Tag Archive for 'angel investors'

Angelsoft - salesforce for seed stage investors?

Published by Udhay Shankar N on September 2, 2008 in Ecosystem and Ideas & Companies.
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Fascinating article in Wired about the resurgence of angel investing in the US, as well as a new software platform for angel investors that seems to be a category killer for now. Alok, would you know more about this?

Okay, so what? Well, the classic V.C.’s simply have too much money under management, and too expensive a talent pool, to waste time looking at investing anything less than $10 million in a project. Meantime, no entrepreneur wants to give up equity by taking in more money than he absolutely needs. So, when it only costs a few million to get a serious new company off the ground, how can the V.C.’s really play? They have to find places to make gigantic gambles, usually overpaying because the other big V.C.’s are also trying to invest in the few really big-dollar opportunities out there. It has become a system doomed to failure.

The flip side of the story is the rise of angel investor groups. These investment consortiums have always been ideally positioned to provide $500,000 to $5 million equity injections; but until recently, that wasn’t enough to get a serious effort off the ground. More fundamentally, however, they have historically not been terribly investor-friendly, largely because the individual members have other occupations.

The individual members didn’t work in the same place or even at the same times, so angels were terribly inefficient at evaluating transactions, sharing information, and negotiating and documenting deals.

Those days are over, thanks to software developed by David Rose, founder of the New York Angels (yes, I belong). Angelsoft is a wonderful collaboration platform that manages deal flow, helps match talent and expertise to projects, provides easy-to-use data rooms for potential investors, and generally drives the investment process. It combines project management and social networking in a way that, for the first time, makes the angel process efficient for both the company seeking capital and the potential investors.

The big news now is that, in a period of just a couple of years, over 400 angel groups around the globe have standardized on the platform. That means, of course, that they will also be able to share deals between themselves, vastly expanding the capital and expertise available for any given project.

Judging a really early stage start-up

Published by Niraj on July 24, 2008 in Ecosystem.
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From REALLY early stage, I mean a bunch of guys 3 or 4 years out of college, having quit their highly paying techie jobs, wanting to build the next big thing and get rich soon. I can really relate to the picture, as an year back, I really did fit the description. You know these people when you meet them. They have hazy ideas in their heads which they think are profound, and are filled with enthusiasm and determination to fight it out and “make it work”.

While someone who is “seasoned” can bludgeon these guys’ theories to death in 10 minutes flat, we can see that traditionally in the west, its guys with these kind of profiles who have gone on to create the biggest tehnological successes. While some amount of bludgeoning is definitely justified, I have a feeling that the “seasoned” lot misses one point while dealing with these start-up guys: Judging by reason, start-ups hardly have a chance of succeeding. Start-ups have disbalanced teams, no money, no background in business, and still, some of them go on to become phenomenal successes.

Then how does one judge a startup? On what parameters? My take is, a start-up should really be judged on three parameters that I have written about below. I’d love to have a discussion about this here, and see if we can add to this list. Here’s my list of parameters (in no particular order):

1. The Market: Start-ups trying to solve a problem that does not exist are so common. There should be a clearly defined market/need/demand for whatever the start-up is trying to do, whether it is a consumer internet portal, or an enterprise service or electronic gadgets. The “seasoned” lot must first look at the existence of the market, and estimate the size of it.

2. The Techonology: Most techies will try to solve problems with extreme use of extreme technology, because thats what they are good at. Now that, in many cases, causes problems. For instance, it might increase costs so much that it might make the product or service prohibitive for the market. Its very critical to correctly judge the technology the start-up is using.

3. Enthusiasm/Guts/Desperation-To-Succeed/Human-Qualities: This is what separates the men from the boys (Sorry, I didn’t intend to be sexist here :). An assessment of this again comes from the gut, and you know these guys when you see them, and have talked to them for just five minutes. This is the magic sauce that makes a start-up succeed. It is very critical to correctly evaluate this.

Other than these, I know that an infinite number of holes can be punched into any start-up’s theories. Is doing that right? I would love to know what you think.