Earlier this week, I was listening to an NPR program on “energy vampires”, those special individuals whose interactions can literally drain the energy from us. The term “energy vampires” was coined by Dr. Judith Orloff, a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA in her book Positive Energy. Now everyone has had some experience with “energy vampires” – those special people who cause some of the following reactions:
- You hope a call to them goes directly to voicemail
- You need a trip to Starbucks before and after meeting with them
- You would rather have a root canal (the extreme version)
You get the point……
but
What does this have to do with angel investing?
When you are considering investing in an early stage company, I would suggest that you employ your EVS (“energy vampire sensor”) to your prospective co-investors. In my last post, I discussed having alignment among co-investors. Investing in early stage companies is replete with risk and typically a much longer-term investment horizon than anticipated. If you co-invest with “energy vampires” the process of making the investment itself, follow-on rounds and especially those famous pivots will be much more painful to experience.
So get out your garlic and avoid those “energy vampires” !!!!!!
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Women Invest 