Important discloser: I am not a VC, but the title is a play on the popular youtube video, Damn It Feels Good to Be a Banker. Great video, but probably not what thousands of laid off bankers are actually thinking right now.

You know the economy is screwed up when it is safer to be a VC investing in latest mobile software startups than working a 100-year old investment firms. But the quote from SeaPoint Ventures Managing Partner Tom Huseby agrees completely with what I am seeing and hearing at the tech meetings that I attend.

Right now, in this environment, even if you’ve got a great idea you’d better not expect to get funding…You had better try to execute on that idea at your kitchen table for a while, write some code, do a prototype. If you’ve already got a prototype, do a field trial with friends and family, and get some real traction before you try to get funding. Most investors are going to want to see some progress.

Your basic instructions for getting funding:

1. Work hard to pull the basics together on your own.

2. Get customers, traction and, hopefully, revenue.

3. When you really don’t need the VCs because you are making your own money off your idea, then go talk to them.

Last night I attended the Venture Capital SIG of SD Forum. I was really looking forward to it since it was canceled from the previous month. The topic was “Term Sheet Negotiations -Do’s and Don’ts“, which is always a hot topic in Silicon Valley.

The people on the panel were top notch and represented all sides of the term sheet transaction. It had a VC who was formerly an entrepreneur, David Rolf of VantagePoint. Mixed in with a banker and a lawyer was Lawrence Coburn, an entrepreneur that had just closed Series A funding for his startup, RateitAll.com.

I had prepared before I arrived. I had read some books on term sheet fundamentals. It allowed me to follow the basic language even if it did take me a couple of seconds to translate “2 for a pre-money 8″ into English. I really felt vindicated on my extra credit homework when I overheard two people in the audience talking about good books on term sheets. I could proudly say that I was reading both of the books being recommended at that moment.

This high point was, of course, balanced by a low point.In an earlier post I had mentioned that Sean Murphy of SKMurphy had suggested the book “The Four Steps to the Epiphany“. Before the SIG, I drove to Barnes and Noble since I could not find the book in the local libraries. Imagine my surprise when Barnes and Noble’s computers had no record of this book. It was so unbelievable to me that I called a local library and had the librarian give me the author’s name, Steven Blank. Even that additional info was no help. In frustration, I called Borders while I was still at the Barnes and Noble. They had no record of the book either.

I tried the librarian again. She tried to find the book at another library. Turns out that there are only 17 libraries in the ENTIRE United States that have this book. Only 3 of them are in California. ARGHHHHH!

The hunt goes on.

Several good articles caught my eye today. Putting them all together, they show the promise that the mobile web has.

The first story by Colin Gibbs said that the mobile space is going to have many VCs looking to invest in the near future. In fact, the VCs that KPMG surveyed predicted that mobile would receive the highest amounts of money. As the networks improve, more people are going to use the mobile web to communicate.

Likewise, eMarketer had an article that summarized their research findings in the mobile space. The first chart showed how the iPhone is increasing demand for mobile content by making it easier for people to reach it. The second chart predicted the amount earned on advertising in mobile search. They predicted that spending on mobile search ads would almost triple this year from last year’s $34.5 million to $107.4 million this year. Google should send Steve Jobs a thank you note.

But all this rosy news includes a reminder that what really holds the mobile space back is its complicated systems and relationships. In a story once again penned by Colin Gibbs, executives in the mobile industry point out that even a simple text message branding effort can require 30 vendors to send one text message. The mobile ad space is still young and standards are still developing.

This same message was made more pointedly at AOL at the Mobile Marketing Forum last week. This market really is one in which everyone will get more if they work together to make it grow by making it easy on advertisers and users.

RCR Wireless compiled together a great synopsis of the venture capital deals put together in the first quarter of 2008. Three things really pop out from this list.

1. The VC money is being distributed across the world, not just in Silicon Valley.

2. Large amounts of money are going to the usual hardware and chip companies, but a surprising amount of money is going into social networks.

3. There are just too many social networks being created. This boom is going to be followed by a bust for most of these sites.

I could be wrong about point 3. If you feel the world needs another social network, especially one focused mainly on the mobile space, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter.