What’s New
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Angel Investment Asset Allocation (2): Time to Liquidity, Allocation Pie
In Angel Investing as Asset Allocation Strategy (1): Brad Feld on Home Runs, we reviewed why angel investing isn’t for the faint of hearts. The risks involved can be quite overwhelming. For the ambitious bunch, though, it’s difficult to resist the attractive payoffs offered by angel investing. If we want to tap into the lucrative [...]
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The Perfect Pitch 2010 Competition: Pitch and Pinch
On the back of a successful 2009 conference that featured billionaire Sir Richard Branson and 43 other prominent speakers and business success stories, PerfectBusiness is orchestrating an even bigger event this year, The PerfectBusiness Summit 2010, to be held in Las Vegas at Palms Casino’s 2,500 seat concert theater on October 7 – 8. What [...]
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Angel Investing as Asset Allocation Strategy (1): Brad Feld on Home Runs
Got ambitions for high-payoff potentials? Allocate a portion of your investable capital to angel investing, a form of alternative investments that offer high risk, high return opportunities. William S. Podd, executive director of Landmark Angels, suggests, “Angel investing, with its historical high risk/high reward strategy, can provide an opportunity for significant returns for high net [...]
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Why Jason Calacanis, Will Herman, Dharmesh Shah, Et Al. Angel Invest
Got balls, got money, and madly in love with promising startups? You’re destined to start your journey on angel investing! Think about it. You invest your own money and report to no one but yourself. Cut a check if you like; close the checkbook if you don’t. You always have the final say ‘cos Golden [...]
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Alliott Cole of Octopus Ventures: Winning Competitive Deals
It’s no secret that investors fight head over heels for sizzling deals and promising entrepreneurs to increase odds of success and potential returns. But when demand for quality deals exceeds supply, you better come up with exclusive, creative, or effective ways to lure the Steve Jobses of tomorrow. How to compete for hot deals? Are [...]
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John J. Maalouf: How to Select M&A Advisors
In Part 1, M&A Exits: Sell-Side M&A Process, we briefly discussed IPO and M&A exits for angel investors while John J. Maalouf, one of the “Nation’s Top 10 International Trade & Finance Lawyers,” walked us through the sell-side M&A process for a small fictitious company called AppleSoft, whose valuation lies below US$50 million. According to [...]
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Think Twice About Funding Pure-Play Startups
According to GigaOm’s Om Malik, angel investors are thinking twice about funding pure-play startups – single-platform focused companies whose profits often bypass investors and developers and go home with platform owners. When hot startups enter the market, entrepreneurs go crazy trying to discover new ways to capitalize on their success. Think Twitter. Think Facebook. Malik [...]
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M&A Exits: Sell-Side M&A Process
Sophisticated investors always think about exits before they invest. “Does the company have the potential to go public or become an attractive acquisition target?” If not, they’d take their money elsewhere. Going public or IPO means the company raises money by offering stocks to the general public – you know, those stocks that anyone can [...]
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Startup Scrutinizing Secrets of “Super Angel” Jeff Clavier
SoftTech VC’s founder and managing partner Jeff Clavier knows how to pick a winner. New angels may ask: How does this super angel weed out the roses from the thorns amongst all ‘em seemingly promising web companies? To Clavier, startup executives who can’t prove their healthy team dynamics probably won’t make the cut. In a [...]
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Joshua Schachter: Small Angel Round Smells Like Lifestyle Business
We recently dived into Joshua Schachter’s “Ask Me Anything” at HackerNews to learn more about the founder of Delicious and the way he invests as an angel investor. He calls himself a “junior” angel who’s trying to figure out if he wants to become a professional investor someday, but the way he thinks and vets [...]
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M&A Exits: Sell-Side M&A Process
Sophisticated investors always think about exits before they invest. “Does the company have the potential to go public or become an attractive acquisition target?” If not, they’d take their money elsewhere. Going public or IPO means the company raises money by offering stocks to the general public – you know, those stocks that anyone can [...]
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Angel Investment Process: Where Do IP Attorneys Come In
Back in April, we met a patent attorney through Greg George, who suggested we do a post on intellectual property. Law? IP? *yawn* Before you doze off, wait! This patent attorney happened to be McGarry Bair’s (@McGarryBair) Tom Williams (@RealGTom), who’s fun, witty, and enthusiastic – not your typical lawyer. In fact, McGarry Bair isn’t [...]
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Angel Deal Structure: A Look at Convertible Notes
Nasim writes: From my understanding, preferred equity and convertible debt are the two main investment vehicles currently used in angel investments. I’m confused as to how to structure my seed investment. The entrepreneur and his lawyer press for convertible notes…that convert into common…but I recall from one of your articles that experienced investors think notes [...]
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Investing in SaaS Ventures (Part 1): The Basics
A dear reader, Taliba M., tells us she’s ready to make her second angel investment. She has an eye on a SaaS startup but lacks experience in this area. She wants to know how she should proceed. Read Effective Ways to Invest in the Unknown for our response and the purpose of this series. Taliba [...]
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Angel Investing: Dilution in a Down Round (Part 2)
A reader recently asked about dilution and we decided to answer it in 3 parts. Part 1 looks at dilution in an up round; this part examines dilution in a down round; and Part 3 goes over some of the measures you can take to minimize the impact and likelihood of dilution. Here’s the question: [...]
- More from What Da Heck Does It Mean »
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Alliott Cole of Octopus Ventures: Winning Competitive Deals
It’s no secret that investors fight head over heels for sizzling deals and promising entrepreneurs to increase odds of success and potential returns. But when demand for quality deals exceeds supply, you better come up with exclusive, creative, or effective ways to lure the Steve Jobses of tomorrow. How to compete for hot deals? Are [...]
-
Think Twice About Funding Pure-Play Startups
According to GigaOm’s Om Malik, angel investors are thinking twice about funding pure-play startups – single-platform focused companies whose profits often bypass investors and developers and go home with platform owners. When hot startups enter the market, entrepreneurs go crazy trying to discover new ways to capitalize on their success. Think Twitter. Think Facebook. Malik [...]
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Startup Scrutinizing Secrets of “Super Angel” Jeff Clavier
SoftTech VC’s founder and managing partner Jeff Clavier knows how to pick a winner. New angels may ask: How does this super angel weed out the roses from the thorns amongst all ‘em seemingly promising web companies? To Clavier, startup executives who can’t prove their healthy team dynamics probably won’t make the cut. In a [...]
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Joshua Schachter: Small Angel Round Smells Like Lifestyle Business
We recently dived into Joshua Schachter’s “Ask Me Anything” at HackerNews to learn more about the founder of Delicious and the way he invests as an angel investor. He calls himself a “junior” angel who’s trying to figure out if he wants to become a professional investor someday, but the way he thinks and vets [...]
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Del.icio.us’ Joshua Schachter – Not Your Average “Junior” Angel Investor
Delicious founder Joshua Schachter recently did an AMA (ask me anything) over at HackerNews. Only halfway down the discussions and you’ll realize that Schachter, a self-proclaimed “junior” angel who’s trying to figure out whether he wants to become a professional investor someday, vets deals much like those who’ve got decades of experience under their belt. [...]
- More from Picking Winners »
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Alliott Cole of Octopus Ventures: Winning Competitive Deals
It’s no secret that investors fight head over heels for sizzling deals and promising entrepreneurs to increase odds of success and potential returns. But when demand for quality deals exceeds supply, you better come up with exclusive, creative, or effective ways to lure the Steve Jobses of tomorrow. How to compete for hot deals? Are [...]
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Angel Deal Structure: A Look at Convertible Notes
Nasim writes: From my understanding, preferred equity and convertible debt are the two main investment vehicles currently used in angel investments. I’m confused as to how to structure my seed investment. The entrepreneur and his lawyer press for convertible notes…that convert into common…but I recall from one of your articles that experienced investors think notes [...]
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Shark Tank (Part 2): 5 Things the Show Gets Right
[Guest post by Brant Bukowsky, the founder of GrowthPartner.com -- a firm that provides angel investment and online marketing expertise to emerging companies. A serial entrepreneur, Bukowsky and his team have built three Inc. 500 companies in the last five years. He blogs at Angel Investment Journal.] This is the second in a two-part series. [...]
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Shark Tank (Part 1): 5 Things the Show Gets Wrong
[Guest post by Brant Bukowsky, the founder of GrowthPartner.com -- a firm that provides angel investment and online marketing expertise to emerging companies. A serial entrepreneur, Bukowsky and his team have built three Inc. 500 companies in the last five years. He blogs at Angel Investment Journal.] This is the first in a two-part series. [...]
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Angel Investing: Dilution Preventive Measures (Part 3)
This is Part 3 of our quest to answer a reader’s question on dilution. The reader writes – How do you prevent being washed out as you keep pro-rata and the numbers get increasingly bigger? Suppose you invest $200k for 25%. The venture then raises $5m, so to keep pro rata you do $1.25m of [...]
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Super Angel Jeff Clavier: Consumerization of Enterprise Software
Super angel Jeff Clavier recently offered his opinion on the latest software trends likely to influence enterprises. He pinpointed some major drifts he expected to see across the enterprise software landscape, and his opinion carries weight. Clavier vetted enterprise solutions for the financial industry from 1988 to 2000. And he’s invested in over 75 startups [...]
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Dodd Bill Debate Starts; Don’t Send in the Porn Surfers
Sure you’ve heard about the infamous Dodd bill – probably gazillion times too many. The startup and investment community frown upon the initial bill and after much lobbying it’s announced that 2 amendments have been proposed to save the startup and investment community. Floor debates on the Dodd bill starts today. Let’s recap the amendments. [...]
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Angel Investing: Making News Right Now
New Service Aims To Enable ‘Peer-To-Peer’ Early Investing A group of executives from the financial-services industry has started what they call a peer-to-peer platform for early-stage investing, with the hope of connecting angel investors with promising startups. MicroVentures, which is funded by its founders, aims to charge startups US$99 for a basic listing on the [...]
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2010: The Ultimate Buyer’s Market for Investors
No doubt, 2009 was a year of dieting and fat-trimming for startups. But those that have conquered the financial tsunami will come out a lean, mean, revenue-ramping machine. “2010 should be the ultimate buyers’ market for investors with cash to spend because entrepreneurs who tightened their belts last year cannot do so indefinitely,” Steve Fredrick [...]
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Investors of Tomorrow: What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
Are you smarter than a 5th grader? While this phrase has become a wildly popular game and game show, it is also an interesting segue into a recent post in The Business Insider. Daniel Schultz, DFJ Gotham’s co-founder and managing director, set out to try and explain venture capital to his son’s 5th grade class. [...]
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