Angel investment

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

February 2, 2012

I was happily reading Sramana Mitra’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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Q&A: Finding a Consultant to Find Investors

January 10, 2012

This is another frequently asked question that came from the ask-me-a-question web form on my main site at timberry.com. Question: Trying to find a consultant that links me to investors? Does this exist? I’m a 21 yr old entrepreneur. Learning on the fly! Answer: You don’t need a consultant to learn about angel investment. There [...]

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Don’t Confuse Optimism with Business Potential

December 8, 2011

Overheard: I love your optimism. What I don’t like is the complete lack of experience that’s causing it. Ideally, a business pitch is exciting because the business potential is exciting. Optimism ought to be a combination of potential market, product-market fit, scalability, defensibility, and management experience. Better yet, early sales, initial growth rates, proof of [...]

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Is Your Startup Positioned in The Funding Gap?

December 7, 2011

Nice post by Bill Payne called The Funding Gap on the Gust.com Blog. Here’s the summary: It is clear from this table that Friends and Family, Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists provide 95% of the capital for new ventures. Friends and Family typically invest a few thousand to perhaps $10,000, and only a small number of [...]

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Only Two Numbers Matter

December 6, 2011

This is Howard Morgan, managing partner at First Round Capital, serial entrepreneur, and former professor at Wharton. He says: If you have a business that’s based around the internet, there are basically only two numbers you need to know: what’s the cost to acquire a customer, and what’s the lifetime customer value. If the lifetime [...]

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You Can Take Your IRR and Shove It

November 30, 2011

In pitches and presentations everywhere, bright young entrepreneur tells cynical skeptical investors, usually with great pride and flourish, about their fabulous IRR for their great new startup. I get a gag reflex. IRR stands for internal rate of return. You can check wikipedia or investopedia for what that’s supposed to mean and how it’s calculated. [...]

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3 Financial Statements and 3 Angel Investment questions

November 4, 2011

I’ve been busy elsewhere this week, but managed to post two things I’d like to make available to you on this blog, because this is my main blog: My monthly column on entrepreneur.com came out today, summarizing the three financial guestimates every business plan needs. That one gives you a quick summary of the income [...]

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True Stories: One Good and One Bad Answer to Investor Q&A

October 18, 2011

We talk about the slides, and what they cover, but some of the more important moments in business pitches I’ve seen are not about slides, or plans, but rather about the people themselves, and how they respond. For example, I posted last week on gust.com about two radically different ways to handle questions about financials. [...]

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Gust Streamlines the Angel Investment Process

September 19, 2011

Are you hoping to find angel investment for your startup? Are you looking to invest in startups? Go look at gust.com. It’s a better-than-ever first step. Gust, is the new platform launched last week to replace angelsoft.net. The angelsoft.net platform is used by 600 angel investor groups, 35,000 angel investors, and 125,000 startups. Gust.com is [...]

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