I've been in front of a few investment groups and I really don't think any of them have taken me very seriously because I don't have any numbers or figures for them to crunch. I know my startup is still young, but I think it has a great mission statement and the technology has amazing potential. Are there any groups out there that could invest in an early stage company like mine, to help produce the numbers and figures to validate my technology and get me out of pre-series A.
>> I know my startup is still young, but I think it has a great mission statement and the technology has amazing potential.<<
Sorry - without numbers.. how exactly do you know this? BELIEVING is not knowing. As Bridger mentioned investors with money need something more than your belief.
I know a bunch of Alt Energy angels in the Seattle area but when I see you site with a comment like:
>>"Unlike a turbine, Pterofin technology is: efficient in low currents, inexpensive to manufacture, reliable in heavy currents, has a low cost of maintenance, <<
while saying that you don't have any numbers to crunch - I won't even bother telling them to look at your stuff. Because they will laugh at me for referring them to someone who has no idea how to execute.
For example:
If it is "efficient" in "low currents" (ie low wind speeds) - then you can show that. You can find industry numbers on power output of traditional wind systems - and compare the output of your system in those circumstances.
You can also get windroses for pretty much anywhere in the world and based on the energy output of your device across various wind speeds, you can build a pretty simple Excel spreadsheet that calculates the TYPICAL energy output for anywhere and compare the cost of buying that power vs. the cost you are going to sell at
You can get the cost estimates of manufacturing this by simply putting together production drawings and going to any of the hundreds of machine shops in the Seattle area and find out how much it would cost to build.
You can look at the sales and marketing costs associated with traditional wind turbines and add that to your COGS.
you can get the uptake rate of traditional wind turbines and use that to project the uptake rate of your product.
You also need to be more robust in your claims. Putting it on the roof of a car and driving at 30mph is fine - but that's not the "high wind speed" you need to be robust in. Seattle area typically gets 1-2 windstorms every winter where windspeeds hit 50+mph and its not rare that you get windspeeds in excess of 70mph, particularly in the foothills of the Cascades.
So that means you need to take that contraption out to Moses lake and drive it at 100mph in a straight line to show that you really CAN handle high winds.
You also need to take out a Provisional Patent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_application because this IS a mechanical device and unlike software mechanical devices do need to have IP protections.
Do these things and then email me and if you have a compelling enough presentation, I'll point some of the Seattle area Angels your way.
But you are nowhere near ready for any sort of investment. Remember the rule of thumb...
DELAY GETTING INVESTMENT FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. Because the sooner in the process you get outside investment, the less of the end company you will own
Hi everyone and thanks for the responses!
I didn't expect you all to read every page of my website, but I'm a bit further along than some of you may have guessed.
Mr. Aladekomo, ycombinator looks cool, but we're up in Seattle. Honestly, if I was given 5 cents for every time I was asked to apply to an incubator, I'd be rich. I've already wasted too much time and money doing anything involving one or more judges. I've worked with students in the past and we won a few competitions, but unless they involve students trying to start a real company, the judges only care about profitability and could care less about the overall impact of the business.
Mr. Clegg, I've raised almost 40k through friends and family by selling shares to people I trust and know all of the in's and out's of my company. I've also had many 'team' members and I've never asked anyone to put in their time for free. Everyone who's added any kind of value to my company has or is being compensated through an equity incentive program of shares vesting over time. Unfortunately, it's sweat equity and I'm getting what I'm paying for.
Mr Strauss, I'm happy to connect with anyone you know who might be interested in working with me on this project. Please have them contact me via email at wkempkey@gmail.com. Thank you very much for the message and I think it's great advice! Also, congrats on your partnership and I bet you feel like all that hard work has finally paid off! I'm mostly focused on selling my products through my website and hope to install a few of them as public art in or around the Seattle area. I've also been talking to some neighborhood gardening spaces we call P-Patches and they love the idea of having a source of power or water pressure. I think if people saw my products in action and what they can do for a community, then I'd have better luck finding an investor. I'm definitely open to partnering with another company, so I'll keep networking and looking for connections in the renewable energy industry.