“There aren’t a lot of early stage investors in Philadelphia:” serial entrepreneur Rick Rasansky talks investment, startups and wives at Venturef0rth [VIDEO]

Imagine sitting in front of an audience, entertaining a litany of personal and professional questions. Then imagine you don’t know whose asking each question because the audience members are submitting them anonymously using a software product you created.

Great. Now you have an idea of what it was like to be seven-time entrepreneur Rick Rasansky last night as he jovially participated in an hour-long Q&A session at Venturef0rth that was scandalously entitled “7 Startups, 4 wives, 1 entrepreneur.”

Using his own realtime feedback application Yorn, an audience of about 40 people, many of them also entrepreneurs, anonymously shot questions at Rasansky as he perched on a director’s chair and awaited the moderation of the coworking space’s cofounder Jesse Kramer.

Rasansky answered questions ranging from how to choose engineers and advisers to how to balance a startup and a family. He also — sort of — answered questions about his handful of ex-wives.

Rasansky, who is currently married, likens his marital history to launching a startup.

“You might say that if you were to compare it to a startup. A startup goes through a lot of different stages and pivots a lot and ends up finding the right direction,” Rasansky said. “And I definitely did.”

Check out video of Rasansky explaining how pitching to potential investors is different in Philadelphia than it is in places like New York City or Silicon Valley.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3TP63K5zzI]

Over the course of his career, Rasansky has started a variety of high-powered businesses that range in focus from food services to technology, including China Grill Management, Millennium Media Group, eCal, Intronics Corporation, Sapphire Mobile Systems, the Network Acquisition Company and, as of 2010, Yorn.

He is also known for his role in the acquisition of Wireless Philadelphia from Earthlink, though he expressed regret that since he sold the 4200-node WiFi network back to the City of Philadelphia, nothing had been done to deploy it.

Venturef0rth is the relatively new coworking space in Callowhill. Kramer and cofounder Elliot Menschik regularly hold events in the space that all tend to start off with free Philly brews and networking. This Q&A event was no exception.

To learn more about Venturef0rth’s event programming click here.