Angel investment

Do You Have What Investors Want?

May 21, 2012

What do investors want? I’ve read more than 100 business plans in the last two months. Entrepreneurs are overwhelmingly predictable on this point. Investors want disruptive. Investors want game changing.  But not just saying it. Being able to believe it. Two of every three plans says it. Only a very few make it actually believable.  [...]

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Interesting Idea for a Hybrid Crowdfunding Solution

May 18, 2012

This is interesting: what if some crowdfunding sites limit the investing to so-called “accredited investors” as defined by the SEC. I just read David Rose’s take on this at Quora. David mentions two sites, his own gust.com and angelist, that already group accredited investors. Up to now they work as platforms for getting investors together [...]

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Is Venture Capital Gone Forever

May 14, 2012

I completely agree with Steve King of Small Business Labs, in Is the Venture Capital Industry Broken? He says: The news here isn’t that the VC industry is broken. This has been actively discussed for years. The news is who’s saying it’s broken. Which is, in the flap this month, the Kauffman Foundation. The Kauffman Foundation has long [...]

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3 Essential Truths About Startups and Investment

May 11, 2012

Today I’m answering, with this post, a lot of similar questions I get often in email, where somebody is asking me how to get connected to or hooked up with or recommended properly for angel investment. Here are some unpleasant and unpopular facts about startups and investment. Only friends and family believe in you and [...]

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Disrupt Education … Please!

May 7, 2012

I wonder if we as a society are ever going to figure out how technology can disrupt our antiquated systems for educating our children. Think about what’s happened to information, social interaction, research, and business over the web — not to mention mobile technology — and then think about education. Preschool, K-12, and higher education. [...]

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What Kickstarter Means to You — Maybe

May 3, 2012

I’ve had several visits to Kickstarter.com in the last week. First because some friends of mine are looking to launch a project there. Second, because I’m getting so interested in crowdfunding. Third, because of the Three Years of Kickstarter Projects infographic on NYTimes.com. At kickstarter, I saw the Pebble project that’s raised more than $8 [...]

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On Building a Business Because the World Needs It

April 9, 2012

I’ve posted about Arcimoto on Up and Running almost two years ago. It’s a local (Eugene OR) business based on building cool, fun, and economically accessible electric cars, like the one shown here. It was a startup then, one with a believable team and a vision to build on. Two years later, it’s still a [...]

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Blogger About Angel Investment: “Confused, Scared, and More Than a Little Ashamed”

March 21, 2012

(Note: I posted this first on the blog at gust.com, my favorite site for entrepreneurs and angel investors. I’m reposting it here because I want to make my points under my own banner too.) Now there’s a great title for a blog post. Writing about angel investment, on his Portland-based Silicon Forest entrepreneurship etc. blog, [...]

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Blaming Angels and VCs for Choosing is Like Blaming Up for Down

February 2, 2012

I was happily reading Sramana Mitrea’s The Other 99% of Entrepreneurs on Read/Write Web, agreeing with every detail, when I ran into a snag. It’s in italics in this quote from Sramana’s post. Over 99% of entrepreneurs who seek funding get rejected. Yet, the entire world is focused on the 1% that is “fundable.” The media, [...]

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Q&A: The Perfect Letter to Potential Private Lenders

January 12, 2012

This is another question received in my ask-me form on my timberry.com website: I’m hoping you might be able to help direct me in finding the perfect letter that I need to send out to potential private (mainly friends) lenders for a start-up I’m involved.  I need this letter to spell out the details of [...]

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