Jeff Williams in Dallas TX - Venture Capitalist with Hunt Ventures

A quick overview of my experience with Jeff Williams, Venture Capitalist Partner with Hunt Ventures in Dallas, TX by Sean Jackson, CEO of Lead Maverick.

I first met Jeff Williams through a mutual friend Ralph Manning with Progress Equity. At the time I was wanting to learn more about the fund raising process through VCs and Ralph set a meeting with Jeff Williams for me.

Now I had a lot of expectations about a "VC" and most of them where negative. However my opinion quickly changed when I met Jeff. First he spent the first 30 minutes of our meeting giving me a diatribe about how bad Dallas was for tech entreprenuers seeking early stage funding. Unlike Silicon Valley there is no formal finance community in Dallas that has experience in helping tech companies grow from inception, to angel round, to VC round to exit strategy. Jeff went through laborious detail about how all of the so called "angel groups" in Dallas where not really angel groups and event the incubators where not doing their job. Jeff Williams spoke to me not as a VC, but as someone who had the first hand experiences that I did in trying to launch a company.

Jeff Williams then spent the next 30 minutes telling me how to go about raising a VC round of financing. In summary, this is what Jeff said.

1. Get an angel round via friends and family - every VC wants to know that you have gone through the fund raising process. Plus you need the money to build credibility. Yes, Jeff said, that Dallas is a hard place to do it, but not impossible. (He then introduced me to an Angel investor).
2. Hire some people! You can not scale a business from 1 person. You need a team. This is why you need the money. Get a VP Sales, CTO, and other key people on board first.
3. Get a customer - preferrably a lot of them. This is also crucial because they validate your idea with their purchase.
4. Know your market. You must be extremely versed in your market including competitors and how your solution fits into them.

While this list is not complete, it is a basic summary of my first meeting with Jeff Williams in Dallas.

After that first meeting two years ago (2005), I set forth with his information and started the process of developing Lead Maverick, though at the time it was called SnapBrain. While the idea of the technology changed over time, the ideas that Jeff Williams provided to me in our meeting in Dallas, TX, never did.

Once I finally had raised some money, got some customers and hired a killer management team, I went back to Jeff Williams at Hunt Ventures and spoke to him again about what I had done.

True to form Jeff Williams then spent another 30 minutes educating me about the VC process and about how his firm operates. As of this writing, we are preparing material for Jeff to review and we are following his process and requirements to a T.

So why did I go through this review? First, Jeff Williams is an entrprenuers VC guy. He understands the perspective from the owner's point of view. This is NOT to say that Jeff Williams isn't tough and demanding (he is and then some), but at least he has an appreciation for what you are going through on the other side of the table.

Second, Jeff Williams is very smart. Trust me, the time he spends educating you is for your benefit as he know what he is talking about.

And finally, he wants you to succeed. Even if he does not invest in your deal, his heart wants you to make a difference and he will and does help where he can.

So to my fellow entrprenuers, when you are looking for the right VC, start with Jeff Williams at Hunt Ventures first.

 P.S. I will let you know how my fund raising goes with him. I have no clue as to what he will do, but at least I know he will listen and understand.