Have your business plan ready so you can respond to any query you send.

 Next write your query or we can write it for you. 

• If you are writing your query, you will get a link to a page with guidelines to follow.  Then, send us your letter for a review, which includes suggestions for improving your letter, adding information, and a light editorial polish.  Should your letter need major changes or a rewrite, we'll suggest that. This letter is extremely important, especially the subject line, because this is what will get an investor to open your e-mail and want to know more about your business.  Think of this query as a marketing pitch letter, so even if you have done other types of writing, you may need help writing a good query. 

• If you want us to write the query, send us a 2-3 page overview of your business, including an executive summary, key selling points of your business, amount of capital needed, and bio information about you and your management team.  You will get a draft of the query letter to review and make any additions and changes.  Then, your letter gets a final editorial polish, and if there are any major changes, you do a final review before the letter goes out.

 Once your query letter is finalized, we send your query by e-mail to the venture capitalists and other investors interested in that stage and amount of funding, type of industry, and geographic area. 

 We regularly update our databases through various means, including reports of changes in personnel and deals in industry publications, test e-mails, and returns forwarded to us by many clients.  This regular updating is necessary, since are changes every week, as people change jobs, companies move or go out of business, the focus of investment interest shifts, or people change e-mails or add spam filters.  

 If you want to exclude particular individuals or companies from getting your e-mail, we can do this using the names or e-mails you provide. 

 Sometimes we include multiple contacts at a company, since they may have similar interests in the funding level and type of industry and there is no way to know in advance who will be interested in a particular project.  This way, unless there is only one contact to use for a firm, you can multiple chances to gain interest in your project.  Then, if you do get multiple responses, you can work out who will handle the project -- a great problem to have!  Just let the interested VCs know who else in the company is interested and explain you didn't know who to send your query to. Then, let the VCs decide who wants to handle the project.   As long as you are straight-forward about this initial multiple query, this is not a problem, as we have found in using this approach for PublishersAndAgents.net, where several clients found that multiple interest led to a deal.

 We use a special software program to send out your query under your own name and e-mail address, so all replies will come directly to you.  You will also receive a copy of your e-mail that has gone out, along with a report listing the names and companies of all VCs who have gotten your query.  This report will help you keep track and follow-up with your responses.

 After your e-mail query goes out (generally on Sunday night through Thursday morning to avoid sending queries on the weekends), you will usually get a very quick response, sometimes within an hour or two, though most contacts respond within the first or second day.  The level of response will depend on your project, though on the average in our tests, we got a 10% response rate and a dozen requests to see our business plans

 Once you get responses, be ready to respond with more information, from an executive summary and deal memo to your complete business plan. 

 An increasing number of VCs are open to e-mail submissions, but many will ask you to send your business plan by regular mail.  Ask about preferences, and only send attachments if the person is willing for you to do so.   Many people will give you their address when they want more information by mail; otherwise, ask where to send your material.

 A common question is whether you need an agent or broker to represent you.  While a knowledgeable rep can certainly help, he or she will only have so many regular contacts in the industry and will usually take a substantial percentage or finders fee of whatever you receive.  By contrast, this e-query will reach many more VCs more quickly.  And if you feel you need help negotiating, you can usually work out an arrangement to pass on your leads to an agent or broker to follow-up for you -- often a good idea, since an agent can often negotiate a better deal for you.

 After you send off your material, expect to wait a month or two for a decision.  It can take a few weeks for a VC to read your material.  Then, even if a VC likes it, your plan will generally have to be presented to others in the company for approval.  Or if you find an agent, the agent will still have to submit your plan to VCs on your behalf, and then it goes through the same consideration process.   

 In short, the Venture Capital Connection will open the door for you.  After this, your success depends on the strength of your business plan and the appeal of your business.