I used to be a pretty good golfer. Then I started a company. I still love the game but I don't have enough time or passion to get back down to a single digit handicap. Maybe golf is too easy compared with the challenges of a startup. What got me thinking about losing my golf Jones was yesterday's Velocity Venture Capital Entrepreneurial Drive golf tournament. It's a fundraiser for non-profits that support entrepreneurs in the Sacramento area like SARTA, CleanStart and University of California, Davis' business plan competiton among others. The crazy fun part was the tee box pitch. The 36 foursomes of golfers/investors were pitched at every tee by entrepreneurs in full fundraising mode with demos, contests and giveaways. (Special bonus for investors: No PowerPoints!)

There were clean tech companies like Marquiss Wind Power, medical devices like VuStik and new healthcare search engine from Healthsphere. I had the chance to golf but I was more fired up about doing a Fundability tee box pitch. Over and over and over. We're fundraising too so the choice was easy. Play golf with 3 other guys for 5 hours or present to 140+ potential investors and customers in the same amount of time? To be fair, I had help all day from David Pitta our VP Sales and Brian Ostrovsky our product guy. Brian, a low handicapper, was ready to challenge investors to a long driving contest for equity but we decided that SEC or the PGA might have a problem with that. 

The Entrepreneurial Drive actually worked. It was for a good cause and we connected with some new investors and generated a stack of leads for our soon-to-be-announced private-labeled SaaS solution.  Best of all, I spent a great guiltless day on the golf course even though I never even hit a ball.