Learn the VCs game, if you're an entreprenuer serious about making $$$

What is series A funding? How much return does a VC expect for his investment?

These are just some of the things I realise that we never learn at SMU even if you take finance courses (as I did). For LKY global biz competition, I thought calculating NPV using a 30% return was more than generous. I only discovered after reading the Harvard Entrepreneurs guide that VCs expect 60-70% returns.

Of course, the VC LKY judge who asked me if I thought if "30% rate of return was too low" was a dumbass (like anyone in finance except a VC would think 30% is low) to assume that everyone would know what HE expects. But I think it's a sign that the entreprenuers of SMU really need to buff our knowledge. Seems like at NUS they learn the more technical aspects of the VC trade.

I'll be reading up on it and posting the details here but you should have a look at this in the meantime if you want to find out more: http://www.entrepreneur27.org/sg/2007/06/21/entrepreneurs-educate-yourself-first-before-taking-vc/

Another disadvantage would be our financials. I had hoped that financials forecasts would be our strong suite in the competition but apparently it wasn't. I had learnt a lot more finance and accounting than the other teams but the financials we learnt are meant for normal book-keeping or corporate reporting.

Fund raising requires a different approach. Here's a link to a guide containing an excel file for a captialisation table, which should be useful for entreprenuers trying to raise funds or the next team from SMU that wants to take part in LKY.

The video below explains how to use it:



I sure wish I could have presented our financials that good when it was our turn (not that it would have made a difference since some of the judges where only paying attention to the skirt behind me and not the slides).

How to get into the computer games industry

Paul Barnett from EA gives a good, and funny, look at how to get into the computer game industry.

TYLER Projects and Mobile Weapon featured on Mr. Brown's WTF show!