cre8Buzz Blog

Cre8buzz has been casting out for some funding of late (cross your everything for us) and we have gotten some positive response but have a long way to go. For early stage companies angel investors are a common source of funding. Angels are typically affluent individuals who are former entrepreneurs themselves. What is both amusing and frustrating is how you can get absolutely diametrically opposed opinions from highly respected folk.

Angel investors, just as most people, operate from a foundation of their own personal experience. This is especially to be expected in a freestyle context like tech start-up companies. There just isn’t a lot of background on which to base projections about the future. So if their personal experience would indicate Y, they believe Y. If I am ever fortunate enough to be an angel investor myself, I intend to bear this in mind. To listen, with an open mind, critically but carefully, to what the guy in front of me has to say. To not assume that I am such a “quick study” (read brilliant) that I can fully absorb, process & refute what the guy is saying about midway through his second sentence and interrupt him so I can let him know what the real world is all about. Okay, this is really the exception, but I still find it galling. I mean, I’m a 40-something with a bachelors and two masters, so I might know a couple of things. At least about our business and industry.

As a business model, cre8buzz is straightforward. As a content organization tool it is anything but. Heck, an investor we had spoken with a bunch of times over many months didn’t “get it” until just recently. Clearly, much of the fault has to lie with us in how we explain it. But it is pretty ironic that the key characteristics of a successful entrepreneur (creative, flexible, analytical) are not always evident. The good news is that we probably wouldn’t want that type of investor anyway. To put on my Freud cap, know-it-alls, regardless of how successful, are merely over-compensating for some insecurity. The really gifted guys know it and don’t need to flaunt it. Now, if I can only get them to write that big check…

John