NatureCure Technologies, LLC
The MIT Enterprise Forum “Run It By the Pros” event on Wednesday January 7 brought a full house at Sutherland’s meeting facility and three very different companies. More detailed profiles later, but here’s a quick post with the highlights. The presenting companies included NatureCureTechnologies, LLC, which offers an all-natural skin care treatment to prevent bed sores, Camisalibre (or Free Workshirt), a subscription based job board for blue-collar workers, and HydroCoal, inventor of processing systems for more efficient coal refining. The Pros on hand were Mark Grace of BeyondVia, Glenn McGonnigle of TechOperators, Peter Quittmeyer of Sutherland, and Alan Urech of Stoney River Capital, whose bios are at the Forum’s site.
This event is designed to be an audition with constructive feedback for companies honing their pitches. The Pros were mostly complimentary. Their comments covered the usual bases – distribution channels, focus, legal protection, presentation styles (look at audience, not at your own slides) — and were indeed constructive.
Our major observations:1. We were struck by the wide disparity in the math among the three presenters. One company was seeking $440K to build a $3M business in 5 years, another $1M to reach $59M, and the third $4-6M to achieve $327M in revenues. From this one session it would be hard to argue which of the three has the most investor risk, so wouldn’t the ones with the much bigger plans be more attractive? We would welcome some investor comments on this. If you’re going to put your money at risk, or your partners’ money, why not shoot high?
2. We can’t help but cite the one presentation that managed to work all these buzzwords into its very first slide: unique business model, seamless, scalable, viral, sticky, branded, transactional, easy to use, Web 2.0, social networking. All of these were negated by the subsequent use of the term “retire founder debt” — which did not escape the attention of the Pros.
3. The event was carefully moderated by Karen Rands, but 10 minute presentations seemed to be too limiting for 3 such different companies with generally complicated stories. We’ve seen 1, 3, 10, 20, and 30-minute formats, and I’m sure all these presenters would have welcomed a little more time. The event accomplished its coaching mission, but I’d expect any actual presentations to live investors to take much longer for this particular selection of companies.
4. Although not part of the program, one Forum attendee related a timely banking story involving a group of well-to-do small-town investors seeking to renew a land loan at Wachovia. The bank wanted to impose new and significantly more onerous terms, and the investors summarily gave the bank 3 choices: renew as is; take an $X Million haircut on an immediate payoff; or sue, listen for the jeers in the courtroom from all who had ridden their Wachovia shares down to the bottom, and end up with a $2X Million haircut after foreclosure. I suspect the bank renewed as is. For all of us who are wrestling with banks that accept TARP dollars but no longer make loans, it’s nice to hear that some customers still have bargaining power.
