Hi Frank - Just a note to say I have listened to and enjoy your show - good information!

Keep up the good work.

If one takes the historical perspective it's more accurate to say back to normal rather than the new normal.

Tech booms happen about every 70 years, and the most recent one has been over for a while but nobody wanted to admit it. Not admitting it is the cause of the high number of losses.

We've been hearing the term "capital efficient" for years, as angels would name sectors they said were hot such as software, the search for the next killer app, and other businesses said to be capital efficient that ended up as part of the losses.

Capital efficiency is a necessity but it's not a stand alone solution. Capital efficiency was strived for even during the heyday of the dotcom boom, because a venture had to beat out similar ventures. A business at any level has to be capital efficient, whether it is VC, Angel, or your landscaper.

The use of the term "capital efficient" in this show is an old term being given a different twist. What's really being talked about is a limit on the amount of investment required. It doesn't have the same excitement when you put it that way. It can sound like one is limiting their upside.

What is still being left out of the discussion is defining how to identify opportunities that lead to the big exits. Nobody is going to "capital efficient" their way into a big exit.

It's not currently working for Motorola. That was the whole idea behind hiring their new CEO who is known for cutting costs. So now Motorola is very efficient but they have sunk so low in number of sales they are no longer mentioned by name in the rankings and were not able to sell off the division.

Berkus wasn't willing to answer the questions of how angels should reorganize and how to get deals through faster; and who cares anyway? Identifying the potential for a huge exit is the real trick that everyone wants to master.

We didn't have all these angel groups before the recent tech boom so why should we have them now that the boom is over? Like Frank said, we're in it for the big exit. To accomplish that we don't need these generalizations that apply to any business anywhere. Nobody has their eye on the prize in this episode. Focus on how to identify potential for a big exit is all that is needed.

This talk of the VCs leaving is utter nonsense. If Angels identify a hot venture the VCs are going to come running, just like they do at university tech transfer offices.

Saying we can't rely on the VCs is a loser attitude that says that angels are just here to pick up what ever scraps are left to them. Have some BALLS! Have enough faith in yourself to say that you are looking for deals that VCs are going to want to get in on but are capital efficient enough to turn them down. Have enough faith in yourself to say that you know how to pick them.

The new normal started over ten years ago. The new normal is not new. The exits of ten years ago were from earlier investments. Enough with the clever phrases and flowery language and get down to brass tacks.

Let's hear what's hot and why it's hot. Let's hear what makes something hot. "Capital efficient" as used in this episode is just the limit of an investor's capability. It is not an indicator of success.

Aren't Angels always telling us they have the advice and guidance for us? Let's hear it. Let me know that as an entrepreneur, when I present to you the indicators that say my opportunity has huge exit potential, that you as an Angel can comprehend those indicators. Otherwise, Angels can get capital efficient returns selling rent to own furniture and payday loans.

Come on let's talk turkey! "The new normal", "capital efficient", give me a break! If an Angel Group can put together $500k I can return tens of millions on it. Sure it's capital efficient, but capital efficient is not the reason I can do it. Saying capital efficient is not saying much.

There's nothing new in this episode. Years before the VCs left, Angels said they were looking for deals that were not going to lead to a "down round" or a "pay to play" round. That's two additional ways of saying Angels were looking for "capital efficient" deals long before now.

Therefore to say that the "new normal" requires that we look for capital efficient deals simply is saying that the new normal is actually business as usual; or business how it is supposed to be.

At the end of this episode we are back at square one. People were not adept at identifying capital efficient deals for the last 10 years and they still don't know how to do it without a tech boom to prop them up; or are unwilling to do it.