Financing the New Venture: A Complete Guide to Raising Capital from Venture Capitalists, Investment Bankers, Private Investors, and Other Sources
Author: Mark H. Long
List Price: $17.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1580622070
Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (February, 2000)
Sales Rank: 13,651
Average Customer Rating: 3.08 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Ahead of its time, and certainly relevant to high tech!
Unlike the reviewer from Boston, who only "skimmed" this book, I have read it and re-read it with enthusiasm. The message contained in this book is, without a doubt, more relevant today than ever. If entrepreneurs spent more time developing a "phenomenal business", rather than just focusing on raising money, they might have far more to offer their investors. Mark Long's book presents valuable reasons for doing precisely this, as well as providing useful tools for designing success into the business from the outset. Just one of the many benefits to this approach, for today's visionary business builder, is the ability to attract capital rather than having to chase it. Having spent the last 15 years working with high tech companies - both large and small - all over the world, and having worked with many early stage internet companies, I found the book offers a fresh alternative to the current venture capital approach to investing in early stage companies. Summary: This book sets the stage, and provides valuable tools and insights, for business building in the New Economy - period.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Too Much Fluff - No Content
I have read many books on financing and founded my own tech company securing funding from angels, VCs, and investment banks. This book was non-practical and filled with too much marketing fluff with page after page of trademarked terms that made no sense whatsoever. I know for a fact that if any of my VCs read this book they would literally laugh. It was like Tim Robbins trying to write about venture capital. The bottom line is that investors don't give you money based on what you say but rather what you do -- walk the walk.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Don't be fooled or you will lose...
"Financing the Venture" is difficult to read and comprehend. The presentation and illustrations are not always clear. It is hastily bundled together in an attempt to impress the reader about a few innovative thoughts (developed by others) and rearranged by an amateur writer. The book has two themes: how to prepare a business plan to an investor, and learning how and where to obtain financing.First, if anyone dares to write his or her business plan HIS way, beware, you will be rebuffed quickly! Second, if you carefully review the writer's experience at raising capital, he seems to contradict his own methods for raising capital. Case in point: Mark Long sponsors lectures about how to make "quantum leaps" for entrepreneurs, yet he struggles, in one of his own projects, to raise just $350,000 of seed capital from forty-five investors!
Do not use this as a primary guide. For the one star rating, there are some ideas that may help focus your thoughts. Use this book as an auxilliary tool to complement your ideas and visions for preparing final plans and strategies.
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