We had a great discussion at this month's ROCC meeting with special guest Peter Platt, VP of Online Media at Butler/Till. Peter covered a number of key topics, tools and trends in online advertising including the use of traditional banner ads and Google Ads, as well as Facebook and Twitter. He shared some sobering statistics about the short life of most widgets as well as blog readership (with the number of blog "writers" today exceeding the number of blog "readers"), and after some pushback regarding the true value of Twitter, Peter offered an example of a "good" business use of Twitter: a retail client who tweets about weekly specials to its niche followers/best customers.

ROCC members Cory Armbrecht, co-founder of Float, Steve Shapiro, founder of Digsby and ROCC organizer Mark Frisk also shared ideas and tactics they've used to generate new business, including leveraging national online PR/Media resources, CPA advertising, Twitter and viral tactics: making it easy for current users (customers) to recommend your company to friends.

As always, it was great to meet several new companies this month including Tenrehte, a fabless semiconductor company offering Wi-Fi system on a chip solutions and Jorsek, a software company providing solutions that allow users to edit and restructure their websites as easily as they edit a Word document.

Peter's parting words for us:"Understand your goals and audience before trying any new advertising or digital media tool". Thanks Peter for your time and terrific insight. Special thanks to Melissa Geska, founder, Fabunation, LLC and co-founder of ROCC, for referring Peter.

For more information on "good" uses of Twitter check out Business Week's recent article "Twitter: Building Businesses Tweet by Tweet", and for some additional stats on social media use, a recent presentation by Barry Hurd of 123SocialMedia.com provides some great info. Peter also posts some great information on the Butler/Till website.

Peter Platt, Vice President of Online Media with Butler/Till, a full-service media planning and buying agency, will stop in for a talk during our May meeting. Peter has seen a lot of change in his 20+ years in the marketing and media industry (the last 16 of which have focused on internet marketing). When Peter first started working on Web projects in 1993, the Lycos search engine only listed about 150,000 Web pages in its directory.

In addition to his current role with Butler/Till, Peter has held prior positions with dockside.net, ICE Communications, Saatchi & Saatchi and Rumrill-Hoyt. His experience brings together a unique combination of account management, technology and strategic planning. Peter is committed to helping businesses realize the true value that the internet can provide to a company's bottom line. He cringes at some of the business models and plans that many former dot-com companies tried to implement in the past and will talk with ROCC members about what he believes are the best methods for leveraging the internet to maximize business and marketing objectives.

A great mix of entrepreneurs came out to our March 27 ROCC meeting including several new entrepreneurs with ties to RIT -- newDigs.com, Float and Barnaby, as well as several more experienced entrepreneurs (previous 'intrapreneurs') from Kodak, Carestream and Xerox.

We heard from Jennifer Sertl of Agility 3R, who coaches both entrepreneurs and corporate executives, and shared some words of wisdom on leadership. Jennifer's advice of not overacting to things that cannot be controlled, but staying focused and open to new opportunities during turbulent times seemed particularly relevant. Thanks Jen for joining us!

***

On April 10, Will Hoy, partner at Harter Secrest & Emery LLP, will join us for a Q&A roundtable discussion.

Will is head of HSE's Private Equity and Venture Capital Group and represents both private equity and venture capital funds in all aspects of portfolio financing transactions, including portfolio company acquisitions, dispositions and recapitalizations, preferred equity structures, stockholder arrangements, and management employment and equity compensation arrangements. Will also represents a broad range of private and public clients in mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and general corporate matters. Prior to joining HSE, Will represented both private and public clients with McDermott Will & Emery LLP in Chicago.

Will is making himself available to answer any and all questions, on financing, equity compensation, general corporate matters, etc., and yes, he promised 'the clock will be off'.

Our February 27th meeting featured a lively discussion on angel financing with special guests Luda Kopeikina, President and CEO of Noventra Corporation and a member of Common Angels in Boston, and Ken Rosenfeld, Co-founder and President/CTO of eHealth Global. As a founder of several companies and an angel herself, Luda has experience on both sides of the angel funding equation. Ken and his co-founder successfully brought their company to cash-flow break-even with funding from individual angels.

Luda (who phoned in to the session from Florida) opened the session by outlining four key factors that angels look at when considering whether to invest in a company:

* Does the company and its product or service meet a demonstrated need or pain in the marketplace?
* Are its products or solutions sufficiently differentiated from what's in the market already?
* Is there a solid team in place?
* Exactly how does the company plan to make money?

Luda noted that angels are most likely to invest once a concept is proven. In the absence of any sales or customers, that can be a bit of a hurdle, which you can address by gathering evidence of how your company will fare in its market. "The more validation, the better. What can you anticipate? Put together a landing page. Demonstrate acceleration. You still might not have customers, but you've validated. You're moving away from assumptions. Figure out a way to get data for each of your parameters. Say to investors: 'I know it's a risk, but I know I can get there and here's how.'"

Ken remarked that risks are a key part of a memorandum. "Listing them forces you to think about them, and you'll be ready for questions."

As you consider seeking funding from angels, risks are just one (albeit important) thing to consider. Overall, it's critical to gauge how you'll get to where you need to go. How much money will you need. When? From whom? Can you get to cash flow positive from angels alone?

"I guarantee that the amount of money you need is going to be double what you think you need," said Ken. "Also, it's not just a function of money, but more of time. It will probably take twice as long as long as you think it will."

What should those seeking funding look for in an angel, and what steps can one take to ensure a successful relationship?

The best investors are those who understand your space and can provide connections. Ken considers his investors to be part of his company. He advises thinking carefully in advance about the type of relationship you'll have with your investors and always keeping good lines of communication open. That might mean creating a private website where progress reports and feedback can be shared.

As for finding those angels willing to invest in your company?

Tough economic conditions are leading everyone, including angel investors, to be more cautious, but there's always money, even in a downturn, and truly great ideas and promising technologies will always be attractive.

Angels, and their money, are out there. Finding them, and then convincing them to invest in your company, require solid homework and persistence. And you've got to get over the hurdle of asking for money, which gets easier the more often you do it.

Thanks to Luda, Ken, and everyone around the table for an informative session.

Check out the recent Tech Crunch article on a fellow ROCC member hitting a major milestone: Techrigy Hits 1 Billion Conversations - Think Google Alerts on Steroids

Congrats to Aaron Newman & his team -- Nicely done!

We received a lot of positive feedback last month on the new format and venue for ROCC - thanks to everyone for coming out. We were joined by Steve Zamierowski, from Deloitte's Tech-Venture Center in Boston, who led an active discussion on what the funding environment is like for early stage companies. The general message seemed to be that money is still available for the best start-ups (even 1st rounds), but overall, we will likely see fewer deals completed in 2009. Les Fritzemeier, a ROCC member and CEO of Wakonda Technologies (in Rochester for the MIT Ignite Clean Energy Competition kick-off) also attended and stressed the importance of having a strong syndicate of investors, particularly given the current environment. The turn-out was great (standing room only) and the discussion and networking livelier than ever. Special thanks to Zam & Les for joining us!

On Friday February 27, Ken Rosenfeld, Co-Founder and President of eHealth Global and Luda Kopeikina (via teleconference), President and CEO of Noventra Corporation and a member of Common Angels in Boston, will share their views and first hand experience with angel funding. Ken and his co-founder Mike Margiotta successfully capitalized their company by raising enough from individual angels to fund their company for its first two years of operations through to cash flow break-even. Luda has sat on both sides of the table, having founded several companies and also as a member of Common Angels in Boston. She is also a published writer and a prominent business speaker on topics of innovation, entrepreneurship, clear business decision making and leadership. If you've ever wondered how to successfully raise angel financing or the pros and cons of raising money from individuals directly or through an organized angel network, this will be a great opportunity to learn more. Of course there will be general networking, as always, before and after the discussion.

Upcoming ROCC meetings: Friday February 27, March 27, April 10, May 8 and June 12. Meetings will be held from 8:30am-10:00am at the Bagel Bin Café. Future dates to be announced.

This month we're kicking off a new format for our monthly ROCC meetings, inviting a guest (or ROCC member) to talk on a topic of interest at the start of our meeting, in addition to our normal networking.

On Friday, January 23, Steve Zamierowski (better known as "Zam"), a member of Deloitte's technology and life sciences practice and director of Deloitte's Tech-Venture Center in Boston, will join us from 8:30am - 10:00am at the Bagel Bin Cafe in Brighton for 30 minutes of Q&A with ROCC members, followed by general networking.

Zam will be in Rochester presenting "The State of the Venture Capital Industry" at MIT's Ignite Clean Energy kick-off event, being held from 5:30pm-7:30pm on Thursday, January 22 at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester (more info here), and has agreed to stop by and share his perspectives with ROCC entrepreneurs. Thanks Zam!

Hope to see you this Friday. If there are certain topics or speakers that are of interest for future meetings, please let us know...

I don't know about you, but I think December has to be one of the busiest months of the year. Some combination of the holidays and an increased pressure, real or imagined, to have certain things completed 'by year end' makes life way too busy. When I asked other ROCC committee members, they felt the same, so we decided to take a 'holiday' from ROCC this month. It's our gift to you (and what could be better than the gift of found time!).

Several new ideas are being discussed for ROCC in 2009, so stay tuned, and as always, we welcome your thoughts!

For some good perspective as you prepare for the year ahead, check out Don Dodge's latest post, Tough Times Never Last, Tough People Do.

A lot of the talk at October's gathering centered on the current economic crisis and its impact on early stage companies. Sequoia Capital's RIP presentation sent to their portfolio companies also came up in a number of conversations. Yes, it's a tough economy and undoubtedly will be for a while. Beyond the doom and gloom theme of Sequoia's presentation, the core message of being cautious with spending and focusing on how to become cash flow positive are certainly tactics every company should employ.

For those looking for a more "glass is half full" perspective on the current economic times, Don Dodge's recent post is a worthwhile read on why now could actually be a great time to start a company. We're back at Spin Café on Friday, November 14. See you then!

I'm always amazed at the new mix of people that come out to the Open Coffee Club and with the amount of talent that assembles in one room. I also find it interesting that there are so many transplants as well as commuters that make up the mix and are involved in some really interesting companies. It seems as if we have our own melting pot of talent representing both the east and west coast.

One example: Adam Bates, one of the founders of ROCC, who joined us at Spin Café in September. Adam moved to Rochester from Boston where he previously worked for venture-backed MusicMatch, acquired by Yahoo! in 2004. Adam now commutes to his job with another venture-backed on-line music startup based in CA, TopSpin, which is backed by Redpoint Ventures and the Foundry Group.

Benjamin Golub, a developer for CA-based FriendFeed also came out for the first time in September. Founded by former Google staffers, FriendFeed is a great online service that allows users to create a customized feed of the content their friends are sharing across the web, from posts on YouTube to updates on twitter, Facebook or Flikr. Its worth checking out if you haven't already.

Regardless of where people in our tech community have come from or where they may be commuting to, I'm a believer that only good things can come from talented people connecting, so thanks to all who come out to ROCC, and let the networking continue!