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By: Elyssa Stewart, New Venture Consultant at IgniteU NY
We brought six local startups together this week to take part in our second set of workshops funded by National Grid. We covered a topic that most startups and entrepreneurs do not normally think about until they are deep in the thick of it: Due diligence.
Due Diligence is reasonable steps taken by a person in order to satisfy a legal requirement, especially in buying or selling something.
The first thing emphasized by the instructors was that due diligence is not and should not just be a one-sided investigation. Just like the potential investor is interesting in learning more about the startup, the startup should seek information about that potential investor.
“This workshop has been very helpful,” said Jacqueline Curtsinger from GridStarr. “We have been in a few different entrepreneurial programs, but they often tiptoe around the idea of due diligence and just say it is something you will need to worry about when you get there. This workshop couldn’t have come at a better time for us.”
This was a common sentiment among the individuals in the session. Typical programming for startup companies does not include a deep dive into due diligence, leaving these companies with minimal knowledge on what to expect and what red flags to look for. A tag team of financial and legal professionals led the workshop: Dave Wojeski from Wojeski and Co. and Matthew Wagoner from The Wagoner Firm. They worked together to educate the startup companies on what to look for and what to prepare when going into due diligence.
These workshops were brought to the region by National Grid’s CleanTech Incubation program, which was designed to support entrepreneurial ventures, connect new companies to key resources, address their critical problems, and assist them in capitalizing on emerging opportunities. The program awarded grant funding to NYSTEC, an independent not-for-profit technology consulting company. IgniteU NY is powered by NYSTEC.