(see coupon code at the bottom of this post)
VC Pitchfest: Win $10,000 for Your Business with Bill Zanker, Kevin Harrington, Stuart Rudick, Eric Larsen, Ed Lambert and Eric Weaver
Raise Money For Any Business with a Panel of Investors
Whatever business idea you have, chances are you could use some money to get it off the ground. And the good news ....billions...yes....BILLIONS in Venture Capital is available and investors are looking for the next great business idea. But how do you get money?
BONUS: Our lucky students will get to pitch their business idea & the winner will get a $10,000 DOLLAR cash award for their business idea
Our Expert Panel make their living by funding and helping businesses get off the ground and succeed! They'll critique your pitch. You'll learn:
- Where to get the money for your business
- What lenders and venture capitalists really want to hear in your pitch
- What every start-up business needs to do to get investors interested
- Pitfalls that every small business must avoid
- And much more.
Expert Panel of Entrepreneurs & Venture Capitalists includes:
Bill ZankerBill Zanker founded the Learning Annex in 1980 with $5000. Mr. Bill Zanker subsequently grew The Learning Annex from $5.5 million to $107 million in a four-year period. In 1998, Mr. William Zanker started BrainFuel.com, one of the first internet-based eLearning companies. He sold the company for $9 million in 1999. In 1993, Bill Zanker founded The Great American BackRubR, a chain of stress reduction storefronts. Bill Zanker sold his interests in the company in 1997 to The Barclay Group. The Learning Annex's strategy represents the culmination of Mr. Bill Zanker's unwavering commitment to the goal of improving people's lives by sharing knowledge, wisdom, and experiences. Bill Zanker created the first fire walk with Tony Robbins in 1981 and discovered Deepak Chopra in 1982. Mr. Bill Zanker is one of the most respected businessmen in the adult education world, having discovered and promoted thousands of self-help celebrities. Bill Zanker is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life with Donald Trump.
Kevin HarringtonKevin Harrington, CEO of TVGoods.com, LLC, is the infomercial "KING". Since producing the first infomercial in the 1980s, Kevin has financed more than 500 product launches with sales of more than $4 billion worldwide and created millionaires out of ordinary people with an idea. Kevin's other successful infomercial ventures include HSN Direct with Home Shopping Network and TVGoods. Founded in 2005, TVGoods' most popular products currently are: Tony Little fitness, George Foreman cleaning, Jay "the Juice Daddy" Kordich Health, Flying Lure fishing, Wolfman Jack music, and the Dual Saw, with the late legendary pitchman Billy Mays. The author of ACT NOW!, Kevin is also a reality TV star on the new ABC show "Shark Tank" where budding entrepreneurs pitch their moneymaking ideas to him and other investors.
Stuart RudickStuart Rudick has been a practitioner, leader and investor in the health and wellness community for over 30 years. Mr. Rudick is the founding partner of Mindful Investors Fund 1, an investment partnership focused exclusively on opportunities in the rapidly growing healthy, organic, sustainable, consumer products market. Prior to Mindful Investors, Mr. Rudick was a founding partner of Uplift Equity (2003-2006), a private family office that focused on investments in health and wellness. In 1994, Mr. Rudick founded Mindful Partners, L.P., a $140 million hedge fund which focused on public and private investments.
Before founding Mindful Partners, Mr. Rudick was an Associate Director at Bear Stearns Inc. from as well as a partner with Shearson Lehman/Davis Skaggs.. Rudick earned a B.S. in Business from the University of Colorado and has attended the University of Lancaster, UK and MBA course work in Finance at Golden Gate University. He has served as a Director of the University of Colorado Alumni Association and was a founding Board member and Chairman of the Waterkeepers/Baykeeper of Northern California. He currently serves as Board member of Blue Planet Run and a Foundation Board Member of the Mill Valley Library. Over the past two decades, Mr. Rudick has been actively supporting leading environmental groups including NRDC, Rainforest Action Network, Blue Water Network/Friends of the Earth and Outward Bound Youth at Risk. Mr. Rudick's is an active member of B Corporation, Investors' Circle and Environmental Entrepreneurs.
Chris LarsenChris Larsen is CEO and Co-founder of Prosper, America's largest peer-to-peer lending marketplace with 850,000 members and $180 million in loans facilitated. Prosper is a continuation of Larsen's commitment to leveraging the Internet to make consumer lending markets more efficient, transparent, and trustworthy.
Prior to Prosper, Larsen co-founded and served as Chairman and CEO of E-Loan.
Mr. Larsen serves at the Board and Advisory levels at numerous companies and organizations including, ACCION International's Center for Financial Inclusion, Center for Financial Inclusion / Mott Foundation un- and underbanked financial services research group, CreditKarma, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Progresso Financial, Qifang, and The Silicon Valley Community Foundation's anti-payday lending policy committee. He is also a member of the Young Presidents' Organization (YPO).
Mr. Larsen holds an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University and a B.S. degree from San Francisco State University, where he was named the 2004 Alumnus of the Year.
Ed LambertEd Lambert is a Senior Vice-President with Bridge Bank-focusing on creating and expanding relationships with Emerging Growth to Public High-Tech, Green and Life Science Companies. He began his 27 years of banking/lending experience with Bank of America and has achieved significant success wherever he has worked including Silicon Valley Bank, Imperial Bank and Comerica Bank. Ed also began the Tech Practice for Coast Business Credit, building to $20-30MM in annual commitments. He contributes this success to being an overall "solution source" partner to clients, prospects, referral partners and colleagues - for any problem. Ed has employed this focus on providing solutions to companies from seed to public--including such well known companies as Cisco, Atmel, CNET, Biomarin, Cepheid, Mattson, Read-Rite, Pandora, Solar City, Serious Materials and Cadence to name a few. At Bridge, his focus is to provide a combination of "virtual" and human support to clients that will allow them to grow domestically and internationally.
Ed holds an MBA from Santa Clara University and a BA in history from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Ed has sat on several boards, including the executive committee of the American Electronics Association, the Silicon Valley Assoc. of Software Entreprenuers (SVASE), He has spoken at Tech events in the U.S. and Europe and is a contributing blogger on banking and VC issues to AlwaysOn Networks.
Eric WeaverEric Weaver, founder and CEO of Opportunity Fund, has combined his background as a community organizer with an education from Stanford Business School to develop an innovative not-for-profit financial institution that uses market principles to effect systemic change.
Under his leadership, Opportunity Fund has gown into one of the nation's largest and most effective microfinance institutions, with an emphasis on both savings and credit. Opportunity Fund operates one of the nation's largest Individual Development Account (IDA) program, and is the largest provider of micro-loans to low-income entrepreneurs in California.
In 2006, Eric was named one of the first seven recipients of the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award, awarded to individuals who are successfully tackling some of California's most challenging problems. In addition, the Skoll Foundation has twice selected Opportunity Fund for the Skoll Award for Innovation in Silicon Valley; and the Small Business Administration named Eric Weaver its Financial Services Advocate of the Year in 2006.
No comments:
Post a Comment