Illinois Venture Capital Association: Not too long after presenting at the 2006 Midwest Venture Summit, LiquidTalk raised a multimillion-dollar venture capital round from Meakem Becker Venture Capital. How was the summit helpful in attracting investors and getting the company VC ready?
David Peak: At the time LiquidTalk participated in the 2006 Midwest Venture Summit, we actually weren’t looking for VC funding. LiquidTalk was profitable at the time. We were looking for some angel funding to continue our bootstrapping strategy. We presented for 10 minutes during an angel track session and were as surprised as anyone that VC funding resulted from that endeavor.

After our angel pitch, Meakem Becker walked up to us. We finalized a term sheet from them about a month later. We are grateful that Dave Becker proactively took an interest and jumped in.

In terms of getting VC ready, the summit suggested we practice our pitch ahead of time. We really took that message to heart. I must have practiced those 10 minutes 50 times or more including presenting live in front of coaches from the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC) and from DePaul’s Coleman Center.

IVCA: Do you anticipate raising future rounds of venture capital for LiquidTalk?
DP: Possibly. In these economic times, one needs to be open to raising new money as a potential hedge against longer sales cycles. We sometimes debate the pros and cons of whether additional capital should come from a VC, from a strategic investor or from angel sources. The more important investor issue is the relationship we have with the source of the capital and folks taking a point of view on our company and our team.

LiquidTalk is off to a great start. The market for enterprise mobility applications is growing at 23 percent a year. It’s a great space. Like any business, though, we have our challenges. At LiquidTalk, we look for investors to proactively take a bit of time to understand our business and our team and share our vision for the future.

When investors don’t wait for us to call but reach out with potential customer leads or other ideas for LiquidTalk, I think it says a lot.

IVCA: Please describe the business objectives for LiquidTalk and the problem in the market the company helps to remedy.
DP: LiquidTalk makes it easy for an enterprise to push proprietary audio and video business content directly to mobile devices like the BlackBerry, iPhone and more.

Over two-thirds of U.S. employees spend 10 or more hours of their week working outside the office. This leads to huge productivity problems (think Dan Ryan commutes in Chicago, for example). Surveys LiquidTalk has conducted with its customers show that mobile employees can save an hour a day leveraging multimedia content via their mobile device during downtime.

We call this “mobile workforce engagement” and we have trademarked that term. If you think about it, we are kind of turning the BlackBerry into more of an iPod. We encourage any employers in the Midwest to check us out.

IVCA: This is your second venture-backed start-up. Please compare and contrast this experience with your first go around.
DP: My co-founder, Dan Anderson, and I did a start-up in Silicon Valley back in the dot-com days. Like a lot of entrepreneurs during the bubble-driven, dot-com days, we did a lot of things wrong. We built a product with no customers. We hired Wilson Sonsini as our law firm because it sounded nice.

We spent tons of money on office space and never filled more than a third of it. Worst of wall, we signed deals that often had little substance but made for pretty-sounding headlines. I cringe now thinking back, but at the same time, those days really prepared us for today.

We learned so much from that experience. Most important, my co-founder and I discovered that we love entrepreneurship and new technology. LiquidTalk is different in so many respects. For starters, we elected to headquarter the business in Chicago even though at the time of our funding my co-founder was still out west.

That decision alone grounded us to be a more realistic and more relationship and customer driven. Also, in contrast to our west coast days, we say “no” to a lot more things than we say “yes” to in terms of partnerships, deals, etc. I think that focus has helped.

IVCA: What is your take on the community that supports the development of early stage companies in Chicago and its outlying areas?
DP: Here in Chicago, I have witnessed an exciting new energy in the past couple years whereby entrepreneurs are openly rolling up their sleeves and helping each other succeed. People are getting together more than ever before to network and trade ideas.

Whether it’s TECH cocktail, the ITA, or the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, there are lots more resources for local entrepreneurs to tap into. At any of these events and forums, entrepreneurs can come together to swap war stories over term sheets, provide each other with names of potential hires or strategize on the latest sales strategy or tool.

I am optimistic that this energy and spirit of cooperation is what will make Chicago and the outlying areas more competitive with the coasts in allowing us to build great new companies.

IVCA: Please describe your experience basing your company at the University Technology Park at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
DP: LiquidTalk has been aggressive in tapping into local universities and their entrepreneurial programs for support. Why not? Start-ups have incredible start-up resources at some of our local universities. Early on, we leveraged M.B.A. students from the University of Chicago and its New Venture Challenge to build our original business plan.

The Coleman Center at DePaul University provided us with valuable coaching as we pursued angel funding. We later leveraged Kellogg at Northwestern to provide us with market research from M.B.A. students. When LiquidTalk began to take off and we needed a brick-and-mortar address, the IIT’s University Technology Park made a lot of sense. Our experience has been tremendously positive.

We pay low rent, have access to student engineering talent and we are situated on a campus setting in the dynamically changing South Loop area of Chicago. I would especially recommend this to new start-ups that initially need a small amount of space and want a one-stop shop in terms of resources.

IVCA: Where do you see your company two years down the line? What about 10 years down the line?
DP: We do not give ourselves the luxury to think more than a few months down the line. It is about finding customers and keeping them happy with great technology. If we do that right, the future will take care of itself.

IVCA: What do you do for fun when you’re not building your business?
DP: I have a wonderful network of friends in Chicago and a great life at home.

At home, I play with my daughter, Alexa, my yellow Labrador, Jake, and try to do at least one “date night” a week with my wife. By the way, in part I have my wife to thank for LiquidTalk. She was the one who suggested I enter this crazy idea about mobile knowledge into the business plan competition at the University of Chicago.

IVCA: What philanthropic organizations do you support?
DP: I am on the board of the SmartBet Poker Tournament, which is headed by other start-up CEOs, some VCs and the president of the ITA and CEC. This year’s event is Sept. 25. I encourage IVCA members to sponsor a table for $3,000 as it is a great cause focused on better educating our youth.

I also am a founder of the Kellogg Alumni Entrepreneur Group on LinkedIn, which has more than 650 members including 50 VCs and more than 300 local entrepreneurs. More recently I have been asked by the Mayor’s Council of Technology Advisors to work with that group to build better talent in the Midwest.

The result has been a philanthropic group I have co-founded called UniverCity That Works, which is being supported by the CIOs of several Fortune 500 companies in town. The vision for UniverCity That Works is that of a social network, a community and a movement bound together by a common cause: improving Chicagoland’s talent base.

The UniverCity That Works label is a reference to mayor Richard Daley’s favorite term for Chicago. It conveys the image of a university that works with business and works in terms of careers for students.

IVCA: What’s the most important thing about your company that IVCA members and area investors should know?
DP: What IVCA members should know about LiquidTalk is that there are 10 other companies and teams just like us with great ideas, technology and talent. I come into contact with these people and firms all the time.

So what are you waiting for? If you see a business model you like and some folks you think will do the heavy lifting, just invest. Waiting for a start-up to “ripen” over a period of many months may cause investors to be left with entrepreneurs who don’t have other options in their careers.