The Power of Commitments & Deadlines
(twentieth
in a series)
If youÕre like me, and regretfully, a number of you are, you always have more things to do than time to get them done. Like me, IÕm guessing that deadlines (urgency, in Stephen CoveyÕs vernacular) drive what you do way too often as compared to priorities (importance).
For example, IÕm writing this article Sunday afternoon because I know Steve Czetli is patiently (?) waiting for it so he can publish MondayÕs issue of TechyVent. I should have done it earlier, because this is important to me, but things kept on interfering, so now I sit here in urgency mode.
Enough about me, letÕs talk about you.
I hope that some of you have benefited from these weekly columns. I hope that many of you feel that youÕve learned something, and that somewhere along the line, you may have had an ÒAh, ha!Ó moment, as in, ÒAh, ha! Now I get it!Ó
Further, IÕm going to assume [One of my two least favorite words in entrepreneurial settings; the other one being, Òinterest.Ó] that raising money for your venture is IMPORTANT to you. If that ÒassumptionÓ is accurate, then my question to you is, ÒWhat have you taken from this series of articles and applied to your business and fund raising efforts?Ó
If youÕre like many of the entrepreneurs IÕve worked with, the answer is probably, ÒItÕs in my To Do stack and IÕll work on it when I can get to it. After all, IÕve got a business to run here.Ó
Sound familiar? As they say, ÒWhen youÕre up to youÕre a__ in alligators, itÕs hard to remember that youÕre in there to drain the swamp.Ó
For many of you, though, resolving your fund raising strategy and implementing it is critical to your ability to Òdrain the swamp.Ó
You may not need, or want, outside capital, and thatÕs fine and probably the right decision for many of you. Have you considered the implications of organic growth and the constraints of growing without external capital? Have you considered the alternatives, including raising outside capital and made an informed and intentional decision that you are going to go it alone? If so, good for you.
If you havenÕt done that analysis and come to that conclusion, then you need to go through that exercise and make a commitment to it.
If, on the other hand, you know that you will need access to some outside capital, then youÕve got to make that a priority and act upon it. If not, youÕre running at a cliff (running out of cash), and youÕre going to go running right over the edge!
I know, I know. YouÕre thinking that this sounds good in theory, but itÕs next-to-impossible to make happen in practice. Not so, dear reader, and I will share my solution to this conundrum with you.
Throughout this series, I have closed almost every column with the advice that you need to surround yourself with people who will help you level the playing field when you are trying to raise money. Well, if you do the job right, and engage these individuals with the respect and consideration they deserve, they can play an essential role in helping you to get the right things done on time.
While the full scope of a constructive relationship with such individuals is the topic for a complete column, in the context of todayÕs discussion, suffice it to say that you need to communicate with your advisors with a certain amount of frequency and occasional direct personal interaction.
If so, they are likely to see the Òbig pictureÓ even better than you, whoÕs Òup to his a__ in alligators.Ó They can bring a perspective to your situation that can help you identify and prioritize the important issues that need to be addressed. The can help you determine the activities that must be completed.
NOW COMES THE IMPORTANT PART, you need to make a commitment to them that you will get certain tasks done by a certain date! ItÕs that simple. If you are going to be a successful entrepreneur, your integrity must be above reproach. You have an inner compass (stealing metaphors from Covey, again) that wonÕt let you go back on your word. If you make a commitment, you will keep that it.
Deadlines for investor presentations can be extraordinarily beneficial for entrepreneurs. Such deadlines create urgency. They force you to resolve some of those fuzzy issues that are floating around in your head. They make you consider what your audience wants to hear, how to present it, and to prepare responses to their anticipated questions.
This is a very real phenomenon. At the Enterprise Corporation of Pittsburgh, we had a program called the Private Investor Group [the acronym was an intention inside joke]. Virtually every month, Tom Canfield and I would help an entrepreneurial venture prepare to make a presentation to a group of private investors.
By virtue of having to get prepared for the presentation, itÕs my estimate that the entrepreneurs gained orders of magnitude of sophistication and appreciation during the six weeks leading up to the presentation.
Over the last two years of the Enterprise Corporation, 17 out of 22 presenters were able to raise funds, many as a direct result of the presentation and its preparation. This success is not a coincidence!
If you have an opportunity to present to a group of investors in virtually any venue, do it! You may not raise money as a direct result, but you will significantly raise the probability that you will raise money eventually.
Commitments and deadlines will contribute significantly to your fund raising prospects.
Note: InnovationWorks sponsors the successors to these efforts, Southwestern Pennsylvania Angel Network (SPAN), for its portfolio companies, and co-sponsors LifeSPAN that focuses on entrepreneurial ventures in the life sciences arena with the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. Go to the InnovationWorks website for more information, or contact Matt Harbaugh, Director of External Finance at InnovationWorks.
1. Make important things urgent, so you can assure that you will get them done.
2. Make commitments to your advisors and mentors, and live up to them.
3. If youÕre given the opportunity to pitch your deal, DO IT!
4. Build a network of mentors, advisors, professionals, and entrepreneurs who have Òbeen there and done that.Ó
Frank Demmler (fd0n@andrew.cmu.edu) is Adjunct Teaching Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University. (http://web.gsia.cmu.edu/display_faculty.aspx?id=168)