Investor Roger Ehrenberg has written a good piece of advice (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=324800) for the entrepreneurs starting a new business in current economy downtime. Being myself one of these crazy guys, I decided to take a shot at my venture and see how the check list really works.<p>core criteria:<p>1) "2-3 person teams, with a CEO who is the product visionary" : NO, that's just me
2) "A strong technology lead" : YES, that's me :)
3) "A CEO who has infectious passion and intensity, yet is humble and coachable" : MAYBE, that's me again, but Google hadn't a CEO when they started either
4) "A business model that I can understand in 30 seconds without visual aids" : YES, I guess
5) "The company has a prototype/alpha version that is currently being challenged by users and generating feedback" : YES and NO, I'm finishing the prototype, but with limited feedback
6) "An ability to generate revenues in 6-9 months" : YES
7) "A business that needs no more than $1-$2 million in financing to become a $25-$50 million (exit value) company, simply by executing the core business plan" : YES and NO, I need less 100k and hope to get around 5m
8) "A business that has an inherent call option, that could boost its base-line exit value by at least 10x" : MAYBE<p>added criteria:<p>1) "Initially sells to the enterprise for branding, credibility, awareness and early revenues" : MAYBE, the product is targeting professionals, as well as the enterprise
2) "Can get to revenues within 6 months, tops" : YES/MAYBE
3) "Is sold on the basis of ROI, e.g., helps generate revenues or reduce headcount/costs" : YES/MAYBE, the product aims to reduce the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
4) "Integrates easily with existing platforms and/or programs" : YES
5) "Either leverages existing open source programs or can itself become partially or fully open source" : YES
6) "Has multiple revenue streams, e.g., software, maintenance, services, etc." : MAYBE, there is always an opportunity to provide consulting when selling to the enterprise<p>well, I suppose there is no single check list that will apply ideally for anything, so what these answers mean to me and what I have to do first to have better chances for attracting investors (angels)?<p>1) find co-founders and CEO
2) get more feedback
3) switch to another idea with better exit projections
4) discover additional revenue streams
5) a combination of these
6) all of the above<p>Any thoughts?