Unlimited Potential and Grow Wellington bring you the Co-founder Match-Making Event!

Come along and meet Bright Ideas Challenge finalists from the ICT stream. We’ll shout you a drink and facilitate introductions to help build teams to go forward to the next stage.

Hi Tech Innovations – a showcase of NZ University Hi Tech IP
When: Wednesday 4 August, 5.00-7.30pm
Where: Te Papa, Oceania room, level 3, 55 Cable Street Wellington
Guest speaker: Phil O’Reilly, Chief Executive, BusinessNZ
Seven universities showcase their leading edge Hi Tech innovations including:

• Materials and manufacturing, industrial processes, smart grids, power electronics, control systems, robotics, photonics, rapid prototyping, medical devices, textile innovation and nano technology.
• Potential opportunities and collaborations
• Networking and one-on-one discussions with NZ’s top research talent

What could your organisation achieve through partnering with New Zealand’s top researchers? Come and find out.

Register Now for the event – RSVP essential.

A project sponsored by the Tertiary Education Commission

The New Zealand Venture Capital Association, Investment New Zealand, and The Aviation Cluster present a series of seminars for aviation entrepreneurs, investors, and those who advise them in:

• Hamilton on Tuesday, 22 June
• Wellington on Wednesday, 23 June
• Auckland on Friday, 25 June

The Seminars run from 9:30am-3pm in each centre; all venue details will be confirmed on 15 of June.

Seminar attendees will learn about:

• The international aviation investment market.
• What’s been happening in that market recently and what the trends are.
• Who the typical sources of investment are and where those sources are located.
• What different types of investor are active in the market from angel to private equity.
• What investors in aviation are looking for.
• What turns investors on and what turns them off.
• How to effectively market an aviation investment opportunity.
• What makes for a good investment memorandum in the aviation market.
• What the aviation entrepreneur wants from an investor and what the investor can provide in addition to money.
• What co-investors in aviation typically look for.
• Cross border co-investment in aviation.
• The special dynamics that co-investment brings and how one company decides to invest with another.
• Risk sharing options.
• Taking advantage of aviation industry opportunities.

There will be a $15 cover charge as a contribution to catering costs.

Jim will have some limited time slots available to meet one-on-one with aviation entrepreneurs, investors and those who advise them.

Please register your interest by Friday 11 June with:

Shaun Mitchell
AIC General Manager
Aviation Industry Cluster

Email: shaun@aviationcluster.co.nz

Office: (07) 8297557
Mob: (021) 308 333

About Jim:

James M. McCoy is a multi-career entrepreneur, venture investor and business development executive based in California. Over four decades, Jim has founded and grown multiple billion dollar (US) international companies and contributed in a broad range of industries and technologies. His work spans computer, consumer electronics, aviation and biotech instrumentation industries.

Jim has been a seed, founding or early stage investor and/or Board Director with over 20 successful companies. He graduated from San Jose State University, California, with a B.S. degree in industrial engineering and management and has been issued five US (and related international) patents. Jim’s longest professional interest, deepest roots, first employment and current primary business focus is in aviation. He has been an active private pilot for over 30 years.

Jim began his career as a second generation engineer at United Airlines (SFOEG, now MRO HQ) in San Francisco as a cabin equipment safety engineer. Following service in the US Air Force (Reserve,) his career moved into engineering and marketing in the computer industry with IBM, Kodak and Xerox and the consumer electronics field with Textron and RCA in early video recording. Jim’s entrepreneurial career began with the co-founding of two venture capital funded, international and highly successful ($B+) computer storage start-up companies in the 1980’s, Quantum and Maxtor. He was President, CEO and Chairman of Maxtor for 12 years, through its IPO and eventual sale to what is today Seagate Technology. He currently serves as Chairman of Pliant Technology, Inc., an early stage enterprise computer SSD storage company in California.

In 2002, Jim began aviation business development projects in general aviation, working primarily in new green, low cost, extreme efficiency turbine propulsion concepts. Initially allied with a major GA airframe designer, this work eventually encompassed a wide range of programs including a NASA SATS Project and DARPA subcontractor, a turbine engine design spin off from Pratt and Whitney, an Asian nation’s national transportation and economic development ministries, major VLJ developers in various systems, Stanford University, and a major computer industry X-Prize sponsor in a low-pilot workload, high efficiency helicopter design. Jim is an active angel investor and limited partner in numerous (US) venture capital funds, serving as an advisor to several. He has been a part of dozens of equity and debt financings and liquidity events for young companies including transactions with multiple merchant and investment banking organizations.

Kevin McCaffrey runs Effective Governance, an independent privately-owned consulting firm that delivers advice on Corporate Governance to clients in New Zealand and Australia.  Kevin will discuss governance across all sectors of society and its power in making a difference. This will include how to do due diligence as a director.

When: Tuesday 16th Feb, 5.30-7.30pm
Where: Russell McVeagh, Level 24, Vodafone on the Park.

We look seeing you there, where you’ll have the opportunity to talk with Kevin and network with your Wellington peers.

Simon Telfer, co-founder of SpringBoard’s national group, who will talk more about SpringBoard and governance.

For more info and to RSVP, see the Springboard Wellington LinkedIn Group.

Unlimited Potential are running a Damsel’s Den event, where you can “get to know local angels before you pitch your brilliant idea to them. Angel HQ and Unlimited Potential matchmake our entrepreneurs and investors.”

When: Tuesday 9 March 2010 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Where: Deloittes 10 Brandon Street, Wellington
RSVP: Unlimited Potential
Special Guest: Bill Payne

I always advise entrepreneurs to get to know their local angels well in advance of even thinking about asking them to invest.  This evening will be a perfect opportunity to network, practice some lines before using them in a pitch, and meet other entrepreneurs and investors.

See you there!

As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, the DomPost published an interview with me headlined “Passion a crucial ingredient for success” on the relationship between angel investors and wannabe entrepreneurs, which is available online.

They haven’t published my take on factors that affect valuation online, so I’ll take the liberty of reproducing them here.

Valuations are very subjective, and it takes someone with significant domain expertise to even hazard a guess. That’s one of the reasons that angels like to syndicate deals – nobody is an expert in every domain.

Factors that effect valuation include:

• Team: Track record (both success and failure), commitment, passion, ethics
• Financials: Realistic cash flow forecasts, ability to do things on the cheap, and future capital requirements
• Product: Uniqueness, simplicity, how much pain it will alleviate
• Sexiness: How “hot” is the product and the space?
• Market: Size, addressability, familiarity
• Sales strategy: Customer acquisition cost/effort, ability to execute
• Business model: Rapid scalability, flexibility, operational complexity, robustness of assumptions
• Intellectual Property: Patents and other barriers to entry for potential competitors
• Competition: Can someone else easily squash your startup?
• Hygiene: Governance, tidy accounts, good legal agreements, no outstanding law suits or significant legal risks etc

One thing’s for sure: your company becomes a lot more valuable the day you sign on your first batch of significant customers, and is worth more again the day you become cash-flow positive.

It’s a surprise to many entrepreneurs that cash-in (ie, how much as been previously invested into the company) has little impact on an objective valuation – it’s a highly emotional issue that is often a real roadblock to doing a deal.

For a bit of fun, see Cayenne Consulting’s High Tech Valuation Estimator.

If you’re more serious about it, local companies like Valuecruncher provide reasonably priced objective valuations. The Angel Association / NZTE’s Escalator Service also does a great job of helping companies become investment ready, part of which is arriving at a valuation you’re comfortable with.

It’s a truism to say that your idea or company is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.  Don’t fall down the hole of holding out for an impossibly high valuation, as the real value in a high-growth company is its ability to outstrip that initial valuation quickly.  Most investors will completely shut off when you give them a number that’s an order of magnitude out from what they think your company is really worth, and you may not get a second chance.

So instead of insisting that your company or idea is worth a lot more than your potential investor thinks it might be worth, ask what your investor can do to ensure that your company will have the resources and expertise it needs to realise its full potential.

The Springboard NZ governance group for emerging directors is starting up a Wellington Branch.  The inagural meeting will be held on Tuesday 24 November at 5:30 pm at Minter Ellison, Level 24, Vodafone Tower.

For more information and to RSVP, please see the discussion on the SpringBoard Wellington LinkedIn subgroup.

Move over China, the future of manufacturing is alive in a five-person shop in Wellington, New Zealand.  Think cheap, quick, green, and global. And everything’s made to order.

That’s the headline on the latest issue of Inc. Magazine, with Ponoko’s David ten Have on the cover.

This is a scene in every angel’s dream, where their investment’s CEO literally becomes a poster boy.  David and the team totally deserve it too, as they’ve worked both hard and smart to make a market and change the game of manufacturing.

Good onya guys, New Zealand’s angel investors and entrepreneurs are right behind you, and would love to see your innovation and success replicated a thousand times over.

Update: Read the Inc. article online

Disclosure: my trust owns shares in Ponoko.

What: Wellington to the World 2009
When: Tuesday 17 November 2009 2:00pm – 8:00pm
Where: Civic Suite, Level 2, Wellington Town Hall

Unlimited Potential’s W2W eventaims to build bridges between academia, technology entrepreneurs and investor communities. The focus for this year’s event is “internationalising your technology venture”. Appropriately, our keynote speaker will be Richard MacManus, local web entrepreneur and founder of ReadWriteWeb, one of the world’s leading tech blogs. This year W2W will be an official Global Entrepreneurship Week event and represents a huge opportunity for our local tech sector to gain global recognition.

Gadgets, Games & Geeks 2009

When: Monday 24 August 2009
4.30pm: Exhibits and doors open
6.00pm: Presentations start
Where: St James Theatre, Courtenay Place
Twitter feed: #ggg09; Flickr tag: GGG09
RSVP: http://up.org.nz/ggg-09/

Gadgets, Games and Geeks is Unlimited Potential’s showcase of Wellington’s vibrant and thriving information and communication technology sector, and will take place at the St James Theatre on Courtenay Place THIS COMING MONDAY. Come and network and get a chance to see both the latest innovations and catch-up on industry trends, developments and expertise.

Confirmed Speakers:
Bill Reichert, Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures
Tim Launder, Weta Cave
Andy Satterthwaite, Sidhe