Caught this report out of IrishTimes.com – a company raised a nice pot of venture funding exclusively through LinkedIn.
That’s the kind of story worth looking at;-)
2% in ten shares of €25,000
According to the article about Goshido on IrishTimes.com, they sent out some seven hundred inquiries through LinkedIn, received two hundred responses, and worked through those over the phone, email and twitter to close €162,500 in eight days. (sounds like they booked six and a half of those ten shares)
At 2% for the ten shares, that looks like a .2% ownership per share – not bad for the company or the investors.
The article doesn’t mention what happened to the remaining three and a half shares – presumably they’ll also get sold now due to the publicity.
Business prospects
Taking a look at the company web site, it seems reasonable to me that the venture could succeed. The founder has spent time at Motorola, Digital, Tellabs, and most recently Intel. The product appears to be a web based project management tool – and who wouldn’t love to have a reason to dump MS Project?-)
And yes – the founder is on LinkedIn, though I think he could do more with his profile;-) He’s got 209 connections and is a third degree connection to me.
Before you leap…
I know it sounds attractive to head out and do a similar thing – but please remember to take the time to get things in order first.
You’ve got to have a sound business and plan for that business. Just because people get your message over LinkedIn doesn’t mean they’ll toss their dollars at a wacky idea.
The message you send has to be well crafted. (I’d love to get a copy of the Goshido message – but don’t expect that I’ll find it quickly enough – nope, not out there yet – perhaps someone could leave it as a comment?)
Interesting connection
In my quick search for additional information I found a small blog entry from an individual who seems to knows the founder. The founder is apparently a regular at the Limerick Open Coffee Club – and we’ve also got one of those locally here – the Rochester OpenCoffee Club. I’ve been to several of their meetings when I can fit them in – and presented LinkedIn material in November. Perhaps there’s one near you?-)
This is exciting news and it looks like January is heating up – hope you’re staying warm too.
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the coverage of our fundraising.
I should point out that the investors get a much better deal than you suggest!
In fact €25k buys 2% – we are raising €250k in return for a total of 20%.
The huge twitter led explosion that followed the Irish Times article is hard to understand.
I guess people are tired of fanciful stories about social media and now want practical examples of how it can work for their business or for their communities.
The kind of advice you provide on this site.
We are hoping to close out the investment a couple of days ahead of our internal deadline of Feb 5th. We still have just over €60k available – and given the number of conversations over the weekend, we are allocating shares on a first come first serve basis!
Its been a blast all weekend….
Tell me what you need and I will get it to you – email me. Here is the message we sent out:
—————————————————————————————–
Dear friends,
You will have noticed that I have updated my profile recently.
This mail is a chance to introduce you to my new business, Goshido.
Goshido is a cloud platform that makes it easy to plan and execute projects.
The company is almost two years old. The technology is proven with loyal customers already paying for the service and many awards already under its belt.
Ger Hartnett is an engineering architect responsible for three recent Intel processors that generate $1bn in revenue.
He founded Goshido in 2008 and self-funded it to date. http://ie.linkedin.com/in/ghartnett
In December I became Executive Chairman at the company.
I committed to executing key milestones to ensure the company’s success.
The first milestone is to raise €250k in private funding. This will be matched by €200k or more in Enterprise Ireland funding.
There are 10 slots for investors at €25k – four were filled in the freezing days between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
If you are interested in filling one of the remaining slots, drop me a note.
If you know someone who may be interested, please feel free to drop them my details!
We have a pack that should answer most questions, and we will meet people in the days ahead to fill in any blanks.
For the majority of you who are not interested, I hope you will forgive this intrusion.
If you have time please check out http://www.goshido.com, any advice, connections or indeed orders will be very much appreciated!
In return, anything I can do for your own businesses, just ask.
Yours sincerely,
Frank Hannigan
Chairman
CoClarity Limited (Trading as Goshido)
Enterprise Acceleration Centre,
Limerick Institute of Technology,
Limerick,
IRELAND.
ph +353 86 8280077
frank@goshido.com
—————————————————————————————–
I will also link into you, I would love to keep in touch.
I love LinkedIn – its what I look at first thing in the morning and last thing before I stop working.
Keep up the heavy lifting for the rest of us.
Frank Hannigan
Chairman
Goshido
Frank,
Many thanks for your comment, offer note, and kind words.
You’re right – that is a better offer. I went back to look, and either I missed the word “each” on the IrishTimes article or they corrected it over the weekend;-)
I’m happy to cover your situation and yes – I’ve found my readers very interested in real examples. People getting results out of LinkedIn – like you guys.
Congratulations,
steve