Venture Choice an asp that has been used in a variety of ways. The initial purpose was to create a format for having a universal business plan input for venture company evaluation. I convinced the designers of the impracticality of that concept (businesses are too different to have any sort of universal plan format).

The second variation had a right side and left side. The right side was for businesses to input an executive plan, attach their documentation, and have this available for review by people interested in funding ventures. The left side was for venture funders to have the opportunity to use the program to evaluate potential investments.

I proposed a side variation in which Venturchoice was turned into an ASP for venture organizations in which they could solicit and review b-plans for their own purposes - (ie. used exclusively and private by organizations such as the Foundation for Enterprise Development - for a license fee of course) This did not take off due to not having a sales force.

The second phase was again limited on the investors side as most venture organizations and individuals have their own evaluation criteria and sources. Thus there were limited numbers of venture funders signing up to review the businesses that have entered info looking for capital. These organizations have their own network for finding opportunities.

Thus development of the third phase, in which Venturchoice is presently being used, as a Mentoring Program and networking for partner venture organizations. A business will contact the company (or be sent to Venturchoice by partner funding organizations) - enter their information and pay a Mentoring fee - the principles with Venture Choice will work with the business to help them prepare a presentation for potential venture funders.

While I don’t care for the present format of use - I’m not going to take over operations and change things.

My recommendation for you is to look over the site and open thoughts to potential. Presently I am working with a group here in Melbourne, Australia to establish the Australian Entrepreneurship Association (AEA). I have been given permission to use Venturechoice.com as a tool to support Entrepreneurship in Australia. My concept is to allow businesses to enter their information (does not need to be an AEA member) - the entry is to be reviewed for quality of entry by AEA consultants (contracted by AEA) — then made available for review by AEA members interested in making business investments (They will be given access based on AEA membership)

The goal is to have an Entrepreneur / Financial meeting - on their own time and place - the intermediary (Venturechoice) only introduced them. No liability for vouching on either entity will be made. As for income for the AEA (and to pay the Venturechoice license fee) - I forsee advertising by business services companies. (Not being used on present site)

Anyway - if you think of variables or have interest in working on a direction please let me know and we may talk further.
Cheers,
Blake

I’m assigned to the CTO of Comcast working on new technologies and products. I’m currently building a number of interactive applications on connected home devices. In so doing, I’m learning all about the next generation of Peripheral Internet devices.

I am enjoying working with silicon manufacturers, software start ups and established players in the process of inventing new distributed applications.

Currently I’m developing an interactive portal on a touch-sensitive digital picture frame. It will display interesting information to users in near real-time.

I’m also working on new energy monitoring tools and software. I built a prototype website to learn more about this area. It’s available at http://www.currentwatchers.com On it, I display my home’s real-time energy consumption and allow users to add their own data as well.

Last year I filed 12 patents covering various areas associated with distributed computing.

I’m continuing to take graduate courses at Harvard in Comp Sci to keep current.

All is very busy, and I’m being very productive.

You have to meet Dr. Griffith… You’d really enjoy the experience.

Mike

The concept Cuban is using is not new - but his boundaries are his criteria - and anyone with money to lend/invest should have some strong boundaries of risk they are willing to accept. Of course RISK is the key concept in all financial transactions - the problem we have is - the risk is mitigated by government bailout - so what is the true risk? That is for another discussion

I wanted to show you a company that is slowly moving along - I have been an advisor since the begining.

http://www.venturechoice.com - this company web site was originally designed to help match entrepreneurs/business owners and venture funding organizations. The business plans are entered by enterpreneur/owner - the venture funding organization joins (pays fee) and puts in their criteria and PRESTO - a list of opportunities for investment are provided. Of course they can search all entries. The present operations of the compnay have adjusted strategy towards a mentoring process rather than open market.

If you want to know more- please email me and I’ll fill you in on how the process may be adapted for private organizations (Such as Cuban) and for open market groups - I’m presently setting this up for Australia.

Blake Escudier

I’m changing the subject a bit here from your original posting… Hope you don’t mind.

I went to a good conference today. http://www.greenergadgets.com/index.php/schedule/

I’m researching green products and services… So, it was very interesting.

But the best part was that I got the opportunity to meet a really interesting person. His name is Dr. Saul Griffith, and I think you’d get a kick out of meeting him. Here’s a link to his bio: http://www.makanipower.com/griffith.html and another of a magazine article about him: http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/14/smbusiness/Saul_Griffith.fsb/?postversion=2007111509

Anyway, he’s done quite a bit of research on current and projected energy consumption patterns from individuals to nations. He’s got the best slide deck I’ve seen on the projected energy needs and possible alternatives to meet the demand. And he gave a very thought provoking lecture on both the need to increase energy supply and the imperative to reduce demand.

Trust me, the guy is very bright. And he’s apparently a passionate sailor. If you get a chance, you should meet him. You’ll be impressed, I think.

Be well,
Mike