Dear members, sponsors and friends of the Software Council,

Hope everyone had a pleasant and relaxing Fourth of July.

And with this bit of annual, patriotic R&R behind us, the season for the VentureNet^SM 2003 conference is officially open.

We are now accepting applications for capital presentations to what we expect to be our best conference ever. For those who aren't familiar with the VentureNet conference, it is the premier platform for raising capital in Southern California's information technology industry. Last year we had over 300 people in attendance, including partners from every venture capital firm and angel group in the region as well as many from Silicon Valley, Austin and New York.

A fantastic team of venture capitalists and angel investors will review every plan that is submitted and coach the 9-12 finalists who will be invited to present at the conference.

The VentureNet 2003 conference is generously sponsored by Stradling Yocca
Carlson & Rauth, Deloitte & Touche, C.J. Patrick & Co., Palomar Ventures,
Tech Coast Angels (Los Angeles), and Advanced-Media.

So don't wait and submit your application today at www.venturenet.org.

Finally, I encourage you to join the Software Council if you haven't already because there is no better way to help your software company grow and prosper while demonstrating your commitment to and support of Southern California's software industry. Please contact Catrina Gruver at catrina@scsc.org or (310) 328-0043 to find out the reasons why joining the Software Council is good for your company.

Richard Koffler
Executive Director

Rick Sharga, President & CEO, CJ Patrick Company

I've always been fascinated with dinosaurs. Bigger-than-life creatures, stomping around Mesozoic earth, eating everything in their path, and ruling the planet for 180 million years. Then, suddenly, they were gone. Paleontologists are still debating what actually killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Theories abound.

Some point to a meteor that struck Central America, and turned the earth's atmosphere into a toxic fog. Others suggest that plants evolved into something the herbivores couldn't stomach, leading to their starvation-and ultimately to the starvation of the predating carnivores. Still others theorize that a SARS-like virus spread as the continents shifted and connected previously separate dinosaur species via land bridges. And some believe it was simply the inevitable climactic changes that did them in: creatures that big evolve too slowly to adjust to dramatic shifts in the environment. More >>

By Fernand Kong, Senior Vice President & Manager, Foreign Exchange
Silicon Valley Bank

Selling to overseas buyers is complicated business and can appear overwhelming when considerations such as cross border credit, political and regulatory risk become part of the equation. In a post 9/11 world we have more concerns and volatility than we did before. Despite these factors, companies cannot ignore the prospect of selling product to customers who happen to be located overseas and want to purchase or license your product. We have clients whose early or even initial sales volume is generated from overseas customers. Whether significant additional sales revenue of existing product or critical early sales volume of a new product, such opportunities should not be missed. Considering these issues, it is not surprising that companies seek to avoid the additional complication of sales denominated in foreign currencies such as the euro, yen or British pound to name a few. More >>

by Mark L. Skaist and Michael Cobb
of Stradling, Yocca, Carlson & Rauth

Your company has been working for months to land the "big deal," and it wasn't easy. You've spent many late nights and earned countless frequent flier miles wooing the big customer, negotiating key business terms, and finally, everyone is ready to put things into writing. You then call your attorney and ask him to give you a "standard form" of agreement for you to use for the software development, licensing, distribution, or other similar transaction that you've negotiated. When you finally get the agreement from your attorney, you are dismayed to find that, while it is lengthy and full of legalese, it does not seem to describe your transaction at all. After spending hours with your attorney trying to explain the deal and trying to conform the agreement to the transaction at hand, and after spending weeks negotiating seemingly irrelevant deal terms with the other side, you finally sign the contract. When you finally get back to doing the real work of maintaining or repairing the relationship with your customer, you receive a huge legal bill from your attorney. The end result is that the deal took longer and cost more than it should have, and worse yet, started off the relationship with your customer on the wrong foot. More >>

By Terry Allen and Jim Rigby
Managing Directors of the Financial Valuation Group

Every Business Owner Wants to Know:
How Much Is My Company Worth?

Every business owner wants to know "What's my company worth?" In addition to a natural curiosity about the value of our companies, we need knowledge about our company's value to make decisions about taxes, employee stock options, business plans, mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances.

The most difficult part of valuing a company is understanding that the process is very subjective and varies depending on the purpose of the valuation. Valuations performed for tax purposes, financial reporting purposes, divorces, or a merger or acquisition could all result in different value conclusions about the worth of the company. Valuations performed for different purposes are controlled by different guidelines. For example, tax valuations are controlled by the tax code and regulations, IRS pronouncements, and tax court opinions, while valuations for divorces are controlled by state laws and family court decisions, which vary from state to state. More >>

PricewaterhouseCoopers' "Trendsetter Barometer" interviewed CEOs of 403 product and service companies identified in the media as the fastest growing U.S. businesses over the last five years. The surveyed companies range in size from approximately $5 million to $150 million in revenue/sales.

With an eye on the uncertain economy and their own slowing growth, many "Trendsetter" CEOs are launching new initiatives to reduce overhead, operating costs, and debt as a percent of revenues-and are planning new growth initiatives that, if successful, will enable them to spread their expenses over a larger business. More >>

Phone: (310) 328-0043
Fax: (310) 224-1993

www.scsc.org

Catrina Gruver, Director of Programming, catrina@scsc.org
Kristen Messineo, Program Coordinator, kristen@scsc.org

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VentureNet^SM is Southern California's premier software and information technology capital conference. It is the primary forum where the region's most promising companies get to meet and present to prospective investors and strategic partners from around the country.

VentureNet is an excellent fund-raising platform for Southern California companies that develop and commercialize software and related information technologies and which have the potential to create superior shareholder value. The past six VentureNet conferences have cumulatively helped presenting companies raise over $75 million.

Apply to present today!