MOUNTAIN VIEW, California -- As Guy Kawasaki rattled through his ten tips for high-tech start-ups, Anne Kwong sat in the balcony, listening.
"I don't think Bill Gates did something like this," said Kwong, 22, who is still deciding if she has the mettle to launch her own business. "But it's a good idea for me to see if I have the right ideas."
On Wednesday, Kwong and some 500 other hopeful entrepreneurs bearing business plans crammed the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts to listen to venture capitalists and other start-up star-makers offer advice.
The key takeaways from the conference's first day: Keep your pitch short and network like crazy.
"Do not assume the venture capitalist has read your plan," said Mike Frank of Advanced Technology Ventures. "Half the companies we do fund don't have plans."
The panelists agreed that a short executive summary was quickly replacing the 20-page business plan.
But most venture capitalists are sent thousands of ideas a year, said Shanda Bahles of El Dorado Ventures. And "without an introduction, they won't get read."
Clearly, there are exceptions to the rule. As Mike Moritz pointed out, Yahoo's Jerry Yang didn't have a plan when Moritz' Sequoia Capital invested in his pile of links in 1995.
Pitches flew like baseballs at the conference, which was sponsored by Kawasaki's venture capital cupid Garage.com.
Entrepreneurs swarmed venture capitalists for business cards and a few hopefuls managed to work their plans into investors' already-crowded briefcases. One outgoing attendee pushed ready-made Rolodex cards into any empty hand.
"Nonmedical concept, yours or mine," read his badge. "Ask me. Don't be shy."
Beyond the Il Fornaio croissants, T-shirts, and boxed lunches included in their US$495 conference fee, a few brave conference-goers got the chance to give a 30-second pitch to the panel of investors. The moneymen responded with a thumbs up or down.
"This isn't The Gong Show," warned Sequoia Capital's Moritz, clearly displeased at being put on the spot.
But the venture capitalist -- who had sarcastically suggested earlier in the day that start-ups pick five-letter word names like Yahoo, Apple, Atari, or eToys to ensure their success -- finally gave a thumbs up to an Internet start-up.
Kawasaki rushed the hopeful entrepreneur from the stage. But the panel broke up minutes later and, while his pitch may have flown for half a minute, the founder again was just a face in the crowd.
