I popped into Coming to America (#c2a)  today and it was a really good event.

It was put on by Mitchel Lake and MC’d by Rand Leeb du Toit, who did a great job of keeping things moving while adding his own interesting anecdotes.

The panel in Silicon Valley (who joined the room by video conference) was made up of the following people:

• Ben Keighran from BluePulse
• Matt Symons from Accenture
• Ryan Junee from Google (ex Omnisio)
• Tristen Langley from Southern Cross Venture Partners
• David Cannington from Sensear

They did a top job of going through the pros and cons of the 2 pitches and the advice they offered was right on the money.

I was looking around the room as the panel members were speaking and various people in attendance that have great experience in the startup and investment space were nodding their heads in agreement with their comments.

Interactive TV (sorry I don’t have a link) was the first company to pitch. They’re really trying to capture that TV as the communication and entertainment centre of the home, segment. I don’t have a lot of experience with hardware-based solutions, but the demo of streaming content was seamless, even on a dodgy unwired link. If the finished product is as good as they say it is, then there’s massive potential provided they can address the big issues around either getting to market directly or partnering with a telco.

Perkler was the second team pitching. We’ve covered Perkler a couple of times already at TNA, so many of you will already know them. For those who don’t, Perkler are the Yellow Pages [Enter appropriate analogy here] of Loyalty Programs. The idea is a little different to things like coupon sites as they’re focusing on “entitlement shopping” or things you’re entitled to as part of loyalty programs, rather than just ad-hoc discounts.

it’s great to see their business progressing so well and that they’re getting such interest from the market. CMO Justin Barrie’s pitch was smooth, covering all the key components and his answers to the panel’s questions show that he and the team are right on top of what they need to be doing.

One nice touch was the fact that they are trying to raise $700K which is going to be made up of $200K from the founders. I’m pretty sure that anyone who’s sold on the business value wouldn’t mind putting the additional $200K in themselves, but it’s a nice sign of founder confidence that they’re willing to wear a significant amount of financial risk as well.

Looking at the type of questions/comments the panel members were making there seemed to be a trend around:

• The need to understand distribution for your product/service and to have a reasonable distribution strategy.
• The need to be able to identify the big picture but to focus on the markets that you’re capable of winning first. Mick Liubinskas from Pollenizer calls this Focus! (actually more people than Mick call it focus, but he’s a massive proponent).
• A need to understand unit economics of what it is you’re doing. How many buyers, how much is each one worth, what’s each one cost to get etc. It’s basic stuff but can often be overlooked when looking at the big picture and not the detail.
• The need to go to the US and start meeting people there if your goal is to be funded and to do business there.  Matt Symons suggested using a 2-stage approach: go over once to take meetings and to meet people without asking for money. @BrianMenzies suggested this very thing to me as well, several months ago, so if he’s saying it too then it’s definitely sound advice. The basic rationale is that at early stage investment levels, the team is just as important as the product/service, so you need to go there and start developing relationships so people will want to work with you. On top of that it’s a good way of getting feedback and setting a line in the sand and saying, “this is what we’re doing now, this is where we want to be at in 3 months”. If you can be there next time you meet in 3 months then you’ve just demonstrated an ability to execute.

A big congrats to Phaedon and the Mitchel Lake team for putting on the event and for getting such a quality group of people to attend. Also a big thanks has to go to the panel and the pitching companies for their contributions.

Lastly, I had to sneak out quickly when it ended so to all the people who were there that I didn’t get to say hello to, my apologies. I look forward to catching up with you all soon.