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Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Steve Blank

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Today with every city, state and country trying to build out a technology cluster, following Dino’s progress can provide others with a roadmap of what’s worked and what has not. Here’s Part 2 of Dino’s story….

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Grant Applications Often Provide Early-Stage Funding

Startup Professionals Musings

A critical stage for most first-time entrepreneurs is getting their idea developed into at least a prototype to validate their technology. This process costs money, which professional investors are not willing to contribute, since their interest is in scaling a proven product and business model into a growth business.

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6 Sources of Help For Early Stage Concept Exploration

Startup Professionals Musings

Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. If you need funding for these early stage activities, I have some suggestions on better strategies to follow. Technology pilots. They believe in you above all else.

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Startup CTO or Developer

TechEmpower

Exploring new technologies? That’s why the CTO’s attention is on programming for the earliest stage. Hiring a hands-on lead developer might seem like the right move for an early stage startup. Closing the Gap: Hiring A Fractional Startup CTO We’re not suggesting that early-stage startups should hire a full-time CTO.

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Why Early-Stage VCs Should Be Careful About Intros from Bankers

Both Sides of the Table

There is one source I never liked and no early-stage VC should – investment bankers. But as a source of deal flow it is last on my list and both entrepreneurs and VCs should be careful about working with bankers on an early-stage (seed, a-round) deal. [no, They are venture bankers not investment bankers.

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10 Marketing Lessons for Early-Stage Tech Startups

Both Sides of the Table

The following are some lessons I learned about early-stage startup marketing. For early-stage consumer companies I would be careful not to market futures at all. . “ We need to learn from doing, by trial-and-error. If I can help you avoid some of my first-time mistakes it would be a victory.

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The Importance of Proprietary Deal Flow in Early-Stage VC

Both Sides of the Table

And they have access to some of the most talented technology entrepreneurs so this is a worthy goal for them. He pointed out that while I changed the title from “Why Early-Stage VCs Should Be Careful About Intros from Bankers” to the current title I hadn’t explained the change. .” Fair play.

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