Reflections on the 9th Annual National Angel Summit

I used to do business in Toronto, back in my Plaid Brothers Software days; we wrote software for Wall Street, Toronto calls it Bay Street, so how could I resist the invitation to moderate the War Stories panel featuring angel blogger Permjot Valia and Vancouver super angel Mike Volker. Mike's made over 100 early stage investments so you know he has great stories. My job: to engage the audience while we tell stories of lessons-learned and share a few laughs. We did.

I attended last year's event in Halifax and noticed many subtle improvements; responding to feedback they offered 15min networking breaks after each speaker or panel discussion. There were only plenary sessions. My favorite 2 speakers:

* Basil Peters (no relation) gave the morning keynote, "Selling a Business". His well developed talk offered many specifics of setting up a deal for auction/acquisition. Coincidentally, while Basil was speaking in Toronto, TCA's Warren Hanselman borrowed Basil's slide deck and gave the presentation to the local Orange County network. Great material, well delivered, vitally important to angels.
* Jeff Sohl presented to the Ontario Provincial Minister of what we'd call Economic Development. His punchline was backed up with great statistics, of course, "How to Stimulate Angel Investment in Seed and Early Stage". Jeff recently consulted with the Belgium gov't on a similar initiative recently. He calls it his Archimedes Fund, ("Give me a lever and I'll move the earth").
* Did I say just 2 speakers? It will surprise no one that Common Angels Managing Director James Geshwiler was phenomenal in the Co-Investment panel.