Can you give us a better idea of those membership figures you mentioned? You said the Orange County chapter of TCA lost about 20% of members but had a record number of new members; so what's the final figure?

How much of the lost is attributed to the stock market and the decline in the member's net worth? How much of the loss is attributed to poor returns of venture investments? Are the new members likely to accept the same results of the past few years or will it cause them to eventually quit as well?

Could it be that the poor economy not only caused the 20% drop in membership but also the record number of new members? Could it be that some of the new members are looking for alternative ways to make money after the more traditional ways have let them down?

I just wonder specifically about weather the new members knew the statistics before they joined and if they plan to accept that fate or try a different process. Did they come prepared to lose that amount of money?

The recent research says that Angels are looking for opportunities with the ability to control. The market forces that control all competitors must be identified before the level of control an opportunity can exert can be identified.

Not only is the fast pitch not conducive to identifying the market forces that control all the competitors, the coaching by TCA members tends to make exaggerated claims that are out of the realm of controllability. After making such claims due to the coaching of TCA members, it becomes hopeless for an opportunity to demonstrate the ability for anyone to control such an outcome.

I wonder how long the new members will put up with that. Other interesting statistics would be how long someone is usually a member before they quit and how much do they lose before they quit.

On recent shows we have heard newly elected chairmen say they are going to do this or that to get more members involved in the activities and hopefully that will have a positive impact on member recruitment and retention. I think if someone is making money and the others are able to emulate that, membership won't be a problem. Sure TCA members say they also have other reasons for joining, but those reasons are not exclusively satisfied by TCA. Membership has to be addressed in those things that are exclusive to TCA.

It's ironic how TCA members look for leadership ability in entrepreneurs that they invest in but then they'll have a chairman that accepts the opinion that success is random. That doesn't promote TCA exclusivity. Members can get that at Las Vegas or from flipping a coin. If success is random is accepted as reality then it makes sense that TCA should create a fund and invest that way for the purpose of increasing the odds of success of its members.

But who would manage the fund? Hopefully not the same members who have been encouraging entrepreneurs to present unrealistic claims to the general membership.

Some past guests on this show have said they invest in people and not ideas, business plans, products, or services because those things change. They say what ever the business is now is not what it is going to be in the near future. That's another way of saying the initial investment is an expensive way of hiring someone to find the market, product, and or service to invest in. Similar to hiring a fund manager, but probably spending a lot more to seek the same thing.