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Second Brain Goes to America Part 2

The past few weeks have been so busy that I didn't even have time to post anything on our planned trip to the US. And now we're back, after a week in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

The purpose of the trip was to incorporate Second Brain and meet with local VCs. We had several meetings scheduled with top-tier VCs. The first few days we spent on preparing our pitch. From Wednesday to Friday we did five pitches. All of the pitches were a bit different, depending on the perspective of the VC, and we refined the presentation between each meeting.

The main idea of the meetings was not to ask for money, but to introduce ourselves and establish a relationship. We know that it takes time to raise money. Most of the VCs expressed interested in our product and asked lots of questions on how we plan to create value for our services and our users. It was a very rewarding experience for us and we learned a lot from their questions. We also got a few ideas for new functionality in Second Brain.

All in all, it was a very good week - we got validation from potential investors that we have an interesting product and business model, a great review on Read Write Web, and several hundred new users.

Now, it's back to product development and promotion. We're working hard to get to the preview release and I'm preparing to go to the Next Web conference in Amsterdam on Friday.

I'll write some more and post a few pictures as soon as I've slept off my jet-lag.:)

The Long Tail of start-ups

I see one of the more untraditional VCs, Paul Graham of Y Combinator, is talking about how new start ups can get their business going with little VC money. All though he hasn't made any killer investments from his existing portfolio yet, I do think his approach is very appropriate considering how cheap and easy people can start new internet-based companies these days.

But the old big-money model is not dead yet. There will always be new ideas that need large scale initial growth, think YouTube.com. And the traditional VC will definitely open their pockets for them. Where I think Mr. Graham will get the most out of his money is on the Long Tail of ideas and businesses. This could be the niche for smaller companies, with marginal audiences, who need smaller investments and also have a smaller exit. If he makes an efficient investment model/process, this could be the first VC who makes more money from many small investments, than he would from betting on a few smash-hits.

I'm not sure yet where Second Brain fits in this picture, but our strategy is to finance it ourselves as far as we can, before we go looking for external funding. That was also the advice we got from the Sillicon Valley investors we talked to this spring: Keep it Small and Keep it All.

Investors are Pushing

The Second Brain project cost a lot of money - people and resources. And Making Waves is the company that is sponsoring all of this. Of course, this is in many ways an internal project, and it is easier to agree on everything. We are quite fortunate to be able to create a new company from the mother company. It is much easier this way. We can work from the exisiting Making Waves culture and infrastructure (which has been, by the way, a very successful combination).

Back from the US

After a week in the US, talking to professionals, business advisors and investors, I have so much to think of, that I can hardly get anything done.

But a couple of things stand out as certain truths. The first thing is that the US is a very professional business and investing environment. They know what they're doing and set very high standards for their profession. The second thing is that we have confirmed that there is definitely a place for Second Brain in the US. We got great feedback from the people that we talked to, and we should create a strategy for entering the US market as soon as we are ready.

We weren't in the US to ask for money, but for advise and to create contacts.

In San Francisco and Silicon Valley, we had about eight one-on-ones with investors and VCs. I'm not going to go in detail on with whom we talked, but each and everyone had very valuable feedback to us. Fortunately, we had the support of Eva Solheim and Åse Pettersen Bailey (who took the picture) from the Royal Norwegian Consulate General. They used their network of contacts to set up meetings for us, and they set the appropriate tone for the meetings. In addition, they took notes from the meetings that they will send to us.

Second Brain Goes To America

This Saturday, Even and I are boarding a plane heading for San Francisco, USA. We are going to present Second Brain to US investors in Silicon Valley and New York. We are working with the local office of Innovation Norway. Their well-connected managers and staff have set up several meetings with many big VCs in both SF and NYC.

We will arrive in SF Saturday evening, spend the Sunday acclimatizing, and then meet the VCs on Monday and Tuesday. Then we take a red-eye to NYC where we have a few more one-on-ones with VCs, but the main event is the

Seed Forum International Event. It is a match-making event with several young businesses from the European region in the need of seed capital pitching their projects to US investors.

We are looking forward to present our idea and our plan for the next year - expand our network, and build a foundation for our US strategy.

A quick update

This quick update also introduces a brand new category for this blog - funding - which kind off accentuates the mode that we're in right now.

We are working on building relationships with potential investors.

Approved by the Norwegian Research Council

Good news!
I just got approved my R&D project for Secondbrain! The Norwegian Government and the Norwegian Research Council has a system for supporting companies' R&D efforts. It is called Skattefunn. Basically they cover 20 per cent of project costs through the tax system.

Big presentation for the Business Development Forum

It's been a long time since I wrote anything in the blog, but that doesn't mean that things has been quiet around here. This week, I did a presentation of the Secondbrain concept and business plan for several business and government agencies.

This was the first real presentation of Secondbrain for a group of investors and business developer that I've ever done.