Looking for funding? Hit it hard

Sept. 14, 2007
by Yi-Wyn Yen

STIRR, an S.F.-based networking organizer for entrepreneurs, just posted three videos from their Founders Hack II talk last Wednesday. The most amusing and insightful video came from Ooga Labs CEO James Currier who gave a four-minute speech about lessons he learned in raising money from VCs.

Currier suggests that if entrepreneurs want to make something big happen, they have to "hit it hard." He learned this lesson when he was trying to raise money from investors back in 2000 for his company, Pickle Inc., which makes online personality tests. Currier had pitched 43 venture capitalists and received 43 lukewarm responses. Fed up, he decided to hit it hard and sent an August Capital VC an angry email at 2 in the morning. "Finally," Currier says. 'The guy said, 'All right, I'll meet with you.'"

Convincing a stranger to buy note cards for 300 pennies a pack and raising a few million from a VC aren't so different. "When you're raising a bunch of money, your projections have to get people engaged and involved," Currier says. "Your job is to aggregate energy." While selling his pitch to VCs for his startup Tickle.com, Currier projected revenue growth to be $18 million in year four. But this was 2000, and VCs weren't interested unless it had huge potential. "I said, Dude, I'm your friend. We know everyone's lying. No one's going to hit $50 million in year 4. No one. They still weren't interested. So I wrote down new projections. $50 million in year 4. They thought that was interesting. So you just got to hit it hard."

Currier says it's more important than ever for entrepreneurs to hit it hard now. "Hiring is only going to be good for another year and a half," he says. "Then it'll be crazy again and we're not going to see much investing."

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