Fishin' For Funds

After so much education it was time to get the lay of the land. Beginning in the 1960s, the orchards of Santa Clara Valley morphed into Silicon Valley–into office buildings, strip malls, and parking lots. In other words: a concrete jungle. But when you drive by Apple, Google, Yahoo, Cisco, or HP, it is easy to feel the rush by thinking about the possibilities. Steve, Sergey & Larry, or Jerry, they all once were in our shoes. Consequently, every other person you encounter on the street is, was, or will be involved in a startup.

We had a few more meetings on the calendar that day, so we hit El Camino south to Mountain View, to look around (and dream big). Gas was cheap – by European standards – and roads were wide, but not necessarily pristine. Some stretches along the freeways were filthy with garbage and often the pavement was loose or rutted from years of relentless traffic. To avoid the sticky spots, log on to Metropolitan Transport Commission or call 5-1-1 for free, real-time traffic updates. Inevitably, the road took us past the Postal Annex, a place that is useful in more than one way, as Malte found out.

Later, on the campus of San Jose State, we met Jan Beckers, a German Web entrepreneur, who despite his youth already has founded several, businesses. Jan is spending a few months in the area to get inspired for his next venture before he is moving to Shanghai, “to connect the dots, from Germany, to Silicon Valley, to China.”

As we worked our way back toward San Francisco we also met a funding consultant – @ Starbucks, of course. It was a nice and informal conversation, a friendly ping-pong of questions and answers. There were no commitments or promises, however a few days later we received a retainer agreement for the consultant’s services during completion of seed, Series A and Series B funding, which included a three-day coaching session, set-up of investor meetings and assistance with term sheet and close.

This retainer was followed by a warrant to buy shares of common stock in iliketotallyloveit.com, which turned out invalid for our current form of corporation. This can get really confusing, really fast. How do you value shares in your own company? How many shares would you even want to sell at such an early stage? There are no patent answers, but a mistake here will get expensive later on. Click around to get an idea about the issues and know where you can call for advice before the dance gets hot.

It was a long day and we were in no mood for commute traffic, so we picked Tandoori Oven, an Indian fast-food joint in P.A. to unwind. Little did Malte know that the hardest piece of work was still ahead of him: Parking on Russian Hill, one of the steeper inclines in all of San Francisco. It’s like parking in Paris, except that you can’t push the cars in front or behind you to make more room, because all drivers in this town curb their wheels. Religiously. How did he do? See below (photographed with a spy cam). If you are a sucker for tight-parking videos, here is your fix.



In the final instalment of this four-part blog series you'll learn about wild parrots and Kerouac’s old haunts, plus you'll meet some Valley veterans with ties to a company that started more than online shopping.