I do stand by the assertion that venture capital at the seed level should be EASY to get. If you can’t get $25,000 from a 10 slide deck, you don’t have a functioning seed level funding operation in your state.

There are deep social and historical structures at work in Idaho that make this place very, very, different from places like Colorado and especially Utah - structures that impact the very way people conceive of “entrepreneurship” here. And that’s way too long a discussion for a comment.

Mark sometime let’s chat about how to make your efforts successful here.

Venture Capital in the Rockies (VCIR) is next month; this is an annual event focused on VC funding for the Intermountain West. Billions of dollars of VC funds will be represented at VCIR and would be an excellent venue for Idaho companies seeking VC money. The fact that only a single company from the entire state of Idaho applied to present at VCIR is a pretty good indicator that Idaho is indeed lacking VC-worthy deals at the moment.
(http://vcirwinter.com)

Concerning your personal animosity toward Mark Solon, I have known Mark for a few years now. He has no financial investment in my company, but is always willing to go to lunch or coffee with me and chat about business, give me advice, connect me with people that can help me, etc. Mark is a solid pillar of the community and works hard for Boise and Idaho.

1- there are no deals here in idaho worthy of highway 12 investment.
2 - funding SHOULD be hard to obtain.
3 - the “patents per capita” statistic overstates Idaho’s capacity for innovation
4 - Idaho needs to focus on education to compete in the global marketplace

In between those points, Mr. Solon sprinkled praise for himself and his firm.

Here are some things he left out:

1 - I am Mark Solon and my annual income is rumored to be $750,000
2 - I am Mark Solon and I am taking this summer off because I have been working so hard and I need a break.
3 - Even though my largest investor is the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho, most of my investments have been in companies outside of Idaho.
4 - If things continue as they have to date, Highway 12 will fail to deliver a positive return to its investors.
5 - I should have said “there are not enough companies that are worthy AND willing to take money from Highway 12.” Several Idaho companies have declined to take investment from Highway 12 because of onerous financing terms or personality conflicts with me.

There’s much in here that I disagree with. Rather than dissecting it here, I’d much prefer we go out to dinner together, have a few beers and see if we can find some common ground. How ’bout it?

Best, Mark