How do angels fit into clean tech? Solar? Is it too capital intensive for angels? I ask Wellington Partners' Ram Srinivasan his opinions. We met during EBAN's tour of the Valley last month.

He was an engineer then moved into marketing, eventually becoming an entrepreneur with a taste for risk, but once he was pretty comfortable at HP.

Show #233 (39:56) Listen

It was a standing-room-only crowd yesterday at the OC Business Growth Forum hosted by the Digital Media Center in Santa Ana.

My keynote may have surprised the local politicians in the audience: "Relocation Recommendations: Where to Find the Money", but not those of you who listened to Liddy Karter talk about her efforts to influence public policy for angel investors.

I shared the highlights from Liddy's remarks, so we'll see if these entrepreneurs in attendance pack off for Honolulu or Milwaukee to find more welcoming tax policies and therefore more investment dollars.

Could you use a tax break?
Do you feel that your early-stage investments are good for the economy and should be encouraged?
So does Liddy Karter.

Sandwiched between Boston and New York you'll find the Angel Investor Forum in Connecticut. Liddy sees a lot of activity in both cities and it's led to a year where "we've invested more in 2009 than ever before!". You haven't heard that on the show lately, so who better to be leading the Angel Capital Association's Committee for Public Policy?

Another $30 billion for General Motors as they enter bankruptcy, unbelievable! What would $1B do if it were spread around to angel groups? Liddy can imagine, but is anybody listening? Not in Connecticut according to Liddy. Instead head to North Dakota, Hawaii or Maine for the best tax incentives for angels. And what has Wisconsin done to earn her vote for the strongest example of public policy effectiveness?

Save the date: check out Liddy's New Angel Summit (angels from New Jersey, New York, and New England in New Haven, get it?) September 17th.

Show #232 (25:38) Listen

Events
I'll be a judge at the Fast Pitch at UC Irvine, June 9th
I'm the keynote speaker at the Digital Media Center's Growth Forum, June 11th

Penny Herscher editorializes in the Huffington Post on "The Death of Venture Capital as We Know It". Will only 1 in 10 survive? Read the article...

There's new leadership in Washington at the SBA and new sensitivities on potential conflicts of interest. I've served on the TriTech Small Business Development Center Advisory Board for at least 3 years, first in Orange County then followed them when they moved to Riverside. Early in my career I was a consultant and I remembered the thrill of making that kind of contribution. I started working on getting invited onto their Advisory Board.

I immediately admired TriTech and their consultants; they provided free services to entrepreneurs who hoped to build successful high tech startups. All these entrepreneurs hoped to eventually raise funding for their startups, too, so the fit seemed mutually beneficial. Tech Coast Angel Luis Villalobos and I put on an afternoon training session for the TriTech team, if they better understood who we were and what we looked for in a fundable startup then theoretically TriTech could better coach their clients and achieve a higher level of economic impact. It seemed a match made in heaven, but over the next few years it would become increasingly more challenging to get funded.

We found the perfect interface between the 2 organizations; there's a PreScreen review in the TCA process, companies that pass this evaluation will be invited to present to the local group of angels. This is the perfect time to refer the entrepreneur to TriTech where they could get much practical advice and practice pitching. Later, several more TCA members would join TriTech as paid consultants; who better to work across the table from the fledgeling entrepreneur? Then along came new conflict of interest guidelines; there was sensitivity that perhaps board members and the TCA members acting as TriTech consultants would benefit personally from the expenditure of SBA funds for consulting the entrepreneurs.

At first I bristled at the new restraints: "you wish there was more funding and more of a conflict of interest", but over a few days I've had time to consider the potential for a perception of conflict of interest and as recent posts on this blog have shown, personal integrity is essential to a healthy ecosystem for funding new startups. So last night I forwarded my resignation to Mark Mitchell, TriTech's Executive Director. We can still collaborate on individual projects and we'll meet for those occasional cups of coffee, but my term on the Advisory Board is over. Good luck TriTech.

The show crosses another milestone in audience numbers for May: biggest daily audience >1,500, biggest week >10,000 and month >42,000 at 11 minutes each. "Thanks so much for listening!"

I'll be at 2 big events coming up next week:

I'll be a judge at the Orange County Fast Pitch hosted by the Tech Coast Angels at UC Irvine at 5:30pm on Tuesday June 9th. Twelve entrepreneur finalists get 90 seconds to pitch to a jury of angels and VCs with hundreds of onlookers in the audience; it's always lots of laughs and educational, too. The winners get to pitch the angels for real.

Then at noon on June 11th I'll be the keynote speaker at the Orange County Business Growth Forum at the Digital Media Center in Santa Ana. Join me.