by Rick Segal

As many of you now know, the VC community has a secret society called The Dart Board Group. It meets every other full moon based Thursday at a location randomly selected from the New York City Yellow Pages.  This ultra-secret group maps out strategies, looks into the future, and trades Pez dispensers on the first version of Ebay.

I'm not a member.  I got their secret checklist on the first pass filtering of deals.  I'm sharing it with you.

1. Type in the URL of the company:

Does the web site's home page tell you what the company does.

2. Google the company:

Anybody blogging about it?

Any news?

3. Google the founders:

Do they have a LinkedIn or other social/public profiles?

Do they have a blog?

Do they have anybody blogging about them?

Any photos out there on various public/private/leaked sites?

YouTube Videos?

4. Google the mission statement:

Anybody saying/blogging this one liner?

Any buzz words in the statement which pop up?

All kidding aside, try this on your own company and see what you get.  You'd be amazed at what is out there even for the "stealth" companies.  There are analysts in Venture Funds all over the world running through this list everyday.