Is 2008 shaping up as a lackluster year for angel investing? The opportunities keep coming, but are angel investors nervous about the national economy and sitting on their wallets? "There's a lot of factors," says Cathy Favre, Executive Director of NLAN. Yes, Cathy, again; she was my guest recently and now she's back to discuss how to stimulate your angel investors in a year that's a little discouraging. One way: educate them; get them to the National Angel Summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia this October 15-17th.

Been awhile since you've seen the Fall colors? Mid October in Nova Scotia is gorgeous, I hear.

Save the date for the European Business Angel Network's (EBAN) Annual Conference 27/28 April 2009 in Madrid.

Show #170 (22:53)

Can you imagine? Just as you're about to start your presentation to an angel group, the projector burns out! That would stress me out! That's how things began for Derek Lyman, co-founder of Dexrex, the universal adapter for text.

I met Derek through a referral from Paul G. Silva, co-founder of the UMASS Amherst's Entrepreneurship Initiative, at my alma mater. Paul introduced these young entrepreneurs (age 22 at the time) to some individual angels and later to the River Valley Angels.

Show #169 (35:14)

Events
Join me Oct 15-17 at the 2008 National Angel Summit in Halifax Nova Scotia

You've heard about a Fast Pitch, right? Those bake-offs where entrepreneurs get just 60 seconds to pitch their deal to a panel of angels and VCs. Wanna know how to set one up for your angel group?

The Newfoundland and Labrador Angel Network's Executive Director Cathy Favre describes angel investing in the eastern most locale in North America. Founded in 2006, she called to ask me about the Tech Coast Angels' Fast Pitch. After eight years we finally know what we're doing, so today's show is all about organizing the entrepreneurs, the coaching sessions, impaneling the judges and scoring the finalists; everything you'll need to know.

I'll join Cathy at the National Angel Summit in beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada October 15-17, 2008. Never shy, always irreverent, I'll be on a panel discussing "Sustainability of Angel Groups" and Cathy and I will host a workshop on videotaping entrepreneur presentations. Join us!

Apply to pitch today! Deadline: August 22nd for the next Fast Pitch in San Diego, 5:30pm Thu October 2nd.

Show #168 (56:39)

Remembering a child's birthday with a gift is how grandparents stay in touch and involved, but isn't gift giving becoming a little impersonal? A toy, a card, or increasingly a giftcard just doesn't create much impact. Instead, wrap a gift in adventure; that's the idea behind Steve Mock's Giftventure.

Angelsoft facilitates deal sharing between angel groups, in this case Giftventure is a Vegas Valley Angels deal led by Jim Shaw. I visited the Las Vegas group a few months ago and heard Giftventure pitch. "What's the process to bring Giftventure to the Tech Coast Angels?" Jim asked. My challenge, there was no procedure; we've always only invested locally, but Giftventure seemed like a good deal so I risked some degree of rebuke and brought them to LA. "This is the best deal I've seen all year," said one TCA angel, "I don't care where the deal comes from, I want to see the best deals." I felt redeemed. And I gained an insight into just what collaborating on deals via Angelsoft could mean to the future of angel investing.

Meet Giftventure's Steve Mock; he's almost funded.

Show #167 (44:12)

Hear the stories of the well known successes like Salesforce.com and MySpace, and some not so well known; it's all part of the ongoing legacy of USC's Entrepreneurship program. My guest is Tom O'Malia, Director of the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Currently rated #1 in the nation by Entrepreneur magazine, Tom has reason to brag.

Get Tom's book, The Entrepreneurial Journey, through Brandywine Publishing.

Show #166 (51:37)