Zach Coelius

We are starting the external alpha testing of the product on Monday.  Its very exciting.  If you are interested you can sign up at Triggit.com

On of the first things I did when I moved out here to SF after grad school in Ireland was go to the first techcrunch parties.  In the beginning it was just beers around the fire in the back yard of Mike’s house in Atherton.  Now that techcrunch is a institution things are a little different.  They are having another party on Friday at August capital.  If it is anything like last time it ought to interesting.  Here is a link to the info on techcrunch

Ivan at Snipperoo has a nice anti-facebook screed here, worth a read.   

I have never gotten into facebook either, but the hype is certainly delicious right now.

Dick Costelo over at Ask The Wizard has a great post about how much to raise in your A round in response to Andreessen’s post on the same subject.

Andreessen said the risks of raising to much money are so much smaller then raising to little that it is better to err on the side of buckets of cash rather then living hand to mouth. 

Dick largely agrees but also says that if you raise to much money you might give up your chances of getting acquired as a small easy purchase by Google or whoever.  It might be better to raise a little in certain circumstances.

Of course they are both right. 

But I would like to like to add another variable to the equation.  I call it the “real vs. imaginary company ” factor.  When you first start a company- that first epiphany in the shower early- it is all imaginary.   Every aspect of the company exists in your head.  When you try to imagine how much money you need to raise you are basically guessing.  Depending on how long you have been in the industry, and your experience with this startup thing, the quality of your guess will vary quite a bit.  As a result a lot of people will raise a little bit of money in the beginning to get a sense of where they stand and to figure out what the “real” numbers are.  As you move further and further into the process, and as your company develops, you get a better and better sense of where the money needs to be spent and can be spent.  Your spreadsheet gets to be a lot clearer and your start to understand your business.  It is at this point that you can effectively forecast how much money you will need three, six, twelve and twenty four months out at varying levels of growth and speed. 

My take on much to raise is shaped by this factor.  When I start a business I like to raise and spend as little money as possible (as a factor of dilution) trying to get to the point where things become less imaginary and more real.   Because it is at that point that it becomes possible to effectively raise the right amount of money.  I believe that the right amount of money to raise in your A is the amount you actually need to make your business succeed rather than just some random number.  The reason for this is, as Dick alluded to, every company and market opportunity is different, and raising money is like every other tactical and strategic question you have to answer, there is a “right” answer for your situation and a gradient of less “right” or optimal answers.  Some companies with huge market ops and great dynamics and can and should raise a ton of cash and other companies intended to be a feature for some big players are better off being highly efficient.  It really all depends.

So concretely I would say to raise a reasonable (less then a million) seed round to figure out your business and when it comes time to raise your A you will be a lot closer to knowing what the “right” number ought to be. 

This is neat.

Sue and I started Triggit in a small earthquake house in the mission.  Here are some pictures of those days…

We have started to do a lot of testing of the Triggit tool lately.  It is a really cool experience to be able to play with a technology that has been naught more then a gleam in our eye last year.

Both the limitations and the possibilities are starting to become more clear.  Exciting is an understatement.

Is it just me or is Google Reader down?  This is the first time I have been hit with any downtime with reader and it is mildly disturbing.  I hadn’t realized how much I have come to love reading through reader.  Something to think about.

The fog has started in SF.  Yuck.  Why can’t this city be like everywhere else and be nice in the summer?

So cool…  I want to log this day even though I can’t really talk about what it is yet.  I am really excited.