October 26, 2012

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If your startup is ready and ripe for an injection of venture capital, you realize that the road ahead can be tricky.

“Most great businesspeople I’ve met would correctly advise an entrepreneur to avoid raising money if possible,” said Internet entrepreneur and Founder of Reputation.com, Michael Fertik. “But raising venture capital is sometimes a great idea. If your business has high velocity, high margins, and a huge market, venture may be a good road for you.”

If venture capital is what you’re after, thankfully there are quite a few websites that can help you plan your VC pitch strategy, connect with potential investors and (best of all) save you time and money navigating the venture capital scene.

Here are five useful sites that provide practical advise for raising venture capital that you should consider bookmarking.

 1. Venture Hacks

Twitter: @venturehacks; Facebook: Venture Hacks

Babak Nivi and Naval Ravikant, co-founders of Angel List — a community of startups and investors, have invested $20M in companies like Twitter; helped start companies backed by Sequoia, Benchmark, Kleiner Perkins, and Atlas; and advise entrepreneurs over at Venture Hacks — sharing the best startup advice they’ve got.

 2. Both Sides of the Table

Twitter: @msuster; Facebook: Both Sides of the Table

Mark Suster, 2x entrepreneur turned venture capitalist shares provocative insights from both sides of the table. From startup advice, to how to raise capital and musings on an entrepreneurs DNA, suster provides a straight-forward look at the world of venture capital for early-stage technology companies.

Suster is a partner at GRP Partners, the largest venture capital firm in Southern Californa and an angel investor in Affordit, EagleCrest Energy, EcoMom, ExpenseCloud, Gendai Games, LaughStub and several others.

 3. How to Change the World

Twitter:@GuyKawasaki; Facebook: Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, bestselling author, and Apple Fellow, writes his practical blog for impractical people. Kawasaki is the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web, and a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures.

He was also one of Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. Guy serves up a random yet informative shmorgas board of advice that touches on blogging, cool stuff, entre/intra-preneurship, human capital, innovation, management, travel, Twitter and venture capital. Overall Kawasaki’s world changing startup tips rarely disappoint.

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