Venture Northwest 2009 Application Guidelines
Thursday, October 29 | The Nines Hotel | Portland | 8:00 am - 4:00 pm
OEN Venture Northwest is the premier forum for new and emerging investment opportunities in exciting companies throughout the Pacific Northwest. This conference will showcase venture ready companies to visiting investors. If your company is venture-ready we invite you to apply. We’re looking for strong companies from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia who are ready to demonstrate their promise and progress.
Benefits of applying to Venture Northwest
Application price includes review by selection committee and one Venture Northwest conference registration regardless of selection. We encourage all applicants to attend and to fully leverage the exceptional networking opportunities Venture Northwest offers.
Submit payment for application including your single conference registration via the online event registration page. Payment must be received for the screening committee to review your application. To apply for OEN Venture Northwest, please submit the following elements for consideration by the Venture Northwest Screening committee.
Application Pricing, Benefits & Payment
(Payment must be received for the screening committee to review the application.)
Member price: $350
Includes:
+ Review by selection committee
+ One Venture Northwest conference registration
Non-member price: $545
Includes:
+ Review by selection committee
+ One Venture Northwest conference registration
+ One-year discounted small company membership, a $54 savings
OEN Venture Northwest Application deadline: Tuesday, September 8 – 5:00pm. Application guidelines are detailed on the following pages.
OEN Venture Northwest Application Checklist
OEN Venture Northwest Application deadline: Wednesday, September 2 – 5:00pm
3. Upload a 10-slide (2 MB max) PowerPoint presentation via the online form. (Not the final draft for the actual conference but rather additional information for the screening committee.)
4. Upload a word document that has a 25-word and 50-word description of your company for use on the OEN website and in the program.
5. Upload a word document that has a 600-word company summary that addresses the following:
• Business Summary: Description of company, what it does, why it will succeed.
• Management Team: Executive team’s track record.
• Product: Clear description of product or service, including versus competition.
• Served Market: Description, size, and growth.
• Sales/Marketing Strategy: Target market and how you will reach prospective customers.
• Core Competency or Competitive Position: Your Company’s unfair advantage.
• Scalability/Liquidity Opportunity: How investors will make money.
• Financial: Financial plan and financing strategy.
• Contact information: Contact person, role, phone, email, etc.
6. Submit payment for applying and your conference registration via the online event registration page. Payment must be received for the screening committee to review your application.
7. If selected to present you will be expected to meet
coaching and presentation time requirements.
Description of Required VNW Application Elements
Please read carefully below the description of everything you need to submit to help make your Venture Northwest experience go smoothly.
Executive Summary
• Executive summary may not exceed five (5) pages.
• No attachments to your summary will be allowed.
Your summary should tell potential investors why your company will succeed. Investors want to know about your “unfair advantage.” You must have a cover page complete with name, address, phone and fax numbers, and contact person. (Note: Your cover page does not count toward the five-page limit for this document.) Your opening paragraph should contain a brief summary description of your business. In general, it is a good idea for your summary to mirror, as much as possible, the categories used by the selection committee. Those categories are:
• Management Team: Executive team’s track record.
• Product: Clear description of product or service, including versus competition.
• Served Market: Description, size, and growth.
• Sales/Marketing Strategy: Target market and how you will reach prospective customers.
• Core Competency or Competitive Position: Your Company’s unfair advantage.
• Scalability/Liquidity Opportunity: How investors will make money.
• Financial: Financial plan and financing strategy.
In our experience, investors find the marketing strategy and management sections of particular importance: they will want to know how you are going to make money, and the track record of those who will make it happen. In your financing section, be sure to discuss how much money you are seeking to raise and roughly what you think your pre-money valuation will be.
PowerPoint Presentation
• Presentation shall not exceed 10 (ten) slides /or 2 MB file size
• Should be a serviceable but not the final draft of the presentation the CEO would give to investors from the Venture Northwest stage
Your draft presentation should adhere to the story you tell potential investors in your executive summary. Pay particular attention to the categories used by the selection committee listed above. Use only those graphics and charts that reinforce your summary's claims or show market opportunities.
25 & 50 word description for the OEN website and the Venture Northwest program guide
Please create a word doc named [Insert company name] description.doc. This doc needs to contain both a 25 word description that OEN can use on its website (if your company is chosen to present) as well as a 50 word company description. Please also provide the contact information for the company that you would want a potential investor to use. The 50 word description is intended for OEN to use to produce the program for Venture Northwest that will be given to all the attendees.
Recap: The word doc needs the following.
1) 25 word company description
2) 50 word company description
3) Contact information for potential investors
600-word company summary
Submit a word doc that contains your company description. This will be used instead of the 50-word description in the Venture Northwest Conference program in the event your company is chosen to present. The goal is to have a quick summary to share with potential investors. Your summary should include:
• Management Team: Executive team’s track record.
• Product: Clear description of product or service, including versus competition.
• Served Market: Description, size, and growth.
• Sales/Marketing Strategy: Target market and how you will reach prospective customers.
• Core Competency or Competitive Position: Your Company’s unfair advantage.
• Scalability/Liquidity Opportunity: How investors will make money.
• Financial: Financial plan and financing strategy.
Judging for Venture Northwest
In past years, submitters have been curious about how the plans are judged. The evaluation process occurs in two steps.
In the first step, the 50 - 100 received plans are evaluated by several selection committee members for a "yes," "maybe," or "no" decision. The resulting scores are entered into a spreadsheet (yes =2, maybe = 1, no = 0). The spreadsheet is sorted so that the proposals are ranked in descending order. Then the selection committee meets to discuss the spreadsheet, which is used as a starting point for the conversation, not as a mechanical decision-making tool. The goal of this step is to select the top plans for greater scrutiny.
In the second step, the top plans are evaluated on both qualitative and quantitative criteria. The quantitative evaluation puts heavy emphasis on the management team and the sales and marketing elements of the plan. The qualitative check is designed to be a "gut check" for evaluators to find those plans where the elements don't look good individually, but the sum total feels like it could be hot (or vice versa). The spreadsheet we have used in the past for both evaluations is attached for your reference.
We reserve the right to change the criteria or the weighting or both, but this will give you a good idea of how we will approach the selection process.
Requirements for Companies Chosen to Present
If your company is among those selected to present at Venture Northwest, you will be expected to agree to the following time commitments as you prepare for the conference.
1) Mandatory orientation and rehearsal meeting (2hours) – Early October, date TBA
2) Prepare a tabletop exhibit for conference – Thursday, October 29.
3) Present and attend the conference and reception – Thursday, October 29.
Special pricing exists for additional employees from presenting companies. If selected to present, you can bring additional company members to attend and represent your company at the reduced rate of $125. You will be informed how to take advantage of that opportunity close to the event.