Securing venture capital is no joke for serial entrepreneurs

Updated
Comic Wonder
Comic Wonder

Kelly and Jeff Fitzsimmons are the serial entrepreneurs who started Comic Wonder with partner Mike Dillon. Collectively, they invested $450,000 to start their website, which features competitive joke-telling.

You say you haven't heard about Comic Wonder? Well it's the first online competitive forum for telling jokes.. and I mean telling. You can't just email them a joke. You've got to tell the joke using their fancily-named "call-out joke acquisition system," because half the fun is in hearing the joke-teller. The business side of the site includes developing a large fan base in order to attract advertising and sponsorship dollars.

But Comic Wonder isn't joking around when it comes to growing this business. The owners recently reached out to venture capitalists, seeking half a million dollars in additional funding. And they walked away with $750,000. Investors were wowed with their business plan and their previous successful entrepreneurial ventures.

Securing venture capital isn't easy. But it can be done, even if your idea seems a little funny.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

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