"Some of you are so smart you can take an instant failure and turn it into a 4- year failure." If only to hear Bill Warner say that in person, the UnConference was well worth attending. I can't wait to talk more about my experience at the event, but if you take nothing else ouf of this post just remember this: you HAVE to go to the next one, especially if you're an entrepreneur or an angel investor. Now, on to why... First of all, I've never heard the term UnConference before, nor have I ever paid more than $50 (yet alone $195) to attend any conference. I've heard from several people that last year's event was "good" but I was still a little skeptical until I saw a bunch of tweets urging entrepreneurs to apply for sponsorship "sponsorship" at the event. I checked it out, and the deal was promising - a sponsoring organization would underwrite my admission to $95 and I would get one-one meetings with experts from a list that includes industry captains, managing directors of major VC firms and nationally famous entrepreneurs. I have no idea what the odds were, but I applied and sometime later I learned I was accepted. So, last Thursday I got out of bed at 6:55 and headed out to the Nordblom conference center Burlington. I'm not really the early morning person...yawn...but I found that being among the first attendees has a huge advantage. The whole idea behind an UN-conference is that no agenda is prepared beforehand. At the start of the event, the organizers post a gigantic schedule on a whiteboard and people who want to host "sessions" during the conference can fill in the blanks in that schedule. Being a "sponsored entrepreneur" also gives you access to three face-to-face meetings with volunteer experts of your choice. These experts post their names on the schedule along with all the other sessions and it is the responsibility of the entrepreneurs to put stickers next to the names of the experts they wish to meet - first come first served.  Being first helps. I met with several outstanding experts all of whom helped shape the Boston startup culture for the past decade. They also helped me shape my product,go-to-market,and fundraising strategies. The atmosphere was so collegiate and down-to-earth among all attendees that I was able to sit down and talk not only with the three experts I was initially allotted, but with others I met in the middle of the day.  For a seed-stage company like mine, advice is arguably more precious than gold, and by that standard the UnConference was perhaps the most value-add large event I've ever been to. I had all my one-on-ones lined up in the first half of the day, which took me to the delicious catered lunch (think chicken with olives and apple-ginger-cinnamon cider), after which I set out to visit some of the general sessions. I caught bits and pieces of some really interesting sessions on angel capital and building advisory boards, and saw two sessions in full: "raising seed financing" by Brad Feld, and "how to launch your idea on no money" by Bill Warner. Brad Feld, in his session, coached people on what to expect when attempting to raise capital for the first time. Since most VC's generally expect cash flow before even talking to a first-timer, the session focused on angel investors. The takeaways were as follows: -Do or do not. There is no try. (Yes, Yoda said it first). But in the context of fundraising, this is very applicable. First, be honest with yourself - raising capital is not easy and there is a a significant chance you will not succeed. But after you've calmly made peace with odds and did not quit, there is no looking back. If you decide that you company needs money, do not go out there with the intention of "trying" to raise some. Approach one investor after the other with the firm intention of being successful. -If an investor turns you down, do not ask them to refer you to their friend - you would be doing yourself a disservice. Why would anyone take a deal that their friend passed on? They would feel like they are presented with leftovers. Everyone has their own unique screening approach to deals and your best bet is to be your own advocate in front of every individual investor. On the other hand, and this comes from another session, if you are pitching a group, make sure there are people in it (prefereably more than one) who already know you and your pitch. This will make the atmosphere in the room much more comfortable for everyone - you will be asked a lot of tough questions and it's helpful if you are not the only person present who knows the answers. -Ask for an amount, not a range. We're trying to raise $100k to $300k sounds meaningless - which one is it? Investors expect you to be efficient with their money, so showing you don't really know how to spend it right off the bat is a bad idea. If you requirements are flexible, present them in milestones - "we need $100k to launch in Boston and another $200k to launch nationally." -Ask investors for positive AND negative references. An investor with a good track record will be completely comfortable connecting you with the founders of his unsuccessful companies because (s)he hopefully learned from those failures and is comfortable with risk. -A point of some contention was whether to lean on some angel investors to act as "leads" to attract other angels into a deal. The consensus seems to be that while a good idea in theory, most angels do not want additional hassles beyond investing in a company they like. They can provide strategic advice and connections from their network, but raising additional capital is the entrepreneurs' responsibility. The other session I went to was probably mentioned in every other blog post about the UnConference, Bill Warner's "how to launch an idea on no money." I came into this session thinking it would be another tutorial on bootstrapping. Instead, I learned a valuable lesson on the very nature of entrepreneruship. Bill, who is gathering material for his new book, was trying to convey a simple message: innovative products, or "inventions" can only be successful if they are a result of a desire to help other people: "intentions." What's too often blocking the "flow" of intention to invention, he argues, is our focus on gadgets, buzzwords and markets before we know what they are for. Not that buzzwords or markets are unimportant. They are, to a company. And a company needs money to build itself up. But none of these terms, especially money, influence the creation of an idea behind it all. What influences ideas are intentions. "I intend to help people live healthier. I intend to make the world cleaner. I intend to make cars more affordable." Short statements that begin with "I intend to..." and that are free of buzzwords and technical lingo are the most fundamental ways to state a problem. Where there is a problem, there is a solution, where there is a solution, there is opportunity. Going into the rest of details of the UnConference would probably take many more pages, but I can't say enough what a helpful, insightful event this has been. Next time you get a chance, don't miss it.

October's shaping up to be a great networking month for innovation in Boston. It all started with WebInno23 yesterday - Boston's most popular (and free) consumer web gathering. The place was jam-packed as usual and was quite a fun place to be. Several cool startups presented - my favorite was BetterLesson, a collaborative workspace for students and teachers with great social integration as well as a robust core feature set. The highlight of the event was a panel by four rock star reporters ( Bob Brown, Peter Kafka, Scott Kirsner and Wade Roush) on start-up pr bootstrapping. Some of their messages were fairly intuitive - approach reporters openly, preferably through an intro, have big news to share, let them do the asking and don't try to impose an angle.The other point they made though, opened a real can of worms: never hire a PR professional. This one was contentious in the audience right off the bat, with quite a few big-name PR people tweeting and blogging on the subject almost immediately. The panelists' argument: don't hire someone for $8000 a month to get introduced to us if you can just come over and say 'hi.' The counterpoint: PR is about public relations, not just media relations. It's about building a community around your product and gathering media attention in ways some reporters don't event know about. Here are some posts on the topic: (Bobbie Carlton,  Chuck Tanowitz) I was planning a longer post, but the UnConference is tomorrow,and being a "sponsred entrepreneur" (I'll find out what that means tomorrow),I better get a good night's sleep! Look for a write-up on the UnConference and more info on October networking in the coming days!