If you’re like me, you have a burning desire to be awesome at Photoshop. It seems so easy, so within reach. Maybe you’ve learned a few tricks like making gradient backgrounds for website titles. Ooooh, it looks 3D! Look out Pixar!

But then you come to some bitter realizations:

• I’m spending way too much time on this.
• None of this is making my website truly awesome.
• Design doesn’t come from Photoshop filters; there’s color palette, page layout, consistency, compatibility with messaging, not to mention fonts other than Myriad Pro.

Making your website or blog or software gorgeous means finding a great designer. And since you probably don’t have enough work to hire an in-house designer, you need to find a freelancer.

Well, you’re in luck. Here’s how to get freelance design work and how to make sure you don’t spend more money than necessary.

1.  Bid out small jobs on-line

The first rule of hiring a consultant is: Maybe you don’t need to hire one!

If you’re in the market for small jobs, your best bet is a marketing auction site like 99designs or CrowdSpring, or a professional database like GraphicRiver, or a site with both like DesignBay.

To describe how it works, let’s assume you want a logo.  You start by describing the project: “Design a logo for Xyz.”  (That was easy.)

Next you give parameters and conditions.  Specify your company’s color scheme (two or three colors; if you suck at colors just steal borrow a nice set from Adobe’s on-line archive.  Logos need to look good both large (for T-shirts, posters, and tradeshow banners) and small (for business cards and corners of websites), even if that means having different but very similar logos for different sizes.  It’s often a good idea to require that the logo makes sense in black-and-white, or that it’s still legible even if the viewer is red-green color blind.

Finally you specify the amount of money you’re willing to spend. Often $150 for a logo is enough.  Why so low? Because a lot of designers are just getting started and need to win jobs to build a portfolio. Also because designers do this on the side for a little extra income, or are willing to take cheap jobs to get through the recession. Or because the designer lives in a country with a lower cost of living.

I know several people who have had great logos designed in three days for under $150. If you’re looking to develop your personal or corporate image, surely that investment of time and money is worth it!

But many jobs are too complex or too important for a one-off cheapo solution. Besides, there’s a good argument to be made that these design-on-spec sites are morally gray.

In that case you need to hire an expert.

2.  How to look for freelance designer

You couldn’t have picked a better time to hire a freelancer! The recession has created a buyer’s market for any sort of consultant. Take advantage of this time to find a terrific person at a bargain.

Start with your network (friends, Facebook, LinkedIn); recommendations are almost always better than nothing.

Be careful though — if the recommendation is for “a friend” or anyone with a familial relationship (”Oh yeah, my brother-in-law is looking for work), be very very cautious! First, this implies the recommendation is a favor rather than a vote of confidence for the work. Second, and more importantly, it will be hard to have a professional relationship. If you have to put your foot down or even fire them, suddenly it’s personal. Not worth it!

Your alternatives include Craig’s List, general Internet searches in your area, or web sites like Elance that connect you with freelancers; all these methods can create an avalanche of candidates you’ll have to sift through. That means you’ll have to be rigorous with your vetting process, described next.

3.  How to choose which designer to hire

So now you’ve amassed a few candidates.  (Yes “a few,” you’re not going to consider just one!)  How do you choose?

The most important qualification is whether you like their prior work. I cannot stress this enough: Designers don’t morph their style to match yours; they don’t deviate from their own style.

If they make slick, glossy, mocha-latte-modern-glassy stuff, you’d better like that. If they make crunchy, green, friendly, round-rectangle stuff, you’d better like that. Scan their portfolio and make sure you like what you see, as-is. If you run across something and think, “Ooh, this would be perrrrfect if they just copied this exactly for me,” that’s a great sign. If you go through fifteen pages of their portfolio and nothing makes your heart leap, it’s a “pass.”

I know, many designers will tell you otherwise, and I’m sure there’ll be thirty comments calmly and artfully ripping me a new one over this. (And please do! Our dear readers need to hear the other side of the story.) But in my experience a style mismatch is a non-starter.

The next thing you do is call their references. But don’t get excited when their references are positive. Of course they are — otherwise they wouldn’t be listed as references!

Instead, you’re looking for glowing, over-the-top recommendations. You’re looking for things like “Yeah we hired her once and we’ve been coming back for years.” Or “I actually hate to tell you how awesome she is because it might mean we get less time.”

A key question you should ask is: “Did the designer deliver on time and on budget?” These constraints are important and separates the artists from the artists-who-treat-this-as-a-business. You need the latter.  (Thanks to Kathy from Virtual Impax for this suggestion!)

A trick is to request a reference for a particular portfolio piece that you like. Don’t ask for the references they want to give — surprise them.  Expect that they need to ask permission before giving out contact information.

4.  What to ask for in the contract

You have to get a few things in writing so there’s no mistake when it comes time to trade final product for a check.

• You are the sole owner of all works made for hire. The consultant retains no copyright. You need this to ensure uniqueness — that the designer cannot just duplicate work done for you and use it elsewhere. You also need it for control; when I sold my company we had to get special releases from all our freelance designers explicitly stating that we owned the intellectual property.

  It is appropriate (and recommended) to allow the designer to use all materials in their own portfolio; just make it clear that this isn’t joint copyright, but rather a free license you grant them for the purpose of promoting themselves.

• You get the electronic source files of all works, both finals and drafts. This is essential so that you can make small changes yourself or switch to a different designer.
• Expenses besides the hourly rate must be approved first. I’ve been bitten by designers who run off and order products we don’t need or make expensive color glossy print-outs of things we’d rather see on a computer screen.

A final note on contracts, though — don’t sweat all the little details. Contracts only matter if there’s a dispute so severe and irresolvable that it comes down to lawyers. In that case it will be far cheaper to just walk away from the situation, even if that means paying the full amount.

5.  How to approach and structure the new relationship

So you’ve selected a designer and you’re ready to start. You don’t know each other yet, so neither one of you knows how to work together.

You’re going to want things like estimates and clear statements of work but the designer doesn’t know how many times you’re going to change your mind, how many iterations it will take, or whether you’re going to blow up her cell-phone at 9pm on a Saturday night.

The designer will want things like a clear direction and approvals for color palettes and design concepts, but you’ll be unsure of yourself, unsure how much to trust the designer’s instinct when it conflicts with your own, and unable to find the words to express your muddy vision.

Addressing these unknowns is easy — just be honest about them from the start and make it clear that you appreciate the designer’s dilemma as well. Talk! Notice when you’re hitting a barrier that might be your own fault.

Take a “baby-steps” approach to the design work. Instead of making a grand plan for redesigning everything, start with the basics. For example, try just the color scheme and logo as described above. This gives both of you a chance to learn how to work together.

Besides, getting the basics totally finished and approved makes it much easier to see how the rest falls into place. Once your colors, attitude, and style are embodied in something as iconic as a logo, the path to websites, white papers, blogs, and tradeshow banners becomes an extension of an idea rather than a new project.

Finally, “baby-steps” means you can spend just as much as you want. If you end up not liking each other or it’s too expensive, you can stop and still have something to show for it. And since you have originals, maybe you can take a crack at the rest yourself.

6.  It’s worth it

Yes, it really is worth all the effort. Your image matters. First impressions matter. Colors and layout and fonts set the tone before a person reads a single word.

In this ever more cluttered Internet, it’s even more important to stand out.

Plus, looking good just feels good. Now I know how Brad Pitt feels. (Yeah right!)

Jason Cohen wrote this post and allowed us to syndicate it. He is the founder of Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, the world’s most popular tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award.

Most ideas are great ideas until proven otherwise.  In my experience, good ideas tend to fall into one of several categories:

Mayflies - like the insect, these ideas live for less than a day.  Once you have a good idea, your mission is to kill it.  Brutally analyze the idea for fatal weaknesses then quickly jettison those that fail.  For me, 95% of good ideas die here.  And that’s a good thing.  We all know entrepreneurs who cost themselves years of anguish and their investors large sums of money because the idea was fatally flawed but they refused to admit it.  Kill it fast and move on.  Many of these actually are good ideas, just with a critical success component missing.

Fireflies -  live brilliantly for up to two or three months.  Usually, these ideas look very good through the initial due diligence phase.  They continue to attract and enchant the entrepreneur.  Friends and colleagues endorse and validate the idea.  And often, because of our innate confirmation bias, we proceed to execute on the idea even though it too has one or more fatal flaws.  Typically, the discovery of the fatal flaw first enters your awareness as a nagging suspicion finally blossoming into the realization of it’s terminal nature.  Success can be achieved with some of these ideas, but the moon and the stars must align perfectly.  There are too many factors out of your control, Kill it.   For me, about 4% of good ideas are fireflies.

Praying Mantis - The entrepreneurs worst enemy.  With a life span of about one year, these ideas consume lots of intellectual and financial resources, not to mention psychic energy, before showing themselves as failed ideas.  The death knell is likely to be barriers to customer acceptance not known during the due diligence.  The entrepreneur most prone to this failed idea is one who skimps on customer validation.  The flaw could have been discovered early, but the team was too focused on building on the vision to dig deeply enough with customers.  Some of these ideas can actually be saved, usually by completely morphing the concept to fit the newly discovered customer realities.  Often though, this is discovered at a point when the entrepreneur has too few resources to make the required course correction.  To avoid this fate, (please, please, please) read  Bay Area’s veteran entrepreneur’s, “Four Steps to the Epiphany.”  About 1/2% of ideas fall into this category.

Queen Ants - they live up to 28 years (honestly.)  And they control all the food supply.  Enough said.  These represent the final 1/2% of ideas.

Good ideas come from truly understanding the pain of the customer,  having a broad knowledge of the tools at your disposal and being audacious enough to think you are the one to do it.  From the percentages above, the odds of success would appear to be overwhelming against you.  The trick is to incubate and kill off as many mayflies, fireflies and praying mantises as quickly as you can.  The queen ants are in there somewhere.

Now, your idea may be a Queen Ant and still fail.  Success means hitting the trifecta of the right idea executed brilliantly for a market primed for your solution. And that’s the tough part.

Hoyt Prisock, the author of this post, is a Seattle serial entrepreneur and NWEN Board member.  He is praying that his latest idea is not a mantis.  He blogs at http://bigshoebox.com

Raising money for a new startup in these economic times can be at best difficult and often impossible. But there are silver linings that may make the current environment a godsend for the frugal entrepreneur.

If you have been able to put together enough cash from friends and family or angels to get started it could well be the perfect time to launch your new venture. Here’s why.

1. Cheap Resources - talented engineers and business people are available in far greater numbers today. The entrepreneur is far less likely to find price tags for top talent being bid up. Even the big guys who are not laying off staff are freezing all but essential hiring. Other startups that overcommitted during the heady days of the last boomlet are having to lay off strong employees or, in some cases, shuttering operations entirely. For those engineers who once thought that startup life was too risky, recent massive cuts at companies like Microsoft have exposed this illusion of security. They are now more willing to take the risks inherent in an entrepreneurial venture.
2. Less Competition - In times of free flowing capital an entrepreneur could expect competition from well funded entrants. Your scrappy startup often had to vie for market share with companies raising war chests in the millions. Those well funded competitors could easily garner all the attention even when your product or service was far superior. Today, these crazy deals are no longer being funded. At least not in the numbers they were a few years ago. The result is a more level paying field where the merits of one product over another are more highly valued. This recession is not likely to end soon. What better time for a startup to be in pre-revenue mode than one where there is little revenue to be had. The market will come through this and the smart startups will be ready with new products and services when it does. And you may just be the only one prepared to take advantage.
3. Enforced discipline – Starting a new company when resources are lean forces the entrepreneur to think through every expenditure. Fiscal discipline, forged as habit in tough times, stands to both increase profitability and your attractiveness as an M&A target when the market stabilizes.

Today’s financial world is filled with uncertainty. But uncertainty is the very essence of a startup. Smart entrepreneurs will thrive with uncertainty as home filed advantage.

Hoyt Prisock, the author of this post, is a Seattle serial entrepreneur and NWEN Board member.  He has started companies in both boom and bust times.  He blogs at http:bigshoebox.com

Who is more likely to produce long-term shareholder value — the entrepreneur who raises too much investment capital, or the entrepreneur who funds growth through profits alone?

First time entrepreneurs often have skewed visions of “how it all works”. Their perceptions are often shaped by the numerous successes that get touted about the media, rather than by the 1000-fold number of failures. It makes the “accidental success” of YouTube appear reachable, or at least “just as likely” as any other startup.

One of the things that entrepreneurs usually believe is that once they have an idea, they need investment — that’s just how it works, right? Once they start to talk to investors though, as well as advisors and other folks in the startup community, the questions usually come up … is this a lifestyle business or a “swing for the fences” big market opportunity? A “lifestyle business” is one which you intend to keep running for a decade or two — like my Dad’s optometry practice, for instance, or my brother’s event audio/visual recording business — typically an owner-managed business in which the profits are used solely to support the ongoing lifestyle of the proprietor.

Then there are the “swing for the fences” big market opportunities. These are the startups with big goals, where the entrepreneurs focus on a market opportunity >$100M. To get there, most companies on this track sell ownership in their company at some stage of their business to raise the capital necessary to build their company. Some companies even raise huge amounts of venture capital, at a hefty dilution mind you, before they even arguably HAVE a business. (Twitter comes to mind …) Investors are compelled by visions of a healthy return on their investment, and in the latter case also by extremely savvy entrepreneurs.

For whatever reason, I’m NOT a “lifestyle business” kinda guy. I’m only interested in building a company with a compelling market value and resulting shareholder ROI, but as a founder I’m ALSO uninterested in immediate dilution down to single digit % ownership. I want as much equity in the company as possible.

I learned long ago that the best way to build personal wealth and shareholder value is through “bootstrapping”. Bootstrapping is the art of building companies with very little outside capital/investment. I’m proud of my bootstrapping skills actually, which I’ve developed over four startups now, yet I’ve also realized that outside capital is also essential to developing/realizing a substantial market opportunity.

The reality is that there is a middle ground. Bootstrapping your way 100% to IPO, while honorable, is very difficult and uncommon. If the market opportunity is truly there, being under-capitalized will usually result in missing the market window of opportunity. Conversely, raising too much capital too early rarely results in long-term shareholder value. In other words, given a large market opportunity — a startup that raises too much investment capital is just as likely to fail (to generate shareholder value) as a startup that doesn’t take any investment capital.

I’ve been building Others Online based on what I thought to be an appropriate balance of equity financing and bootstrapping (”sweat equity” financing). Unfortunately we’re still not profitable and thus reliant on investment capital at a time when the market opportunity is large and we’re landing large customers, but market conditions are unstable and investment capital has dried up. And the other day I was talking to one of my investors, who literally wrote the book on bootstrapping, about our status as a company. He insisted that there “has to be a way” to generate more cash from our pipeline immediately. The only way I can see to do that is to shift our business model in the short-term, and I worry that doing so may negatively impact our ability to achieve the “big market opportunity”.

I keep thinking about this. Is it possible to “swing for the fences” (big market opportunity) at the same time as focusing on 1st base (getting to cash flow breakeven)? Or are the two incompatible? I suppose it depends on the market opportunity, but I’d argue most high-value windows of opportunity in the market are open for a limited period of time. Rarely do you not have competition eyeballing the same opportunity, and sufficient funding is generally a prerequisite to nailing these windows of opportunity.

Market leadership positions are always attained as a result of execution. Financing is not execution. However, financing provides the means to develop the necessary components to execution: team, timing, marketing, and product development. Since paths to success are rarely a straight line, financing also helps recovery from bad decisions (on any of the above). Under-capitalized companies are therefore at greater risk. That said, bootstrapping is also essential. It teaches you to make your mistakes quickly and therefore least costly. Bootstrapping is good execution.

2009 is going to be a difficult time for companies who are “swinging for the fences” but aren’t financed for the next 12-18 months.  If you’re one of them, like we are, it seems you can only either change your game plan and just focus on 1st base, or merge your team with a team in a far better position to hit the home run.

Jordan Mitchell, the author of this post, blogs regularly and is the CEO/Founder of Others Online (his 4th Internet startup), which provides ad networks with behavioral profiling and targeting solutions.

Brad Feld is coming to town and there are a number of folks organizing an entrepreneur party.  If you don’t know of Brad, he writes the popular blog Feld Thoughts (www.feld.com) and is a managing director at Foundry Group (www.foundrygroup.com).  He’s been an investor in a number of Seattle-based companies over the years including AdReady, Smith & Tinker, Shelfari, and Judy’s Book, and is currently on the board of Impinj.  Brad’s is also a co-founder of TechStars (www.techstars.org), a great startup program based in Boulder that has helped create a number of interesting companies, including SocialThing (acquired by AOL), Intense Debate (acquired by Automattic/WordPress), and Brightkite.

Brad’s going to spend the evening talking about his views on entrepreneurship, especially around early stage companies in today’s environment.  He’ll give us a detailed view of TechStars and why it’s been working, along with an explanation about how he thinks about early stage VC investing.  The evening with be heavily Q&A oriented – Brad’s open to any questions about anything.

Register for Beers with Brad Feld now! I just registered so I’ll see you there! Note there is a $5 fee, but it will be donated to Seattle-based Vittana (www.vittana.org), an early-stage non-profit building the next step in microfinance — education microfinance.

Jordan Mitchell, the author of this post, blogs regularly and is the CEO/Founder of Others Online (his 4th Internet startup), which provides ad networks with behavioral profiling and targeting solutions.

Happy groundhog day, all!  Stopping short of Bill Murray’s deja-vu-all-over-again nightmare, I thought I’d re-run some advice from the early-aughts that still has legs.  By way of introduction, as of today, I am posting as the new Executive Director of NWEN.  You may remember me from such favorites as the Alliance of Angels, and as a weekly contributor to Seattle 2.0.  As I’m diving into this new role, I’ll be drinking a lot of lattes as I sit down with community stakeholders and learn from each of you, but in the meantime, wanted to bring you some news you could use, drawing on past experience.

With the plethora of community organizations and organic groups springing up around entrepreneurship, my calendar runneth over with happy hours on an almost daily basis.  Good problem to have—I live for this kind of thing, and there are some terrific people out there (from Lunch 2.0 to Girl Power Hour) hosting great industry events.  Cheers to Danielle Morrill for recognizing the need to make these meaningful and fun, but for those of you who would rather watch paint dry than go to a “networking event,” here are a few tips.  (In my past life, I’ve led workshops on this topic for such otherwise hesitant participants as recruiters, attorneys, and non-profit board members—and I’m here to tell you there’s an art and a science to it).

1. It’s not a junior high dance.  It’s really ok to stand by yourself for a few minutes, collect your thoughts and some refreshments, and survey the room.  Take your time getting into conversations, and don’t be afraid to stay put and let people seek you out too.
2. When meeting people for the first time, in addition to introducing yourself, be sure to repeat their name and make eye contact while doing so.  Much better chance of remembering the name in the future. It’s like a new vocabulary word—if you can use it three times it’s yours (I’m not necessarily recommending this kind of repetition in a first meeting—when I hear my own name repeated back to me too many times I feel like I’m in an infomercial).
3. Listen.  Not rocket science here, but this is clearly the foundation of any good conversation.  I am fully convinced that one of the keys to having a good memory (see point 2 above) is actually listening the first time around. When your companion is talking, focus on what they’re saying, not what you’re going to say next.
4. Ask questions.  Even in this two-degree-of-separation town, you may need to dig beneath the surface a bit to find common connections, and that’s where conversations get interesting and fun.
5. Be succinct.  In the early stages of a dialogue, try not to speak in paragraphs (serial monologuing can be a real snoozer).  If someone asks what’s new, or wants to hear about your latest venture/business/idea, see if you can describe it in one sentence. It’s a good litmus test for the clarity of your thinking.  Michael Arrington uses the barometer of whether or not he can explain a business to his mom. Good sign: they’re asking questions (see tip #4).  Bad sign: eyes glazing over.

As all good things must come to an end, please note the following exit strategies, which should be part of the ebb and flow of any social gathering.  If you don’t have Dave Chappelle’s wrap it up box on hand, try the following:

• Make introductions.  At well-attended events this will happen organically, at any time throughout the evening, but look for opportunities to connect people to each other in a meaningful way. Getting that two-degrees of separation down to one is what these events are all about, and chances are, you know someone who could be helpful to your conversational companion.  So be it if it signals the end of your own dialogue.
• Go get a cocktail.  If you sense your conversation has drawn to a natural close, help the other person out and seek a gracious exit.

Practicing What We Preach

We’re really not kidding when we call it the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, and to that end, wanted to draw your attention to a few new items:

• NWEN has a Facebook page. Check us out, become a friend and a fan.
• And because texting is so five minutes ago, follow NWEN on twitter. (Sneak preview: This weekend we’ll be joining 150 of our closest friends for the fun and games of Startup Weekend, and twittering from Google’s Fremont offices. Word on the street this is akin to 6 Hour Startup on steroids, so stay tuned.  This event is sold out, so watch for take-aways from the trenches.)
• Blog posts from your peers.  As NWEN’s blog is kicking into high gear, you’ll notice greater community involvement and commentary; check out Roy Leban’s thoughts about our inaugural First Look Forum.
• Join the NWEN LinkedIn group.

Look forward to seeing more of all of you online and in person.

Rebecca Lovell is the new Executive Director for NWEN. If you see her at an industry event and she claims she has to re-fill her cocktail, there’s a 99% chance that she really just wants a drink.  Seriously.  Ask anyone.

A fascinating new study posted today indicates that successful serial entrepreneurs have a 50% greater chance of success in subsequent start-ups than either first time entrepreneurs or those whose first venture failed. These individuals were also more readily able to raise venture capital funding and did so under less onerous terms than first-timers.

While on the face of it, Professors Paul Gompers and Josh Lerner are delivering sobering news to first time entrepreneurs, there is a silver lining. The pair outline strategies for newly minted ventures to increase their chances of success by partnering with previously successful founders. Successful entrepreneurs demonstrated particular skill in the areas of market timing and effective positioning of the start-up as a “sure thing.”

Read about this new study in an HBS article on “The Success of Persistent Entrepreneurs.”

A great way for first time entrepreneurs to gain some of the advantages of prior success is through participation in NWEN’s new Mentor program which matches early stage founders with experienced entrepreneurs in an unstructured venue for advice and coaching.

This article was posted by Seattle serial entrepreneur and NWEN Board Member Hoyt Prisock. He is currently incubating two new businesses in the tech sector and blogs at Bigshoebox.com.

Bill Bryant, a Seattle area Partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, forwarded this “startup survival guide” this morning to the Seattle Tech Startup email list, with the following comment:

One of the partners at DFJ (based in Brazil of all places) pulled together this pragmatic, balanced set of tips and strategies to survive the lean year(s) of 2009. While it doesn’t apply to every situation, I wanted to share this with entrepreneurs on this list. Pass it on if you feel so inclined.

On November 14 T.A. McCann presented at the NWEN breakfast meeting, providing all who attended thoughtful and interesting perspective on starting a company, focusing on a single purpose, raising capital, operations, etc. I particularly enjoyed his “magic quadrant”. T.A. blogged about presenting, so I thought I’d include what he wrote in addition to a link to his blog post and slide deck …

Early this morning, I presented at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network breakfast. NWEN (www.nwen.org) helps people start companies by giving them tools, connecting them with service providers and making connections to other people, advisors… and I love that. This was a chance for me to summarize my thoughts and experiences (to date) and connect with other entrepreneurs. I always learn something when I do these kinds of events, both about what I have done right/wrong in the past and how I can be better in the future. Here is a link to the PPT that I presented, a continual work in progress.

I also met a bunch of really interesting people working on cool ideas. Thanks to Jared and Peter for setting up the event and to everyone who asked me such good questions after the talk. I look forward to the future discussions and coffee meetings.

If you have questions or follow-ups you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or send plain old email (tam@gist.com) and I will do what I can to help.

T.A. McCann serves as founder and CEO of Gist. His past experience includes Vulcan Capital and Polaris Venture Partners, where he was an entrepreneur-in-residence.

BBC America has begun airing a series that a friend of mine from London was telling me about last year.  Dragon’s Den airs Thursday evenings at 6 and 9 on BBC America.

The hour long reality show features five successful entrepreneurs who are putting up their own money to invest in start-ups.  Over the course of the hour long program several hopeful start-ups pitch for investments ranging from $150k to a million dollars.  While, as you may expect from network television, the staging is a bit sensationalized, it is actually quite instructive for entrepreneurs hoping to pitch to angel investors.

Think “American Idol” for entrepreneurs. As in “Idols” the contestants are routinely savaged by the angels.  Usually with complete justification.    The major difference between this program and reality as we know it in the US Northwest is that on the television program angels will say “no” while brutally dismantling the pitch.  Here, an angel is more likely to say, “Interesting, but it does not fit my investment profile.”

I’ve only seen one episode, but it’s more entertaining and closer to reality than MOJO’s recent Start-Up Junkies series.

Hoyt Prisock, author of this post, is a Seattle area entrepreneur and NWEN Board member.  He is also an active angel investor in the region.