Building Great Companies with NO Venture
Capital
June 25,
2009, 6:30 PM @ Sacramento Marriott |
   
Sacramento Marriott (click for driving
instructions)
11211 Point East Drive, Rancho Cordova, CA
June 25, 2009,
Sacramento Marriott, Rancho Cordova
Cost: Members free;
Guests - $60 online or $70 at
the door
Networking & Reception: 6:00 to
7:00 PM
Panel Discussion: 7:00 - 8:30
PM |
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When economy falters, the fallout
hurts a lot of people. Start-up and early-stage
companies are among the most vulnerable. It's no secret
that many of the venture capital firms are also facing
difficulty raising new capital and are now focused on
salvaging some of their current investments rather than
making new investments.
Before the days of venture capital, it was common to
bootstrap your company – with little or no money to get
your business started. Many great companies were built
that way and several entrepreneurs are continuing to
take that route. At our May event, we will feature
leading entrepreneurs who’ve taken the ‘alternate route’
for starting this business.
The panel will be feature top entrepreneurs
including Christine Comaford, a serial
entrepreneur, whom Bill Gates calls “super high-bandwith”,
George Haber of Crestatech (built a $20M business with
no external money) and Grame Plant, formerly of Light
Moutnain Group that was sold to QLOGIC for $30M.
Topics
of discussion include:
-
What does it take to bootstrap your
business in today’s world?
-
How do you develop your team and network
in the absence of external funding?
-
Are there any non-venture alternative
funding sources for technology based
startups?
-
Is there free money (grants or others)
that you can tap into?
-
How do you compete against larger
“venture-funded” competitors?
-
What do you need to be prepared for when
bootstrapping?
-
Best practices and more..
Panelists include :
- Christine Comaford
, Founder & CEO , Mighty Ventures
- George Haber,
Chairman & CEO, CrestaTech
- Graeme Plant, Angel
Invetstor
- Chris Russell, Of
Counsel, Morrison & Foerster to moderate
the panel
Visit the link below to
register for this event.
Panelists Bio
George
Haber, Founder CEO, Crestatech
A proven
entrepreneur who is passionate about powering the
technology revolution, George has been forming, leading
and advising innovative high-tech startups for more than
15 years.George started his career designing the first
hardware accelerator ASIC for Daisy Systems before
joining Sun Microsystems in 1989. At Sun, he designed
and integrated the FPU in the UltraSPARC chip. He then
helped design the 3-D graphics engine for SGI's INDY-2
professional workstation. In 1993, he co-founded
CompCore Multimedia, a multimedia compression technology
company that merged with Zoran, and in 1997 he launched
GigaPixel, focused on 3-D graphics technology, which
merged with 3Dfx in 2000. From 2000-2004, he was
founder, chairman and CEO of Mobilygen, creating
multimedia processors for mobile and connected video
markets.
Over the years, George also has been an angel investor
and served on several company boards, including
InterVideo, LucidLogix, Zoran, Class Data Systems and
Aristo Technology.
George is frequently quoted by press, invited to speak
at conferences, and was interviewed for Dean Takahashi's
book on Microsoft, “Opening the Xbox.” George received
his bachelor's degree in computer science and electrical
engineering from Technion - Israel Institute of
Technology in Haifa. For more info, please visit http://www.crestatech.com/about/team.html
Christine Comaford, Founder & CEO, Mighty
Ventures
Bill Gates calls her “super high bandwidth.” Bill
Clinton has thanked her for “fostering American
entrepreneurship.” Newsweek says “by reputation,
Christine is the person you want to partner with.” New
York Times bestselling author Christine Comaford is CEO
of Mighty Ventures, a business accelerator that has
helped over 150 entrepreneurs.Christine has built and
sold 5 of her own businesses with an average 700% return
on investment, served as a board director or
in-the-trenches advisor to 36 startups, and has invested
in over 200 startups (including Google) as a venture
capitalist or angel investor. Christine has consulted to
the White House (Clinton and Bush), 700 of the Fortune
1000, and over 300 small businesses. She has repeatedly
identified and championed key trends and technologies
years before market acceptance. Christine
has appeared on Good Morning America, The Big Idea with
Donny Deutsch, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, FOX Business Network,
PBS, CNET and is frequently quoted in the business,
technology and general press at large. Stanford Graduate
School of Business has done two case studies on her and
PBS has featured her in three specials (Triumph of the
Nerds, Nerds 2.0.1, and Nerd TV ). CNET has broadcast
two specials covering her unconventional rise to success
as a woman with neither a high school diploma nor
college degree. For more info, please visit
mightyventures.com
Graeme Plant, Angel Investor & M&A Advisor
Graeme is currently a member of the Foothills
Angels, a partner with Compass Point Capital, a
Sacramento area M&A firm and a deal maker for the
Woodbridge Group, a national M & A firm.
He has held several marketing, project management
and business development positions throughout his
25-year career. Prior to his role as an angel, he was a
VP of marketing for Little Mountain Group (LMG), which
in 18 months he successfully sold to QLogic in 2001 for
$30M. At QLogic, Graeme continued in a product
marketing and sales leadership role with the LMG
technology that positioned QLogic as the market leader
in IP Storage networking. Prior to that, Graeme held
marketing, sales management and program management roles
at ShareWave, a home networking start up; Hewlett
Packard and Sprint.
Graeme has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UC
Davis and an MBA from UC Berkeley . Grame's recent investments include
Revionics and Mutant Logic.
Chris Russell, Of Counsel, Morrison & Foerster
Chris Russell is the Office Counsel at the Sacramento
office of Morrison Foerster. His practice focuses on
corporate and securities matters, mergers and
acquisitions, venture capital and corporate financings,
formation of limited liability companies, venture
capital funds and other investment partnerships,
corporate restructurings, federal and state securities
law compliance, and general corporate and securities
counseling of public and private companies. Mr. Russell
regularly advises start-up and emerging growth private
companies, life science companies, public companies,
institutional investors in their investments in venture
capital, venture capital funds, general and limited
partners, shareholders and boards of directors
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