Follow the LeadSeeking capital to finance expansion? Streamline your search for the perfect investor by using an online database.

Finding investors is hard work. Entrepreneurs who have been through the process a few times, like Todd Parsons, 40, co-founder of San Francisco-basedBuzzLogic, will tell you it's the hardest part of running a business. For Parsons, who co-founded BuzzLogic with Jeff Glover, 40, and Mitch Ratcliffe, 45, finding venture capital to turn the consulting company into a cutting-edge software company took about four months and included some of the most grueling analysis, networking and salesmanship of his career.

Parsons found one tool that made the search easier and ultimately more fruitful: an online database that helped him find and evaluate investors in his area and industry. The investor database he used fromGrowthink Researchis one of hundreds of such tools that have sprung up both online and offline.