If the sky is falling today it likely isn't falling one or two years out, paradoxically these are good times.

As a startup you should be investing for that future and working to line your ducks up instead of cutting valuable people and cutting back on outside services such as PR and social media relations.

The savviest Silicon Valley companies know that you double up your investments in down times because business cycles are cycles: you want to be ready when the upturn comes.

We tend to agree.  Even outside of Silicon Valley, companies know these things.  That's why we're seeing active entrepreneurial from Albuquerque through Denver to Boise.  

Join Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, former Shell International Sustainability Lead Anita M. Burke and a panel of your peers in a Town Hall titled Disrupting the Recession, along side presentations from 40 best growth entrepreneurial companies, as judged by angel investors, incubators and other thought leaders.  Angel Capital Summit -- November 21, 2008.

The agency says even with investment, the annual rate of output decline is 6.4 per cent.

The decline will not necessarily be felt in the next few years because demand is slowing down, but with the expected slowdown in investment the eventual effect will be magnified, oil executives say.

...

The battle to replace mature oilfields’ output could even offset the decline in demand growth, which has given the industry – already struggling to find enough supply to meet needs, especially from China – a reprieve in the past few months.

The number of companies that Silicon Valley Venture Capital firms funded dropped 13.5% over the same period of a year ago. The total dollars invested dropped to $7.37B from $7.94B in Q307.  Looking at the previous four quarters the drop in funding is not that steep down 4.3% to 2616 companies funded over the last four quarters.

The Wall Street Journal recently published a similar article detailing how existing VC backed funds have begun to reduce their bun rate in order to maximize their “runway”.

Colorado however bucked trend during the last quarter. Venture backed funding totals $274M up 55% from a Q307, primarily due to a $104M investment in Ava Solar, a manufacturer of solar panels.  This is a good sign for both the local economy as well as Colorado’s growing clean tech industry.  Several new funds are being raised locally – despite the recent economic meltdown.  I’ll report on those in a future blog in about one month.

It has been an exciting few weeks, with many high-end networking events around sustainability, investing and clean tech.  While the global financial crisis remains in full swing, many investors, entrepreneurs and thought leaders are looking to the future and charting the course for the next phase in Colorado's economy.

Trustworthy sources are telling us about multiple 8- and 9-figure funds being raised for clean tech and sustainability investing, as well as rumors of keen interest in that space from private equity.  The rumor of Kleiner Perkins posting a one-man team at NREL to help spin out investable clean tech companies is confirmed as well -- we met him this week. 

Leading Boulder Web2.0 companies are even hosting a job fair to bring more technical talent into town, although there are also rumors of layoffs at weaker firms.  It's going to be a mixed bag in that space, and the wheat will quickly be separated from the chaff.

If you want to escape the doom and gloom for a day, and join a more prosperous and optimistic future, look no further than the Angel Capital Summit, November 21, in Denver. Highlights include:

• Anita Burke's presentation on how to run a business in a world of Peak Everything (including capital, it seems).
• 40 of Colorado's strongest entrepreneurial growth-oriented businesses presenting investment opportunities.
• A TOWN HALL discussion called Disrupting the Recession, where a diverse group of thought leaders will talk directly with conference attendees about how we can all come together to build an Entrepreneurial Renaissance in Colorado.
• Surprise visit from one of Colorado's favorite political leaders.

This TOWN HALL has been built with the Colorado community in mind, and it's evolving, so your input will help make it better.

Please join us on November 21st in downtown Denver for this unique moment in history.

(Psst!  Hey Buddy!  Got an idea?  Need one?) 

FYI:  The Colorado Inventor Showcase happens on Nov. 10, 2008

DATE:  Monday, November 10, 2007
TIMES:  3:30 pm - 8:00 pm

LOCATION:  The Cable Center, 2000 Buchtel Boulevard, Denver, C0 80210

This event is produced by the DaVinci Institute - along with
some of the finest inventors in the world! 

Once again, the CO Inventor Showcase and the Davinci Institute, which is producing the event, are Association Partners with the Angel Capital Summit.  Gotta love the synergy!  

If you're a very early stage investor - one of those folks who likes to catch the inventor as their idea is just coming off the cocktail napkin - this is the place to be.   We'll have some of these types of entrepreneurs at the ACS, too, but their investment opportunities will be structured, detailed and standardized, as the ACS application process requires it.  (More on the ACS application process here.)

This year's event will mark the 4th annual Colorado Inventor Showcase. Each year the Showcase attracts some of the nation's finest inventors and their incredibly clever inventions. Inventions are judged by a cast of over 50 celebrity judges, and will be on display throughout the afternoon and evening for all attendees.

I'll be there.  Why don't you come, too?  Here's the registration info.

Note, however, that it's only Jay Walker, the Founder of Priceline.com speaking at the event, and not William Shatner.  Noting that Forbes has Jay tagged as one of the 400 richest people in the U.S., I guess this is an OK trade. 

Oct. 15th - The 3rd Annual Investment & Finance Cross-Networking Event

I hope to see you there!! 

Here's the link to register.

Sponsored by:
Association for Corporate Growth (ACG Denver)
CTEK (Capital, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Knowledge)
Financial Executives International (FEI)
Turnaround Management Association (TMA)

The best networking event you will ever attend!

Hosted by Howard H. Potter

This event is an exceptional opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences, cross-network with executive peers and to widen your network within associations that focus on growth strategies.

DATE:
Wednesday, October 15th
(moved from original date of October 9th)

TIME:
6:00pm - 8:00pm

LOCATION:
The University of Denver Daniels College of Business
School of Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism Management
2044 E. Evans, Denver, CO

PRICE:
$50 in advance, $60 at the door

Questions?:
Howard Potter
hhp@hhpdenver.com
720-308-8246

It is said that in China, the word for crisis is weiji, and that it contains the characters for both danger (wei) and opportunity (ji). The etymology of weiji in this context simply means "moment".  So weiji = danger in the moment.  

Although it's easy to become cynical about how we sometimes over-concern ourselves with the Chinese, the larger point is that if we let them, our fears will constrain us from doing what we know we can and should do.  

As to what we should do right now, get mad.  Let's process this mess, and in the process, get mad as hell.  We need to shout out at the top of our lungs that we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore! 

That's Step 1.  Anger.  Now's not the time to get zen.  Get angry.

"Now for wrath, now for ruin and the red dawn..."

There are fires to put out.  (And yes, maybe some to start, too...)  Zen can come later when you've time to fiddle with your morning glories and play with your dogs.  Right now there's work to do.

Step 2 is about getting busy.  We need to get busy for a number of reasons, top of which is that there's work to do and we're maybe the only people that can do it.  We're needed.  Right now.  By everyone. 

Paul Hawken says in his book, Natural Capitalism, that business is the only institution large enough to solve the world's problems. Noting that entrepreneurs are the foremost problem solvers in the business community, early-stage companies in sectors critical to our future is the smartest, and ultimately best place to put money in this tricky investing cycle. Entrepreneurs can get more done faster than any other subset community within the larger business community or any other community out there, so let's pool some community capital, and set this critical asset to work. 

I know, I know...

We didn't break the economy.  Even still, it's now our job to fix it.  And while we're doing it, let's all make a few bucks along the way.  Now is the time -- ahead of the herd -- to find the opportunity (ji) in this crisis.

Please join us, and carpe ji at the Town Hall Meeting at the Angel Capital Summit on Nov. 21. 

“If you want to be informed, go to other conferences. If you want to be challenged, go to Defrag!”

Robin, Headmix

“Usually, after a conference I feel compelled to come home and code. After Defrag, I felt compelled to come home and think.”

Steve, ViaWest

On Nov. 3rd & 4th Denver will once again have the priviledge to host the 2008 Defrag Conference.  This is where the smart kids come to play.  (How do we know this?  Just read their blog.) 

From the Defrag home page:  "As online data is growing and fragmenting at an exponential pace, individuals, groups and organizations are struggling to discover, assemble, organize, act on and gather feedback from that data."

Sound about right?  You feeling this?  So GO! 

Trust me.  You won't be able to swing a dead cat at Defrag without hitting some sort of guru or another.  This is almost like a Cluetrain reunion.  You'll see & meet the people you've only had the chance to read about - basically, the people who imagined and built the Internet - and who are still building it today. 

And then come to the Angel Capital Summit on Nov. 21st.  It's here where we're making sense of angel investing and entrepreneurship.  It's here where we're defragging entrepreneurship.  And it's here where we draw the line on the economy, put on our 'big boy' pants and start to get things back to right. 

Be at the ACS Town Hall Meeting.  Listen & be heard.  Then go forth and do what entrepreneurs do - make the future. 

I've been involved with Blacktie Colorado almost since its' inception.  (Disclosure:  I'm on the Blacktie board.)  It's my appreciation that Blacktie's almost unique on the Internet for what it does.  Operating in 8 markets - Cleveland, St. Louis, Pittsburg, Arizona, Kansas City, South Florida, Louisiana and all over Colorado - Blacktie offers a long list of services for non-profit organizations (NPO's), ranging from community calendars for charity events to on-line ticket sales to fund-raisers.  (Here's the full list.)

Specific to the Angel Capital Summit, as an ACS Partner Blacktie's also helping us organize the attention we're looking for from the NPO's that want to apply to present at the ACS.  To get this done, they've created an ACS group, staffed it with investors & advisors and they are now collecting and screening ACS applications from non-profits. 

Wait a minute...  <<<REWIND. 

Y'all didn't know that the ACS also has NPO's presenting, did you?   We're presenting 40 organizations on Nov. 21st to the investor & entrepreneurial communities.  4 of them will be NPO's, as, like the regular flavor entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs are also an essential part of any successful & thriving business ecology.   

So if you're a social entrepreneur running an earned income non-profit and you're looking to get more deeply integrated into the larger business ecology, make some great new contacts and maybe even find an investor or some new customers, you'll want to check out the ACS!  To do that, just go to Blacktie's ACS group and apply!

Last week had me thinking about transcending (and including) the current financial crisis.  The inspiration for that piece was partially grounded in a column I had written for Colorado Biz magaine, which runs today.  Assuming (as I did in the blog post) that the world continues to operate after the bailout and election, some US economic sectors will be stronger than others.  And all signs indicate -- and even the New York Times, in a relative comparison of city-by-city economies corroborates -- that a strong entrepreneurial trend is sweeping Colorado.

The trend is based on what many entreprenurial thought leaders -- from investors to serial entrepreneurs to the lawyers and PR pros who live through the cycles -- recognize as sectors that will thrive, even during a predictably rough national economic period.  These sectors are technology (and in Colorado, especially IT and web 2.0), energy and other CleanTech / GreenTech / Sustainability companies.

In the CoBiz column, I propose a few potential local results of the current Wall St. banking crisis:

Many investing "truths" have forever changed. The question is: which ones? We suspect — and a quick query of investors this week has quasi-confirmed — that core investing principles are intact, but the situational realities as to who will be an interesting funding candidate are likely to be quite different.

Intuition suggests that fewer wealthy people will be making investments, but with the investment banking sector suddenly and irreversibly (lets' check that assumption in a few months) extinct, more money and talent could focus on growth sectors like green tech.

It's also possible that money will re-localize. Investors will want their money to be a bit more tied to tangible nearby investments as a backlash to the ideological bankruptcy of radical derivatives. Further, as investors take a deep stock of their values, the evolution toward a more holistic investing approach will amplify.

But that's all speculation.  What's real is that on November 21st, forty of the strongest Colorado start-up businesses will present to hundreds of venture capitalists and angel investors at the annual Angel Capital Summit.  And at the end of that day, we will present a once-in-a-generation opportunity to "not only learn about but participate in the co-creation the future of our regional business ecology."

With Anita Burke telling us all how to measure sustainable business practices at lunch, and the as-yet-uncomfirmed special appearance by one of Colorado's favorite political leaders open the day, it promises to be an exciting "first day of the rest of your career" type of experience.

Hope to see you there.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself last Thursday at CSIA's DEMOgala, looking at all of the cool software companies and talking to company founders. Right after lunch I stopped by a sparsely attended session that was supposed to be a discussion on innovations in investing. It turned out to be quite different: three of the four panelists that were supposed to join David Cohen were replaced an angel and another investor. I was looking forward to hearing about the success of the methods and processes used by TechStars. 

Instead, the moderator Adeo Ressi of TheFunded.com dominated the conversation and proceeded to interject his views on what was broken in VC land. He turned to his panel of angels, told them what was broken with venture capital, and then asked them what they thought was broken. When they tried to explain how they do business, Ressi took control again and espoused his opinions. Sheesh.

Ressi is a controversial figure. TheFunded asks entrepreneurs -- the folks asking for and in some case receiving venture funding -- to rank and review VC firms and individual partners. As a result, the site takes direct aim at the reputations of every VC firm, who are not able to rebut or correct the information presented. This has led to some significant heartburn at some large firms, so much so that his company was recently named in a slander lawsuit brought by a firm in Michigan. Unfortunately I couldn’t listen to much more of this and walked out on the last 10 minutes.

Maybe next year CSIA will have a more rounded view of angel investing in Colorado.  If you don't want to wait that long, we expect a pretty exciting Town Hall at the Angel Capital Summit in November.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) is as focused as anyone on the hard data and information around entrepreneurship and investing as anyone.  Their recently released study identifies a much bigger universe of investors that most people had thought, and confirms many important details that we "knew" intuitively, but could not support scientifically.  

Note that, as much as we love the SBA, in typical governmental style, much of this data spans the years from 2001 to 2003, so direct correlations to today are suspect.  For those of us who remember that far back, these were lean years for the economy, being the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the dot-com bust.  So, take it for what it's worth, and read the full report to determine your own conclusions. 

The first interesting analysis looks at the number of angel investors and investments:

• Surveys from the Federal Reserve and other research organizations estimated number of people who made an angel investment between 2001 and 2003 is between 331,100 and 629,000 people, and made investments in between 50,700 and 57,300 companies.   This is based on extrapolated data, and likely represents the largest possible population of angels.
  
• The Angel Capital Association reports that in 2006, the 5,632 accredited angel investors comprise its membership made 947 investments in 512 companies. These are the numbers of self-identified angel investors who joined the known professional organization, and likely represents 'serial' and 'professional' investors.
  

The difference between these two sets of numbers begins to identify the confusion and paradox in researching angel investing.  Next, we are interested in how much money gets invested: 

• The broader estimates for the years between 2001 and 2003, suggest that angels invested an estimated $23 billion per year.
• ACA members provided start-ups with a total of $228.8 million in 2006.
  

Obviously, that's a big range, and it's easy to presume that the truth lies somewhere in between.  It's clear that the ACA membership is the most sophisticated sub-set of angels.  Additional information cited in the report indicates that the average ACA investment is just under $35,000, which is more than three times the size of the average investment among the larger set.

This report suggest that most angels are unaccredited investors,

If we relate these numbers to the Colorado population (and assume a direct correlation, which is a questionable proposition), it suggest that there are as many as 10,000 potential