I just finished a panel session on startup financing and venture capitalism. The moderator of the panel was Susan Wu, who works for Charles River Ventures. There was a lot of talk about various issues and stages in VC funding, but there were a few key things everyone should take away from the session:

1. If you don't have a product or company plan to make more than $100 million in revenue per year, then venture capital is not your thing. Look for other funding options as VC's are only interested in big markets.

2. Qualities VC's look for: passion, integrity, leadership, insight, devotion, and self-awareness. You should know your weaknesses and be able to build a team that has strengths in your weak areas.

3. When you make your business plan for capitalists, make it in a combination of Powerpoint and Excel. Use Powerpoint for the explanation and keep it to no more than 10-15 slides. Use Excel for the data backup.

Also, a question from the audience about the difference between east coast and west coast funding yielded an interesting opinion from one of the panel members. He said the main difference he saw was that the west coast VC was driven by passion while the east coast VC was largely driven by data and facts. The reason being that on the west coast, the market is moving much faster and is more competitive, so decisions have to be made quickly.

Now in a session with Ernest Adams about the next god games..