I had no idea what to expect but was pleasently surprised.

The structure is that we all get there about an hour before dinner and stand around networking. After that we grab dinner and sit down to eat. As we’re eating, the guest speakers start presenting on the topic of the day - the presentations are about 1 - 1.5 hours.

The networking was obviously one of my favorite parts of the meeting - I got a chance to hear about some amazing companies and great ideas.

The actual “training” session was OK, I’d give it a 6 on a 1-10 scale, but I did learn a few things that I will blog over the next couple of days.

Here’s something I learned - Part 1 of a series I’ll do over the next few posts…

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Getting Bank Loans - Displaying TANGIBLE Value In The Intangible…

There was a veteran banker presenting and she mentioned something that I think is important for everyone to know. She said that many times banks prefer to back companies that have a lot of “physical” assets like equipment, etc…

This is because that equipment serves as “collateral” to the loan. However, this is a big issue for “internet” and many “technology” companies who’s biggest physical assets are a few computers.

In a situation like that, it truly is hard to get a bank line of credit. A tip she gave…

1. If you’re profitable - TELL THEM THAT. She said to make it very clear if you’re cash flow positive, they like that.

2. If you own “digital” assets - For example if you have a customer list, lead list, etc… These are still valuable things that the bank could sell if need be.

So if you have an internet business, don’t despair - you CAN still get a line of credit from a bank. It’ll just be harder and you’ll have to apply to more banks to find the right “understanding” banker.

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Just a fun and useless post, between Thursday and Friday night, I ended up staying up straight a total of 44 hours without any sleep (maybe 30 minutes in a plane, but that was not really sleep).

During this time, I spoke for 90 minutes at a conference and I traveled across the country, I also wrote my entire 90 minute presentation from scratch…

I’m writing this after having had a great 8 hours of sleep, but honestly, last night had I wanted, I could have kept on going.

My record is 56 hours - I did that last September when our company launched a major product and we had a “melt down” to say the least.

I’ve heard before that when you stay up very long, you go through phases and that after a certain time you’re not actually tired any more - you get “focused” but maybe a bit slow. I think I can agree with that…

What about you? What’s the longest you’ve stayed up without any sleep?

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Sorry I missed Friday for a post but I’ll make it up the next week, I have a TON to talk about (really, I have no idea how I’m going to get it all out - I’ll try mulitple smaller/quicker posts).

The reason I missed Friday is because I was flying around all day. I had to make 1 stop to speak at a conference and then immediately leave to fly across to country to another conference that I’m just attending.

To do all this, I used Northwest Airlines and I found a perfect picture to describe I feel about this airline so far (to the left)…

Thanks to my Delta miles, I was able to get upgraded to First Class all the way around for free (if I had paid for this, I’d be even more mad). Overall, the planes were old and dirty. The seats were not leather. There was no entertainment center (even for a 5 hour flight).

When I tried to get into the “Club/Lounge” - they said it was only for International First Class passengers (what the hell is that?).

I don’t know if I’m spoiled after my experience with Qatar, but this was just not up to par.

I’ve now flown First Class in United, Delta, US Airways, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and hands down, Northwest is worse than all of them by a LARGE margin.

If you can avoid Northwest, I would.

The ONLY impressive thing about Northwest is their HUB in Detroit - I’ve never seen a terminal like that, very impressive. But, if your planes suck, what’s the use of a good hub?

Popularity: 24% [?]

I’ve said it before on this blog that the bigger your company gets and the more hiring you do, you can expect YOUR role as the CEO to move towards more “management.” Management may sound fun, but it can make any “true” entrepreneur want to ram their head into a wall.

As boring as it may seem, I am now convinced that it is a truly vital part of the business - without it, an entrepreneur will simply run the company bankrupt.

Some of the “not so fun” parts of being management include (but are not limited to) the following…

1. Financial modeling (for you, your company, the investors)

2. Financial tracking - One of the main key roles of the CEO and CFO are really “cash flow management” and making sure that the company has money and is not in any hot water. By tracking your actuals vs. your model, you have the ability to predict any cash problems months in advance.

A good CEO will catch these and solve the problem early rather than getting caught by surprise (a pure entrepreneur would probably have no idea until the lights went out).

3. Hiring - This means spending MORE time doing modeling and negotiating for key hires.

4. Management Meetings - “So…what color tissue paper should we get for the bathroom?” This is an on-going joke that the bigger companies get, the more meetings their management has over silly things - the more time they waste, etc…

Meetings are vital and important - but if you plan on using them to discuss “junk” - you’re killing your company.

5. Strategy Development - Yet again, more time with spreadsheets and “data” trying to figure out what products to launch and which direction to go in.

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What sparked this post?

One of our executive team members just recently made an observation that I was lately either spending all my time in spreadsheets and modeling or on the phone. When she said that I had one of those “AH HA” moments where I thought … “it’s begun…there’s no turning back now.”

I’ve learned more about Excel in the last 2 weeks than I ever wanted to know or planned on learning. But, at the same time, this is the first time where I truly feel like I have a good grasp on the “health” of our business. I know EXACTLY when to expect problems and even better, I know exactly when we can raise or need to lower our spending.

For the first time, I feel like I have my fingers on the pulse of the business - all hail Excel!

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