An Evening datablogging Discussion Over Italian

When I headed up to Washington, D.C. I really didn't know how much legwork my friend Dominic had done already to get me in touch with people who could help Reger.com. When I arrived for dinner at a wonderful Italian place we were ushered into a back room... very mobster style... and great for a quiet discussion.

We had already picked up Jeff who works with a company at the intersection of public relations and public policy. Very interesting work.

Oron, Hossein and Tobias arrived shortly afterwards. After starting and exiting a number of successful technology companies (Hossein reportedly sold barscene.com for $6M) the three of them are now engaged in some venture/angel deals. What started as a "meet my friends" dinner quickly turned into something more than that.

Nick showed up too. He worked at large government orgs like the DoD and now runs a consulting shop to help businesses work with the government... contracting, sales, etc. He likes baseball and has a very direct approach.

After a few minutes of smalltalk we all sat down. Now, generally things like this turn into lots of smalltalk plus a little business for the tax writeoff. Which generally annoys me because I enjoy the business stuff more.

Not tonight. I hope everybody enjoyed it, but we stayed full business the whole time. Oron, Hossein and Tobias VC'd me. Lots of questions. Lots of objections.

Which was great.

Jeff offered ties into business strategy. Nick ripped on some of the usability and adoption curve issues.

My goal is to raise a small round of funding. After three hours of back and forth I asked point blank where I was on that quest. The point blank answer was that I don't have enough focus yet.

I gave them very clear definition of our desire to go after the consumer market via enterprise consumer aggregators. Newspapers, radio stations, television stations. They pushed towards an enterprise play but I resisted and maintained a consumer focus. They then pushed for more of a milestone-based plan. More industry numbers. And, of course, more details on how I plan to spend the money.

I have a lot of homework after this meeting. It's somewhat disconcerting to see that after six years of work I still can't convince a group of intelligent and reasonable people that I have a plan. I do have a plan. But my plan is a directional one. It's clear in my head but it doesn't include milestone-based by-the-penny allocations.

It probably should. The difficulty I have is that during the dot com era we slung proformas and predictions around like crazy. I simply won't put forth a plan that's not part of my, well, plan. I won't play the game.

I don't say this by way of any sort of resistance to the guys' feedback. In fact, the opposite. But while other people are willing to sling together a few target markets and fake milestones, I need to do a lot more research. It's the whole ethics thing. People think raising money is about raising money, but it's more about building a relationship. You have to set the correct expectations. When the round is spent who are you going to turn to first for the next round? What are they gonna ask you? Maybe something like: "hey #~{&!, when we were writing you a check you told us x, but then you did y... what the #~{&!?"

I don't have the answer to which vertical target market will be the most profitable for Reger.com. I know that we have feelers out in many industries and that things are starting to happen.

I don't know what features each target market will want. I do know, for example, that a radio station's hot button is content approval and moderation. We have that feature because I started talking to radio stations and heard that feedback.

I don't know if focus on the industry level is the correct type of focus for Reger.com. I may be able to continue to develop features that apply to many industries. Certainly the sales pitch for each industry needs to be created, but that cost may be incrementally small compared to customizing the product. I do asknowledge however that you must start with a baby steps mentality to revenue. Close deals and move on. If you look at the big picture the whole time you'll never turn any revenue. I'm just a little worried about focusing too much right now because there is so much applicability for reger.com and I don't yet know which areas work and which don't.

I don't know exactly how many users will fit on each server... which leads to important profitability calculations for the client. Users in each market will use the site differently and will skew the numbers towards their goals. Our U.S. Army client loads the system in a very different manner than, say, the 18-34 demographic using it to track triathlon workouts.

What the guys did at dinner was tell me that I need such numbers. I could make them up. But I won't. So until we get a sale in each vertical I won't know which one floats the boat. Something of a chicken and egg situation.

But the message that I can't keep pitching to funders without these details is heard loud and clear.

It was a very educational dinner and I'm thankful that those involved were willing to take the time to help me out.

I'll get working on the numbers and research and get it back to them as soon as possible.

And again, big thanks to Dominic for connecting all of us.