Due deligence?

Had our first informal due deligence visit recently. Some one we have been speaking to was in town and dropped by for a day long visit. Here is what came out:

1. Focus and niches are still very much in. Broad brush and shot gun approaches are out.

2. Your strategy needs to relate to your competition. If you differ dramatically you must have a defensible reason for doing things differently and it must be supported by customer validation.

3. Depth in all areas - technology, domain, implementation, business development and recruitment - is required. Miss one and you will have some tough questions to answer.

4. Your pipeline needs to be well defined and well presented. Other than strategy and focus, investors need to understand how your cash flow projections tie back to actual proposals sitting in front of customers.

5. Need to maintain a balance between the soul of the firm and your cash generation function.

Took two days from the entire team. The follow up, if and when it occurs ,will take another week or ten days of serious bandwidth. Will it be worth it? I don't know.

Conclusion: Finding money is not difficult. Finding the right color with the right terms is