Tag Archives: Failure

Angel Investing – “Love Notes”

????????????????????????Recently Rob Delman, a colleague of mine at Golden Seeds, and I were discussing the best ways to structure an investment in an entrepreneurial venture started by your children.  As we both have “twenty-something” children who have been exposed over the years to our work in angel investing, it is only natural that they approach us as potential funders of the next great thing! Continue reading

Angel Investing – It’s all about the Execution!

Crackers jump 1This past week I had the opportunity to spend the week with my daughter Charlotte, watching her compete at a horse show. Charlotte, now an adult, has been riding and competing for a number of years and I never cease to be amazed by the strength and beauty of these incredible horses and how the riders can control such powerful animals. In much the same way I feel that being an angel investor enables me to be a “vicarious entrepreneur”, being a “HorseShowMom” allows me to imagine myself in the saddle. Now, in terms of full disclosure, I did take some riding lessons early in my daughter’s riding career which were quickly ended when I flew over the jump (without the horse!) and decided at that point that I was best suited for ground crew! Continue reading

Angel Investing is similar to playing golf…

OK, so you are looking at the title of this post and asking yourself, “what in the world is she thinking; how can you possibly compare angel investing to playing golf”?

Let me explain… Continue reading

Angel Investing -After the Check….

So you just wrote the check! Now what?

Image source: Fotalia.com

There is a perception out there that angel investors and venture capitalists are only focused on monetary gain and don’t work to support the success of their companies post-investment. Angels are making investments with the hope of a successful exit and unfortunately the statistics on the failure of startups are quite sobering. According to Shikhar Ghosh, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, the failure rate of startups is 30-40%. ( Source: HBS Working Knowledge Article by Carmen Nobel). But in addition to the potential investment returns, angel investing provides a unique platform for engaging with the companies in your portfolio, which is not the case when  investing in the public markets.

Continue reading