WTF? RevenueLoan changed its name to...

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how naming a company is a real pain ....but never mentioned the results of our naming efforts. Well, in this post, I'm happy to share with all of you that RevenueLoan is now LIGHTER CAPITAL.

Why Lighter Capital, you ask?

- We’re about more than RevenueLoans

- We're a lighter financial institution, as in fun and lighthearted

- And we plan on making raising capital lighter, as in easier and faster funding for small businesses

We’re about more than RevenueLoans

As we worked with small businesses over the past year, we realized there’s a lot more opportunity to disrupt the small business growth capital and lending incumbents.  We intend to be the team that causes that disruption. What’s screwed up about small business capital now? That really merits its own post, but…let's just say there's lots that's screwed up and if you're an entrepreneur with a business that is growing getting access to capital to grow your business is way too hard and the process success.  Getting money takes too much time, hassle, and work and the investors ask for too much (equity, control, interest rates, etc.) Lighter Capital changes all that -- and we do so with a deep understanding of what it takes to be an entrepreneur.


Lighter, as in fun and lighthearted

We aren’t your father’s local 3-6-3 bankers.  We don’t wear suits. Our offices don’t smell of rich mahogany. We know building a business takes hard work - getting funding shouldn’t make your life harder. So we wanted our name to represent our focus on keeping business upbeat and lighter. And even it we don't fund your business, we want to do so with respect and a smile and leave you feeling like you haven't wasted your time or had to dress up to be someone your not. We like quirkiness and appreciate weirdness and generally want to have fun building this company as you should have fun building yours.


Lighter, as in lightweight funding

I’ve been in both the entreprenuer’s shoes and the financier’s shoes for long enough to have seen where taking outside funding can get painful. Under the right circumstances, taking bank debt or VC funding can make sense, but we’ve seen a lot of companies where those sources of capital start to weigh-down a company instead of lifting it up. RevenueLoans give companies more flexibility without demanding your first-born-child. And we’re working to make it faster and simpler to get our money, so entrepreneurs can focus on what they do best – building exciting new businesses.

Expect to see some of these changes in our company and loan process in the coming months. I’m psyched out of my mind about some of the work our team is doing, and this name change is an exciting step in the direction we’re taking.

In the interest of being open and light – check out this video of our team debating the name change:

Small business lending is in trouble

Emily Maltby wrote a great piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning (http://on.wsj.com/iO6xb2) showing how crappy Small Business lending is today. There are some really powerful stats that show just how hard it is for small businesses to get money and how the big banks aren’t doing anything to help the problem:

 

- Total small business loans outstanding are now $609B, down 8.6% (Mar. 2011 v. Mar. 2010) Read: “Small businesses aren’t getting new loans after old loans are paid down”

- Big banks' outstanding loans to small businesses fell by 14% between March 2010 and March 2011. Read: “Big banks not lending to small businesses is the main cause of the problem”

- Business owners rank access to capital as the most important issue facing privately held companies. Read: “Small businesses NEED money”

- In the past six months, only 17% of loan-seeking businesses with less than $5 million in annual revenue landed bank financing. Read: “The fall in small business lending is due to banks not lending, there are plenty of companies out there looking for money that aren’t getting it”

 

Whenever I read stats like this it gets me fired up about the work RevenueLoan is doing to solve this problem. Stay tuned.

 

(Thanks for sending me the article, Rob)

Giant Thinkwell war room was all shock and awe. Nice job on the launch

I got a glimpse of the launch of Giant Thinkwell today and was totally impressed. There were about 20 some odd people hanging out in various forms of military garb, low grade house music wafting in the air, lots of computers and screens, and Sir Mix-a-Lot orchestrating the whole thing -- what were all these people doing in our conference room. Well, drinking energy drinks, eating salami and Dick's Burgers and creating an online buzz the likes of which I haven't seen. This small team was able to get over 20K likes in a period of hours which in my calculation means they went from zero to a million page views in no times flat. There were multiple aritcles written in blogs and press....all in all a job well done by a creative, ambitious and hard working team. Love the energy guys! Nice job 

How not to name your company

A couple days ago I talked about why it’s so hard to name your company, it's harder to name an existing company than I had thought. Coming up with a new name for RevenueLoan lead me down some funny paths. Throughout the process the team and I got frustrated enough that we tried some random strategies to keep the process fun and lighthearted. Some weird things we tried:

1) Roll the dice

2) Riff on James Bond movies

3) Name after your intern

Roll the dice

At one point, we had reduced the list of possible company names down to 3 names, all of which we decided were "good enough". After spending too many hours sitting around and debating the pros and cons of each name, I wrote the names on 3 slips of paper, crumpled them up, and threw them on the ground. The plan was to name the company with the name on the first piece of paper I picked up. I picked the first one up, read it aloud, and as I did....I changed the rules of the roll the dice game. I knew instantly that the first name was not the name I wanted and said "no, that's not it". And then there were two crumbled up pieces of paper and I declared that we were now in a roll the dice process of elimination game for the name.  I picked the second piece of crumbled paper and the second company name didn't feel that good either.  And low and behold, the third name felt pretty good. So I went with it. We announced to the team that we were [name on crumpled paper #3] (to be announced).

An hour later, I was driving home, and I decided I didn't like the name. So I sent an email to everyone saying I was having brand remorse and we needed to go back to the drawing board. Ugg. I was totally indecisive and was dragging everyone through a terrible process. I felt crappy.

Takeaway: Using the roll the dice strategy actually can work.  I just wouldn't commit to which ever one you pick first or last (too much chance)....rather, I'd suggest picking them with an idea that the last one you pick is the right name and then watch your emotional reaction to the names that you pick first or second. If you feel instant regret that the 3rd name is the name that chance picked for you then you probably have the wrong name. In other words, let your immediate reaction to the names shed light on which company name you choose. And whatever name you decide on using this process, sit on the name for at least a day before you just go without it. And it's OK to try again.

Riff on James Bond movies

Yes, this was something we tried. Basically, we plugged "Fund" into a bunch of James Bond movie titles. We came up with the following names

The Fund who Loved Me.

The Spy who Funded me.

Dr. Fund.

You Only Fund Twice.

Live and Let Fund.

You see where this went. Right into the toilet.

Takeaway: In a funny way, we had fun doing this and the names provided some comic relief. We actually liked a couple of the names - Funderball and The Man with the Golden Fund, but ultimately it was too bizarre for us to use as our actual company name.

Name after your intern

Kenton is an awesome developer working for us this summer before he goes to graduate school. In lieu of having an actual name, we began to refer to ourselves as Kenton, or The Kenton Group, or Kenton Financial. There were 2 problems with naming it Kenton - the first problem is that the story wouldn't exactly work. With Judy's Book , the name made sense - it was my mother in law's name and the site was inspired by her book of trusted local services. The second problem is that it sure can get confusing having an employee and a company with the same name - we imagined not knowing who or what we were talking about!

These tactics didn't exactly work for what we’re calling "the company formerly known as RevenueLoan" but they did help us keep our minds open and keep the process fun, or at least less sucky!

Why naming your company sucks

I've known for about 6 months that RevenueLoan was not a good company name. I determined that it is a product and not a company and so I started a process of creating a new company name about 2 months ago.  I thought that naming was important but didn't want to waste a lot of time, money and resources on getting a good name. In the past, I've seen companies get totally derailed by company naming and be totally unproductive while in the process of naming. I was determined not to let that happen here.  At the time, I thought it would take 2 weeks. I was wrong. It turns out naming your company is harder and sucks worse than I thought. I thought I knew how to name a company!

Well, I stand before you today a humbled man.  I’m going to share a bit about the process we went through and some tips for naming your company more efficiently than I just did. This blog has 4 parts and should help shed light on why naming your company sucks:

  1. It's your baby
  2. Domain squatters hate you
  3. All the good names are taken
  4. The team needs to be on board

It's your baby

Your company becomes a huge part of who you are. "Hi, I'm Johnny from Crummy Co." becomes the new way people know you. So the naming decision is hugely important - way more important than making sure you don't have mustard stains on your shirt or your fly isn’t down. Those things last at most a day. Your company name stays with you for a long time.

We had a lot of things that we wanted to convey with our name, so coming up with a name that fit all of those at once was more than a pain.  In fact, we had too many objectives and too many people to satisfy with our new name.  Naming a company with 6 people is like naming a child with input from both sets of grandparents -- it's a nightmare.

Domain squatters hate you

I was shocked how hard it was to find a domain. We couldn't find anything. It's amazing how domain squatters seem to think of every possible word ever. It also becomes an addicting game - is this one available? Nope. How about that one? Nope. I got totally sucked into the domain name availability game. You can try adjusting the spelling or add a word to the domain, but the further away you get from an actual word, the harder it becomes for people to find you.

All the good names are taken

About 3 weeks into the process, we had a name. It was good. We hi-fived each other and drank whiskey. As a final step, I emailed our attorney to file a trademark for the name. Bad news - the name was taken. To quote one guy on our team "Pretty sure none of us are excited about going back to the drawing board…" There's no trademark on children's names i.e. there can be lots of Andy Sacks in the world ....but in any given industry, you only get one company name, and trademarks are specifically designed to reduce confusion in any one market.

NOTE: While this was painful, I STRONGLY recommend doing trademark searches before you go too far down the road as a company with the risk that you don't own the trademark.  i.e. it's much costlier in the future to change a company name than now!

The team needs to be on board

If you've already hired a few employees, you need to be sure the team buys into the new company name. This isn't the worst thing in the world, but it adds another level of complexity to the naming process. Too many cooks in the kitchen, kind of thing. If you hired an employee with the name "Earth Friendlies" and suddenly change your name to "Cow Eaters" you risk putting your employees in a position where they aren't with you on your mission. Nobody on our team got too upset about any of the names we came up with, it just makes it drag on longer.

Ultimately, I'm happy to be done with the process. Look for another post about some of the ways we went about choosing a name and what we've finally decided on.

It's 1:04AM and I'm reviewing techstars applications

There's a team of 5 of us here. It's early AM. Meeting with a group of the selection committee tomorrow. Trying to narrow the applications.  It's exciting!

Feeling overwhelmed by the quality level of the applications. Aviel just said, "pass the whiskey. I just want to get out of here before Dick's burgers close.". I guess we're getting a bit punchy!

I'm worried about what we're going to say to the really good teams that don't get selected!  

TechStars Seattle is Hiring HackStars!

You’re a brilliant developer, a great designer, a UX star, you can execute like mad, sling top-quality code with the best of them, or turn pixels intro perfection, and you’ve always wanted to go through TechStars… but you just don’t have a team or idea.  Dilemma!  Until now…

The TechStars companies always need more technical skill to help them do more faster during the program. Hackstars are highly-skilled software developers and designers that would love to work with the companies and go through the TechStars program.  Plus, you get paid $6K for the program (just like the founders) and might even land a job with one of the startups. What a great way to hack into TechStars!

Do you meet this profile?

  • You're a a code-slinging mac-daddy superstar guru at PHP, Java, .NET, Python, Objective-C, Ruby, JQuery, or design/UI/UX.
  • You can design, cut and code efficiently and brilliantly
  • You want to have a TechStars experience so you can learn all about startups and funding from our mentors.
  • You want to work side-by-side with some of the country's most promising new founders and young companies.
  • You live in Seattle, or are willing to relocate for the program and are willing to dedicate 100% of your time during the program to TechStars. 

HackStars is your chance to get an amazing experience, broaden your network in ways you could never imagine, and get exposure to some of the greatest up and coming companies and teams in the country.  Interested? Email kayla@techstars.org to apply.

Are you too old or too late stage for TechStars? The most common TechStars misperception debunked

 

I know a number of you are far along in your businesses already -- and you may think you or your company are too "old" or "mature" for TechStars.  You may already have a couple startups under your belt already and think you know what you're doing so you don't need TechStars.
Au contraire. I don't think this is true at all.
In fact, I want you all to know that I think you should consider applying for TechStars -- I think the program is awesome ....and an awesome value for companies that are past the initial step of building a company. In my opinion, it's the multiple time CEOs that are some of the people that can see the benefit and get the most out of the TechStars program. 
TechStars is an accelerator and I've seen instances where the acceleration part of TechStars actually helps existing companies as much if not more than raw startups.  In NYC TechStars, for instance, there were companies that already had 1MM in funding and already had greater than 1MM in revenue. These "mature" companies really rocked coming out of the program. If you want to read about one such company you can read about the company RedRover here and here. The articles give a good articulation of the value that a little later stage company can get from TechStars....and the CEO thought process for putting his company into TechStars.  
The trade off of equity to dilution and the benefits you get from being in TechStars are a huge win for almost any company that gets in. I think TechStars can really help you narrow your focus, open doors, get people to care about your startup, get funding, get publicity and accelerate in a 3 month period. I'd put my own company in the program without hesitation. If you want to discuss whether it's a fit for you -- let me know. Email me.
I should mention that there are over 600 applications this year so this plug is not because we're in need of more applications and it will be more competitive than ever to get in -- I just want those companies and CEOs to make an informed decision about who can really benefit from TechStars. 

 

Things I love about Founder's Co-op and Our Makeshift Receptionist

I love housing 22 startups under one roof. 

I love witnessing (and participating in) the birth of new ideas. 

I love having 80 people to vote on my new company name. 

I love that we share snacks. I love that we share best business practices. 

I love that people are willing to clean out the fridge every once in a while. 

I love that we celebrate victories and get each other through hard times. 

I love that our kickball team is on a 3 game winning streak.

I love that there are career opportunities sometimes 30 feet away.

I even love the nerf gun wars that my desk is perfectly in the middle of.

But here's full disclosure...fostering an environment of activity, brainstorming, and collaboration comes with a price: It can get noisy. There is a delicate balance (we haven't mastered it yet) of letting all this magic happen while also maintaining a noise level that others can work through (head phones recommended).

One interesting phenomenon is that some of the best seats in the house (near the windows, plenty of natural light, good access to the bathroom and kitchen) are avoided like the plague because they're too near the front entrance. Nobody wants to be mistaken for the receptionist. (Which we don't have.)  With 22 companies, 5 conference rooms, and a speakeasy throughout our 2 floors, guests need to be pointed in the right direction. The problem is that on busy days that could easily mean 15+ interruptions...not ideal for productivity.

Here's our office's solution to not having a receptionist.

Photo (11)

Top of mind is how can we help people find who they're looking for without constantly asking these guys...(note how the bike gets the sunniest, brightest view in the office)

Photo (9)

Change happening at RevenueLoan

The first 9 months of RevenueLoan has been great. We've made a good number of investments into some great companies and more importantly, learned a lot. Today, I'm thinking about putting into writing our corporate values. This is a first draft. I have not run these by my team yet and plan to do so before putting them into cement. I thougth I'd share my first draft with you at the same time as them:

  • Fun - We believe that if you have fun together at our company, we'll create a better outcome and have a better time doing it.  
  • Swift - Swift is both fast and flexible. We strive to be both. We think speed is a competitive advantage. 
  • Listening - We value feedback A LOT. We strive to listen to our customers, employees, and investors as the key indicators as to how we are doing. 
  • Innovative - We are creating something special and new. We plan on winning through innovating. We don't take the way the world as the way the world ought to be. 

What do you think? Any feedback? I'm listening and likely to adapt swiftly ;-) 

How Founder's co-op is helping Seattle?

 

This may be a repeat for some of you, and is a bit self promotional....but Mark Suster (General Partner at GRP in Los Angeles) wrote a thoughtful piece in TechCrunch yesterday about the startup scene here in Seattle, including a very generous mention of what we're up to here at Founders Co-op. 
Last night I was fortunate enought to be voted Best Angel / VC Investor at the Seattle 2.0 Awards. I am truly honored -- and feeling undeserving. I will work harder to actually earn this award. There are lots of more experienced and better vc's than I in Seattle -- They may not be as good at promotion but when it comes to making great bets on great companies I still have a lot to prove.  I'll get there though. Thanks for the acknowledgement. 

 

Another Great Night at Seattle Open Angel Forum

Last Wednesday in the Easy, we hosted the 2nd ever Seattle Open Angel Forum.  Myself, my partner Chris DeVore and about 20 other active Seattle-area angels heard pitches from 5 startups.  OAF's format looks like this: Each team only has 5 minutes to present - basically just enough time to demo their product. Then we open the floor for Q&A and feedback. The feedback element is particularly valuable and pretty unique.  I like it because it's rare that entrepreneurs get constructive criticism from their audience of angels. Investors can help entrepreneurs in more ways than just the obvious (writing checks), e.g. making introductions and giving feedback. OAF was successful and valuable to both entrepreneurs and angels alike. I'll definitely be hosting OAF again. If you're an angel or an entrepreneur, mark November 2nd on your calendars.

We heard from these 5 startups. They did a great job.

1) Appitude - social book-reading platform aimed at increasing publisher's sales and making book reading more social.

2) Deal Springer - Twitter for Deals, enabling anyone to promote deals instantly.

3) GreenLine Legal - could-based software to summarize, compare, and analyze legal agreement

4) iSheet Music - sheet music store for iPhone/iPad.

5) Venpop - providing technology to retailers to merchandise products in social networks.

 

Returning from Jamaica ....no problem man

I've been out for about 2 weeks. I went to NYC for TechStars demoday and was blown away and inspired by the good works of my colleagues David Tisch and David Cohen. The event was super! Then I went on a week long cruise in the Carribean. I was fortunate to go with my entire immediate family. All 18 of us. We visited Haiti, Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Mexico. Hilights were no communications at all and watching the cousins play together and lowlight was slipping on the wet deck and falling on my back. 

Happy to be back. Re-engaging in all my digital life. Still have Jamaican language ringing in my head. 

Seattle Welcomes Back Open Angel Forum!

Last November I hosted Seattle's first-ever Open Angel Forum in Seattle.  The event was great for invigorating the Seattle startup ecosystem, as evidence by the... 

  • Deals - it connected highly active angels to quality investment opportunities
  • Community - Bringing Seattle's angel investors together for a night of drinks and networking
  • Breakout poker game initiated by the one and only Mr. Jason Calacanis 

And all of this was accomplished at NO cost to the entrepreneur.  With such a great inaugural event, I am excited to announce that OAF is returning to Seattle April 27th at 7pm.  We'll have food and drinks while hearing 5 minute pitches from 6 start up companies.  Register online and take part in the fun: Angels, Presenters, Service Providers

 

Startups & Whiskey...

It's no secret that we occasionally drink Makers Mark at our office -- we even have a monthly meeting of entrepreneurs called the "whiskey meeting". I've often thought that we are a walking advertisement for Maker's Mark and that I give them way too much word of mouth publicity for free. At the Whiskey meetings, the TechStars teams and I even joked that we should make a user generated commercial in the hopes of getting some sponsorship from Maker's Mark. Well that dream might become reality! Kayla Roark, my partner in crime at TechStars, just got a call from the diplomat for Maker's Mark in Seattle. She reached out to them proposing some fun ideas for collaboration and marketing -- and they're open to talking. I can already see the speak "easy" downstairs stocked with quality bourbons and whiskeys for all the tech entrepreneurs in Seattle. Alright maybe I'm getting ahead of myself....but you never know... Startups + whiskey...this could lead to some interesting things....stay tuned!