Help in finding Venture Capital please

J

Joeblough

I am looking for any help or leads in fiinding venture capital or angel capital for a trading simulator game I have developed. This game simulator is designed to keep prospective traders interest for long periods of time so let properly learn their skills in the art of trading. This simulator game has multipul revenue streams to not only fund day to day operations but to insure a healthy bottom line. Within the business plan is an exit strategy for take over from a larger real world trading firm that would love to have access to many of my games clients. I have ran the idea past many friends I have within the trading commmunity and all have said that if it existed, they would have used it or would be using it as a trainer for there traders.
Getting a foot in the door of venture capital and be very difficult so this short message is looking for any advice that can help me in my search.
Please forgive the basic rundown on my idea but I have learned from past experience that holding ones cards close to the chest ensures that ideas say my ideas. I have no isseues in having full disclosure once a NDA is in place.

Thank you, and I welcome any imput.
 
How about a full "that was a dumb idea" wind-down exit strategy?

If I give you $10.00 in venture capital, you spend all of it and the thing ends up going bust - will you have anything with value to sell which could recoup at least part of the initial investor's money?

The win-win situation is when you ask for $1M for a 3-year plan and are able to demonstrate to your investors that after 1.5 years your assets (whether it be permits, patents, IP, etc.) are worth over $1M.

This way even in a fire-sale type scenario you can minimize your investor's potential losses.

Figure that out and people will start taking your phone calls.
 
Thank you. When I say exit strategy i was not referring to a "the floor has dropped out" but a "someone is buying us up". This I DO know is what all venture capital firms love.... risk value to large payoff in the end. Did the original VC's have tangible assets in Facebook? Twitter? The list can and would go on and on. I do know that by placing this post in this forum I will be getting slightly backhanded replies, that is to be expected when I do not give more than a two sentence of what I am planning. What I was hoping for are possible help from someone that has tried going down the path I am taking. Its not an easy one but I have faith in my business plan and would have no fear in it being audited by a VC.
Thank you again for your reply.
 
your come to the wrong place to ask about venture capital
most will have no clue to what your even talking about
get ready for the idiotic responses
 
Look into a no recourse business loan. Pay 11% interest and repay in 5 years. Someone may actually take you up on it. Had a friend recently do this for $750k. Interest is high, but in the end, far better than giving away 50% or more of your company.
 
Write up your business plan and just start cold calling venture firms. Every major city has many people looking to fund good ideas.

Also start talking to other start ups in your area. There is a subculture for these guys and angel investors tread in them.

I would figure that if your idea is any good you will have no problem getting a first round with some people. Maybe not with Kleiner Perkins but with angel investors and rich people you might get traction.
 
Quote from Joeblough:

I am looking for any help or leads in fiinding venture capital or angel capital for a trading simulator game I have developed. ...
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That's not how it works. To raise funding you need to have your first set of paying customers or a large user base. The days of getting funded based on a prototype or napkin idea are gone (unless you're a Stanford PhD with connections).

So spend the next year building the business and get to about $500k to $1m/year in revenue before you go for a series A.

Final bit of advice: LOL on the NDA. VCs never sign NDAs. They will want to compare your idea to everyone else's and will discuss your biz plan with all their friends. There are no secrets!
 
Quote from Joeblough:
----finding venture capital or angel capital....
----trading simulator game....
----designed to....
----multiple revenue streams....
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Is it really any better than what Ninja or T4 has? :confused: :eek: :confused: :eek: :confused:
 
Quote from nazzdack:

Is it really any better than what Ninja or T4 has? :confused: :eek: :confused: :eek: :confused:
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That's what I was thinking, kind of.

I've thought about this same business idea several times over the years, and wondered if it could ever fly. To program a game about trading, you will essentially have to distill some "market truth" into an overly simplified simulator of the actual market. The game will end up being heavily biased towards your perception of market truth and what a good strategy looks like, and in order to "work" will have to have higher expectancy than the expectancy of that strategy in live market conditions. This would be blatently obvious in early levels of the game, but I suppose as players level up the trade outcomes (if following the desired strategy) become more and more random until you finally approach what the real market looks and feels like.

The question I have though, is if you actually have found that "market truth" that you're going to distill into a game, why not just exploit that truth as a trader? You'll make a lot more money with a lot less hassle. If you don't know of any "market truth" than your game will be totally useless as a training tool and will be unable to condition its players to execute any particular method (say trend following) in real conditions.

If however, you have no intention of conditioning traders towards a style of trading through reward/punishment, and are just going to offer a simulator with random/fake data, what's the point? There are hundreds of ways to sim trade the market for free already.

FWIW
 
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