Tom was my friend. Many others have commented on his impact on the Seattle ecosystem – as a lawyer, a VC, and a valued board member. Behind this was his passion for the Pacific Northwest and his vision of how to make it better.
I’m not sure that Tom fully understood the broad impact that he had on the direction …
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Author: Dan Rosen
To: The Angel Community
After publishing my companion piece, “How Startups Survive the COVID-19 Economic Crisis,” I have received a number of comments about how this impacts angels and angel investing. Here are my thoughts.
Unlike VCs, who …
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Author: Dan Rosen
To: All angel investors and their portfolio CEOs
Being trained as a scientist, and having lived through several investment cycles, I’ve been asked to share my perspective on the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on startups.
I firmly believe that the human and societal impact of COVID-19
will be extreme, …
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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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I am often asked: “my company has achieved its initial goal of getting to $1M in revenue and being cash flow positive. What now?”
In order to grow to be a $10M revenue company, we need to scale up sales and marketing, add new product lines, etc. We therefore need to raise $5M in the business and will need to …
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One of the questions I am asked by first-time startup CEOs: what is an appropriate level of communication with my investors?
This is both a difficult and profound question. It is simple to say that more is better than less. It is also simple to say that any good investor would rather have you spend your time executing your plan …
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A number of years, I joined the board of the Humane Society for Seattle and King County (www.seattlehumane.org), a local non-profit that runs an animal shelter, adoption facility, and does veterinary services for the animals in our care. For those that believe in animal welfare as I do, you will easily understand how an organization of this type …
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Startup companies need good boards. But they often don’t have them.
There are many reasons. First, there really aren’t that many experienced people willing to serve on a startup company boards. And those that are experienced, skilled, and bring a lot of value, generally want to be compensated, which startups can’t really afford.
VCs will serve on boards, but generally …
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