Couch Cast » Paul Allen: How to Raise Money in Difficult Economic Times

Paul Allen: How to Raise Money in Difficult Economic Times

I recently spoke with Paul Allen (the lesser), CEO of FamilyLink.com about his recent speech at the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum about how to raise money in difficult economic times. Family Link recently received an additional round of funding and Paul takes a few minutes to explain the tools they used, and the way they interfaced with investors to secure the funding round.

Listen to this cast and you will hear about Paul’s personal algorithm you can use to determine your probability for securing funding, his definition for market traction and how it relates to your investor relationship. He discusses the power of positive cash-flow in these economic times, and shares some insight on how entrepreneurs should approach angels and VCs through the book Angel Investing: Matching Startup Funds with Startup Companies–The Guide for Entrepreneurs and Individual Investors (Jossey Bass Business and Management Series)

Paul also gave his opinions on the economy, and his thoughts about how long this recession will last. (Note that Paul has some strong opinions about the crisis, and documents his research and thoughts both at his blog and at Crashopedia)

Feedback or Comments about this show? Leave a comment on this post at Couchcast.org or email couchcastshow [AT] gmail [DOT] com

Upcoming Utah Tech Events for the week of April 3rd through April 10th, 2009 include:

The Utah Open Source and PHP User Group Geek Lunch today, April 4th and every first-Friday from 12:30-1:30pm. Location and details at utos.org.
On Saturday, April 4th, join geeks of all types for April’s relaxing CodeAway, bring yourself, your laptop, something techy to talk about to Rocky Mountain Pizza in salt lake from 1-5pm. See codeaway.org for more details.
On Wednesday April 8th, the Salt Lake Linux User Group, the cold fusion user group and the Provo Linux User’s group are having their meetings.
On Thursday April 9th the Salt Lake north ruby user’s group, the Utah mobile developers user group, the Utah python user’s group and the web startup group are each meeting
Also happening this week is the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in San Francisco.

Subscribe to the Utah Tech Events and Utah Business Events calendars in Google (or any XML/iCal aware calendar)

This week in tech history, The British Royal Air Force was founded on April 1st, 1918

Outro Music today is A Little More Time by Lonnie Brooks, Long John Hunter & Phillip Walker from the album Lone Star Shootout [Buy this track on iTunes or Amazon MP3]