Investing your expertise, credibility and network for an upside.

We are looking to create the simplest way to establish one’s SweatInvestor profile.  Below is the current template that requests an image, summary paragraph and a few bullets under each section header (example profile).  At some point, once we create a few standard topics and formats for SweatInvesting, the SweatInvestor Expertise and Milestones will be more standardized resulting in interesting search, browsing and matching features.

The current template is summarized below (a profile picture is also highly recommended).

Summary

A short paragraph that summarizes your background, much like the format used by LinkedIn.

Key Milestones

A few bullets to highlight relevent things you’ve accomplished that are related to your SweatInvestor expertise.  Companies looking for guidance on achieving these milestones may find you this way.

Corporate History

Bullets to the companies you’ve been involved with would be helpful, or you can simply link to your LinkedIn profile (e.g., http://www.linkedin.com/in/walterroth)

Sweat Investing Expertise

We’ll be working to standardize this section as much as possible, but for now, this sections lists generalized ares of expertise based on your milestones and experiences.

Interests

Lists bullets of your personal interests.

Education

Lists bullets that contain any formal education such as high school, college or any special training (please include links).

Sweat Portfolio

List the company name as a link to their website for each bullet. You can add a quick one liner in brackets for each line stating what type of sweatinvesting skills you’ve mainly invested for that company and/or link to the “SweatSuccess” report that describes the company, what you invested and the results.

Preferred Contact

Give the best way for potential portfolio companies to request your consideration.  It could be a link to your personal blog or profile on your preferred social network. It could also be an email address or on to comment on one of your SweatInvestor posts on this blog. We’ll be refining this asap.

Other Links

To optimize SEO in Google, add SweatInvestor type key words and links to your profiles across the Internet and link to them here.

• Facebook profile (e.g., http://www.facebook.com/walter.roth)
• LinkedIn profile (http://www.linkedin.com/in/walterroth)
• Google Profile (http://www.google.com/profiles/walter.roth)

Note: This is a first draft. At some point we’ll get permission from each SweatInvestor to make public.  Until then we’ll just be collecting these and refining the process and templates.

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Goal: Refine the Tagline for SweatInvestors in a meaningful way that reflects the SweatInvestor opportunity at its essence.  Please give feedback to the latest iteration:

Board level value creation and compensation; when your portfolio can’t afford to live without it.

* Thought process: It may be a bit to complex, but each part of it has meaning. The use of the words “Board Level” addresses how this is not about consulting where you get rewarded for time.  You get rewarded for value creation.  Targeting opportunities to make board level contributions maximizes the value you can create in the least amount of time.  Compensation is key, as its hard to know how to structure or even decide when to give stock. Part of the problem is that SweatInvesting can occur or at least start long before a capital table is formally written up.  Addressing the compensation challenge is a large part of the goal of SweatInvestors.  The idea of building a Portfolio is also central to the SweatInvestor mission.  It helps SweatInvestors enjoy the “J-Curve” and reduce their risk across a portfolio. It also helps them establish a track record of having the best people, from the most promising start-ups, want their help. Ideally over time SweatInvestors will build up a portfolio that will have a tangible return. Finally, the timing.  SweatInvestors impact companies the most when the company simple can’t afford to live without their help, but are not yet in a position to pay someone to do it.  This maximizes SweatInvestor’s return.

Feedback and suggestions are welcomed!

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Summary

Walter R. Roth has over 10 years of experience founding and funding technology startups, with experience on both sides of the funding table as a venture backed CEO and as an entrepreneur in residence at a Silicon Valley venture capital fund. He has had various roles within executive management, board management, business development, sales, recruiting, product development and marketing and fund raising.

Key Milestones

• Closed $5M VC financing (02.03.00 & 08.15.00)
• Manged executive team and board for start-up during product launches, financing(s) and growth
• Re-started sales and generated first $1M for start-up
• Identified and closed large anchor tenant (United States Postal Service & State of Florida Turnpike)
• Established key strategic relationships
• Advised and helped prepare CEO’s for successful rounds of financing
• Formally trained in sales at Oracle
• Set up inside sales organizations

Corporate History

See my LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/walterroth

Sweat Investing Expertise

• Setting up Sales processes for Start-ups
• Raising venture capital
• Team building
• Product marketing
• Selling enterprise software
• Selling new media

Interests

• Traveling Abroad
• Running
• Cycling
• Reading
• Surfing
• SweatInvesting

Education

• Oracle Sales Training (based on Sandlers Sales Systems)
• University of Wisconsin at Madison (B.S. Engineering)
• Punahou High School

Sweat Portfolio

• Silver Tail Systems
• Watercooler-Inc
• United Technologies (Acquired: Enforma Diagnostisc)
• …more to come…

Preferred Contact

• Comment on one of my posts on the SweatInvestor blog (SweatInvestor Profile Post: walter.roth)
• Follow up may be a comment, new post, email and/or 30-60 minute phone call to assess if there is a match for further SweatInvesting

Other Links

http://www.facebook.com/walter.roth
http://www.linkedin.com/in/walterroth
http://www.google.com/profiles/walter.roth

Note: This is a first draft. I will be tweaking the format of the SweatInvestor profile and then will start adding more of them.  Please feel free to send in suggestions/feedback.

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I’ve been working on “packaging” my Sweat on various topics. One topic is on “cold calling for startups.”

The concept alone makes a lot of sales and non-sales people shudder.  “I’m not a sales guy. I hate cold calling, I hate cold callers…I could never do it…”

My reply to this type of initial response is always simple. “But do you like revenue?  Are you entrepreneur?” “Yes, of course” is the answer I typically get and thus the journey begins, to becoming hunters who feed the tribe against all odds, going up against the scariest of beasts hiding in the deepest of the darkest forests and around every corner…

I know for myself that cold calling is one of the hardest things to do in the world. Equipped with the right tools, attitude and value proposition it can be enjoyable…because closing is fun. Winning is a kick.  With a full pipeline of qualified opportunities, you will close if what you have or eventually find a real value proposition.

Over the past couple of years,  I’ve come across many startups that have no idea where to start or how to begin.  Interestingly, being entrepreneurs they usually are 80% of the way already there. The rest is just attitude, technique and practice.

I’ve worked with a number of start-ups to get sales started, and I’m creating this “SweatStart” to reduce the amount of time it takes for me to help these entrepreneurs and technologists.  I’m also doing it to get exposure to this particular kind of sweat I have to invest, which will increase my deal flow and its quality.

I’m in the process of formulating how I’ll do this. Still kind of defining the best approach.  A few great resources I’ll be referencing:

Close the Deal - A great book with example scripts and techniques to cold call and sell (part of the training that I received at Oracle).

Innovators Traction - A great salesman blog written by Steve Browne (a sweatinvestor) who refined his sales approach at companies like Oracle, IBM, etc.  He started as as developer so he is the poster boy for anyone who starts out with the notion that technologists or entreprenuers can’t put on the pure sales hat when they need to, or when they want to triple their salary. His no non-sense approach is great showing how you can avoid the biggest sin in sales, “wasting time.” I linked to my favorite post of his above, which walks someone through his 10 Steps of the sales process and forecasting.

..more to come…

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Thanks Kli for sending this.  Great read to think about, and review multiple times.

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As we try to define what exactly is a “SweatStart” I’ll continue to post links to what seem like good examples to model it after. Here is one that I often hear quoted by many smart folks in Silicon Valley: Guy’s Kawasaki’s PowerPoint presentations titled The 102030 Rule.

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html

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Ok, so you’ve filled out your SweatInvestor profile, now how do you set yourself up for success without investing a lot of time?

There are many ways.  One of the ideas I’m starting to solidify is the idea of The Deck, which we’ll call a “SweatStart”.  A 5 to 15 slide deck that “productizes” a bite size piece of the board level value you have to offer someone that requires very little of our time.

A deck that you could link to or send to anyone that needs your help (i.e., doesn’t require your time, scales) or that you could send and then present over the phone or in person between 30-90 minutes (i.e., when you see an opportunity that is worth investing your time).

I’m working on a Sales for Startups deck that I’ll later use as an example. We’ll also create a SweatStart workshop to get more feedback and to refine the idea.

Walter R. Roth

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Described and linked to below is a great podcast on the topic of Angel investing.

Listening closely you get a great feeling for the process and numbers game of professional angel investing, Ron Conway style. He gives stats on deal flow, success rates, etc. In particular, he describes why the angel model is definitely a “hits business.”

As I work to further refine the description, approach and implementation of SweatInvestor.com, this podcast gave a lot of interesting concepts and dynamics to consider. Overall, SweatInvestor.com is positioned to be complimentary.

URL: http://edcorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1902

Description: experienced angel investors, Ron Conway, Founder of Angel Investors LP, and Mike Maples, Founder of Maples Investments, provide a rare look into the ins and outs of angel investing. Conway and Maples discuss how angel investors assess opportunities, provide assistance to entrepreneurs and transition start-ups to larger venture investments or exit. In addition, Conway and Maples provide advice to entrepreneurs about finding one’s passion and developing that passion into new ventures, including insight into how much money to raise and how to manage that money after it is in the bank.

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We’ll be posting about the J-Curve and how SweatInvestors can reduce their risk by creating a portfolio of SweatInvestments, just like Venture Funds do. This will include how to screen potential SweatInvestments, as well as finding ways to reduce the amount of time/energy/focus per SweatInvestment while maximizing the value each SweatInvestment recieves.

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