A recap and wish for 2009,

As another year turns the page, fundfindr.tv has been pleased to present some of the top minds in investment, entrepreneurship and events for your viewing pleasure this past year.  Our mission has always been to democratize venture capital and venture success.  Key to this goal is sharing great content - over 153 posts - with you, our viewers.  Herewith, some of these Top posts and videos from the past year.

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Interviews:  Over 45 exclusives including highlights from The Funded’s Adeo Ressi.

Adeo was definitely one of the amazing people we met - no bullshit and committed to  helping leveling the playing field between the ideas and money.  In his New Year’s message he announced great plans for Thefunded.com next year - ping us and we’ll send you his message.  We also highly recommend you check out and register for the site if you are a CEO.

Other no nonsense types with valuable advice, we had the pleasure of featuring included: Robin Chakrabarti who started the year as a key man in The Dragon’s Den, Bootup Lab’s Danny Robinson, Super blogger John Chow and Miss 604 Rebecca Bollwitt. Robin shared some success snacks with our viewers and ended up joining Boston Pizza International CEO Mike Cordoba in launching a new Investment company targetting mid-market firms with high growth potential.  No doubt, we’ll hear much more from Robin in the coming year.

Danny launched his latest venture Strutta as a destination video competition’s site, transformed it to an API licensing model all while launching an exciting new Vancouver-based incubator Boot-Up Labs geared to build real companies first and attract VC later.

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Straight from the investor’s mouth: We gathered pearls and nuggets from leading Angel Fund managers and investors like Basil Peters, Mike Volker and Yaletown Venture’s Ralph Turfus.  The video thumbnail above  features Part III of the exclusive fundfindr.tv interview with Mike Volker on Angel funds and how they are structured for success.

Webisodes and Features: Our first Webisode set the tone on our mission to educate entrepreneurs and our many features including a growing roster of top expert speakers like Dr. Geordie Rose, Barry Jinks and Eric. T Petersen ended the year with a big finish.  Look for their excellent knowledge sharing and upcoming presentations by Darrin Barefoot at IMC, Mossadiq Umedaly at VEF and many more on backbonemag.com and fundfindr.tv.

Can’t miss Events: Way too many to cover them all but fundfindr.tv was there capturing the excitement at: New Ventures BC, New Media B.C’s Fusion Forum, Small Business BC, Enterprize 2008, VEF Momentum, VANTEC, Massive Tech Show.  Riiplay some of the excitement here and look for much more in 2009.

fundfindr News: Like many of our subjects, fundfindr Media also transitioned through the year.  Stay tuned for much more Knowledge on Demand, top opinion leaders and experts captured on video as we put finishing touches to the upcoming launch of the Riiplay.tv Alpha - covered here on Techvibes.

We are convinced that in today’s economy Knowledge is Power and we’re committed to helping you get it.  Register for an Alpha invite at www.riiplay.tv today.  Just hit the riiplay button and provide your email.

So, set your goals high, attack the year with optimism,  reflect on  hits and misses from the past year and learn as much as you can to prepare yourself for success.  Make 2009 your best year ever!  We will.

Thanks for watching,

Bret Conkin and the fundfindr.tv team

fundfindr.com was recently featured on a Get Connected TV episode on start-ups. Check out host Mike Agerbo on the Get Connected website talking about how one of the biggest challenges for new businesses is funding. You can also see the feature via the You Tube link in the video thumbnail above.

Get Connected TV describes fundfindr as an “easy to use pitching site” and a “great resource to hone your pitching skills.” Mike demonstrates many of the features and benefits so check it out.

You can also see this feature in a podcast at getconnectedradio.com. This episode also featured our friends and Pitchies sponsors at Sitemasher - we recommend you check their exciting new website builder and CMS out!

Great networking event tonite at Crush for the young, and like yours truly, young at heart entrepreneur. Shout out to Small Business BC’s Jaeger Mah for putting it together and Dean Barbour for his entertaining take on Perfecting your Pitch. Dean made very relevant points on the fact that you are always pitching so have your message ready. Ask questions, don’t just sell.

Another nugget was the importance of listening and information gathering - not to sell the audience something but to try and connect them to someone within your network. Pay it forward as it were! Us old guys know the true value in that. Ok, Dean’s still young but you can take in his well worth it presentation at Small Business BC’s seminar series. And here’s 10 tips on perfecting your pitch from Dean captured earlier on fundfindr.tv.

And, insert shameless plug, if you want to learn more on funding your small business, attend the Funding your Small Business Seminar next week, as well! I know, I will be.

The attendees were placed in groups for a networking game built around coming up with a team pitch for a “product” provided in a secret box. The talents of the students and entrepreneurs was put to full use creating “grey lamps” for eliminating the grey areas of networking events, a happy face bucket for turning housework into a joy and our team’s amazing transformation of an elastic, staple puller, ink stamp and tape into a pair of Jaeger Mah designer blue jeans! And don’t forget you can still enter to win over $20k in prizes for your real business by entering your video pitch in The Pitchies competition!

The event also marked the launch of Enterprize 2009, Canada’s largest student led business plan competition by Boris Remes and the Enterprize team. Look for much more on Enterprize upcoming on fundfindr.tv and for coverage of last year click here. This year’s event includes a very cool pre-event Imagine It as part of Canada Entrepreneurship Week and Global Entrepreneurship Week with shades of the networking game - check out this well done video well worth the watch.

We are often asked this question and there are certainly multiple factors at play.  The B.C. and Canadian investment climates are certainly not immune to the U.S. meltdown nor are other markets like the UK where incorporations are down 25% this year. Sectors and stage are factors as sectors like mining have really been taking it on the chin recently.   A recent CNN article rated Canada as the #8 market for entrepreneurs, behind Singapore at #1, U.S. at #3 and UK at #5.

Some of the investors we serve have provided reassurance that there is still capital in play not on the shelf for the right ventures in sectors like cleantech and technology. So, follow the developments like this recent post on Tech Crunch  VCs and startups won’t be immune to the credit crunch but you can still take advantage of vehicles like fundfindr.com, vencorps and others like these recommended in Entrepreneur.com to get your pitch in front of investors so don’t despair.

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A subject of much discussion in these days of climate change is triple bottom line, green entrepreneurship and whether business and the environment can co-exist.  fundfindr.tv caught up with Dr. Boyd Cohen, Assistant Professor, Entrepeneurship at Segal SFU, recently and his answer is a big yes!  Boyd is also an entrepreneur as founder and Chief Beluga Officer at 3rdWhale.com.  Now that’s a title.

Check out our exclusive interview and find our more about what Boyd calls Natural Capitalism.  The new industrial revolution?  Ready for green dating?  Learn about the evolution of green entrepreneurship.  I ran into one of Boyd’s colleagues at the IMC conference last week and sounds like 3rdwhale.com is going strong - sustainably, of course.

Want more?  Dr. Cohen will be presenting in Surrey, BC on Sept. 17th, 2008. as part of Segal SFU’s Sustainable Entrepreneurship Speaker Series.  To register and for more information on Dr. Boyd’s presentation, follow this link -  Sustainability meets Entrepreneurship, Web 2.0 and Mobile Applications.