VCs don’t invest in ideas… They invest in people. You need to tell why people should invest in you. Talk about the startups that you’ve worked with and how you’ve helped them succeed. Talk about the team you have that’s going to build this.

I’d also echo the sentiment that settling on a rough idea might be a motivator… While most VCs and successful entrepreneurs know darn well that ideas are just shy of worthless, I think the rest of the world really believe that the idea is 90% of the battle.

G’luck!

Don’t forget that you have TechquilaShots.com and all the screen estate and page views that it provides. Unless you have a fundamental problem with putting advertising up over there, if you are going to put ads on this site that some larger investor/sponsor is paying for, why not place them over there as well.

Heck, why not create your own “micro ad ring” and allow contributors to participate with you in the process? I’d see it going something like this: you already have it set up to receive PayPal contributions. It’ wouldn’t be terribly hard to set up an install of OpenAds and manage ad placement on others blogs. You sponsor/investors would be getting page views, and if you wrapped the ad units in some sort of memorable Ring Side Startup mock up with a link back to this site (in addition to the outgoing link to the actual ad) everyone might win.

The person placing the RSSU.com ad would be “participating” with you, the advertiser/sponsor gets more page views than just what you might be able to generate with this site alone, and RSSU.com gets some more visibility and incoming links as well.

What do you think?

-You’ve got to be patient and stick with it – few things are an instant success. Stay positive, keep doing the work, keep bringing people on one at a time, keep building the buzz, and then 3 weeks from now, just when you’re about to quit, that front page digg (or the equivalent) will happen and you’ll raise the rest of the money in an afternoon.

-Put yourself in your potential contributor’s shoes and ask yourself what the value is to them. My motivation for signing up was twofold: 1. I’m actually interested in learning along with you as you build the company and look forward to participating. 2: $10 for two links back to my blog and corporate site (especially if this takes off) is a good investment. Now, not everyone has the same motivations as me and will be of different value to you so you need to find additional drivers of value for your potential audience to really get this moving.

-As Seth Godin would say, you need to “get to the edges.” One place to start would be with the cost of participating. 5$ as a minimum is sort of middle of the road. Maybe go super low (1$ and let everyone put up a logo / blurb) or go high ($750 each and they get equity – that gets you your money but keeps you below the 35 person fund raising threshold). This is just one example – there are lots of other potential directions here.

-You may gain some affinity by better defining the project up front to give people a clear vision of what exactly it is they are participating in. As it stands right now, you have an interesting fund raising project, not a business which, as I said before, is interesting to me but maybe not the broader audience. Getting crystal clear about what you are doing now will also help you down the road as you prepare to ask for VC (or even angel) money. Just don’t make it about Twitter – please, I can’t handle anything more about Twitter…

Good luck, -Adam

I think your concerns about equity are well-founded. However, I think there is a simple solution that could help navigate the legal landscape while also getting the fundraising fired up. I used this when I opened on e-tailer and while the long term prospects didn’t work out, my “investors” ended up pleased to have participated. (That said, I’m sure every situation is a little different in the legal sense, so make sure and double-check my work here.)

In essence, I offered not equity but a deferred cash payment for each dollar invested. It was essentially a forgivable loan to be paid out at one specific point in time. In this case, something like “1.5 dollars back for each dollar invested, paid either within 18 months of when I declare launch or when the company bank balance has averaged more then $50k for 90 days, whichever comes LATER. No equity attached” You’d need a little more protective language, but that might suffice.

You are essentially trading 30k in a year and a half for 20k right now. While that sounds like a bad bet – and in a vacuum, it is a bad bet – such a structure might work fabulously for this project. 18 months from now, your project will be in one of four places:

1. Non-existent. Put a provision in the contributing terms that says if the business doesn’t exist and has been disolved, there obviously won’t be any money to pay out.

2. Making revenue, but not enough to justify a payout. Thus the provision of “whichever comes later” protects you until the bank balance gets over the 50k average threshold.

3. Bringing in more funding, some of which can be used to pay off the initial contributors or maybe even extend their interest.

4. Making enough cash that you can pay the 30k and that’s that.

Obviously consulting with a lawyer is a good idea, but I think you should be able to add some enticements without having to form a Corp. or get accredited folks or worry about the SEC.

Keep up the awesome work, definitely looking forward to seeing the progress!