Dan: “Hi. I’m Dan and I’m and addict.”
AA Group: “Hi Dan”
Dan: “It’s been one month since I did my last Angel investment.”
AA Group: “Way to go Dan.”
Dan: “But I’m weak. I know that I’ve failed forty times in the last 6 years. I really need to make another Angel investment soon.”
AA Group: “Be strong, Dan”…
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To outside observers, it sometime seems that investors are very lucky when they get an exit and make a spectacular return. Those of us who invest regularly in startups, and then take an active role, know that there is a great deal more than luck involved. It’s really hard to have a startup survive to get to exit. There is …
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Crowdfunding is about to be approved by Congress and signed into law by the President. For those unfamiliar with the concept, you can read Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdfunding) or simply put it is raising money for startups, typically via the Internet, in small chunks from people who may never meet with or diligence the company. Crowdfunding has been used in …
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Sometimes things just happen. But rarely do they happen without many antecedents. And rarely do we see the antecedents until after they happen.
I believe that Cloud Computing has followed this pattern. The obvious antecedents are Moore’s Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law), the rapid drop in disk prices, the proliferation of virtualization, and the emergence of large, efficient datacenters. Much has …
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Should entrepreneurs be asked to pay angels and angel groups for the opportunity to present their business?
As the seed stage/angel asset class becomes more prominent and popular, this becomes an ever more frequent question. There was a blow up about a year ago when Jason Calacanis took on the Keiretsu Forum and the amount they charged early stage companies. …
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Carve outs for management is a tool that is often overlooked by boards in angel-backed companies. It is a tool that can be a critical in making an acquisition occur, but is difficult to get right. First of all, both management and the board are often too close and emotionally involved to make a clear decision.
For those that aren’t …
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One of the good things about the steady success of the Alliance of Angels (www.allianceofangels.com) is the visibility it gives the Managing Director to virtually every deal in the Northwest. However, this also means that the AoA Managing Director is a highly sought-after professional. Our current managing director, Greg Huey, has decided to move on to become the …
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I recently spent a long and exceedingly pleasant weekend in the wine region of the north Willamette Valley.
First and foremost, the Black Walnut Inn (http://www.blackwalnut-inn.com/) in Dundee, OR was fabulous. It has only nine distinct rooms, each with its own character, but all wonderful. It looks like a Tuscan villa that overlooks the red-hilled vineyards.
My favorite …
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A while ago, I blogged on the decline of Microsoft (http://blog.drosenassoc.com/?p=42). Lately, many people have asked me about the current debt crisis, followed by the S&P downgrade of US credit. There are striking similarities.
Until about 20 years ago, for over 200 years, the US has been in a building mode. We have created the economic engine that …
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Based on my previous post on Apple and their business practices (http://blog.drosenassoc.com/?p=59), I decided to upgrade my iPhone 3Gs to a Verizon HTC Thunderbolt. Getting on a 4G network was another major draw, as was getting off of the poor-performing AT&T network, with its dropped calls, congestion, and poor signal strength in places that I frequent. This is my …
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