Angel Investing 101: Why (Not To) Join an Angel Group?
Thinking about joining an angel group?
Let's examine the pros and cons with Curtis Gunn, Chairman of Tucson's Desert Angels, Bruce MacCormack, founder of the Bellingham Angels, and Hall Martin, Vice Chairman of the Baylor Angel Network and member of the Central Texas Angel Network in Austin. Great geographic diversity, they cover quite a bit of territory!
And we close the session with reasons not to join an angel group. You'll enjoy hearing these points, too!
In Southern California? Meet me at UC Irvine June 17th where I'll speak on the current state of early investing, details.
Show #296 (58:23) Listen
Comments
Hi Frank,
Hope you are well. Interesting session.
The "25 companies so you won't lose money" is quite a daunting stat. Even if it were 1/2 that, I doubt that many angels here in Australia (maybe in the US also) are invested in anywhere near that number of deals.
Cheers,
Andrew
Posted by: Andrew Fern | June 15, 2010 2:25 AM
Good show guys and good to recommend reasons NOT to join an angel group. To Bruce's comment about layering expectations about investment thresholds once the angel group is up and running, we did that at CommonAngels in 2005. It worked well, but it was a process that started with forming a sub-group that developed consensus about expectations on membership on a number of fronts. That created shared ownership and buy-in. We lost some people, of course, but were also a stronger organization as a result and in a better position to recruit new members. After that, we grew 50% from 50 members to 75 over the next three years. It can be done.
Posted by: James Geshwiler | June 17, 2010 11:39 AM