investment Archives - MICHAEL REUTER

Investment Conditions

michaelreuter — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:40:51 +0000

So here are my conditions for an investment in your start-up:

It can be an existing business or a start up.

It can not be a business that generates any revenue from advertising. Why ? Because I want this to be a business where you sell something and get paid for it. That’s the only way to get and stay profitable in such a short period of time.

It MUST BE CASH FLOW BREAK EVEN within 60 days

It must be profitable within 90 days.

Funding will be on a monthly basis. If you dont make your numbers, the funding stops

You must demonstrate as part of your plan that you sell your product or service for more than what it costs you to produce, fully encumbered

Everyone must work. The organization is completely flat. There are no employees reporting to managers. There is the founder/owners and everyone else

You must post your business plan here, or you can post it on slideshare.com , scribd.com or google docs, all completely public for anyone to see and/or download

I make no promises that if your business is profitable, that I will invest more money. Once you get the initial funding you are on your own

I will make no promises that I will be available to offer help. If I want to , I will. If not, I wont.

If you do get money, it goes into a bank that I specify, and I have the ability to watch the funds flow and the opportunity to require that I cosign any outflows.

In your business plan , make sure to specify how much equity I will receive or how I will get a return on my money.

Ah — sorry — these are not my rules — since I’m no billionare — but those of Marc Cuban. So feel free to mail him. Or come back to me if your start-up will be cash-flow positive within a week and break-even within two

The post Investment Conditions appeared first on MICHAEL REUTER.

In Economic Downturn: Look forward

michaelreuter — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:54:24 +0000

There’s a lot of gloomsaying these days — not only in the banking scene or at Wall Street. The internet, web 2.0 and all new start-up business model seem — again — to be on a knife-edge. VCs are mulling over high evaluations — start-ups are being told (again) to become more humble. Since it’s always easy to join the club of doomsayers at the right time the ‘Look-Forward-post’ of Fred Wilson should be seen as today’s highlight. Fred encourages us to

assess what is working and what is not working in your business or your portfolio. Focus on the basics. Keep your costs down. Finance your company (or companies) intelligently and most importantly with money that will be around when you are no longer the high flyer darling of Techcrunch.
But don’t look backward for the right model to follow. Look forward.

Thanks, Fred.

The post In Economic Downturn: Look forward appeared first on MICHAEL REUTER.

European Founders Fund acquires stake in Facebook

michaelreuter — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:35:54 +0000

Germany based VC European Founders Fund EFF is said to acquire a stake in Facebook. Run by the three Samwer brothers (sold Alando to ebay, later Jamba to VeriSign) the European Founders Fund normally is known for smaller investments at early stages. Marc Samwer said that EFF’s stake would not match Microsoft’s but they would be the third biggest investor in Facebook after the software company and Hong Kong billionaire

January 15, 2008

The post European Founders Fund acquires stake in Facebook appeared first on MICHAEL REUTER.