Dave Berkus and I had a great turnout and we're getting some positive feedback after presenting "Angel Investing 101", a training class for new angel investors.

Thank you for such a wonderful presentation. Your professional delivery and ability to correlate your own personal experiences made for a truly great learning experience.

I sure wish I had you as a professor in business school. My only regret is that I did not have the benefit of your knowledge twenty years ago.

Truthfully, I would have canceled every appointment and spent another 5-10 hours.

Again, thank you for enriching my life.

J.F.

[The] Tech Angels have been very responsive to us. Wanted to pass on this news release. Ginny Creighton KGTV 10News:

San Diego Police Department
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Lieutenant Ernie Herbert
Date: July 21, 2010 (Wednesday) Homicide Unit
Time: 0900 hours (619) 531-2275

ARREST MADE IN JUNE 8, 2010 MURDER

San Diego Police Department Homicide Unit detectives have arrested Kent Thomas Keigwin for the June 8, 2010, murder of La Jolla resident John G. Watson.

Remember my interview with Stewart Craine, Director of Barefoot Power, discussing his goal of bringing energy to the poor? He chimes in today with an update:

Frank, I am pleased to be able to share some special news with you. The Barefoot Power team has just won 3 of the 4 product quality awards offered by Lighting Africa, an IFC / World Bank project.

My week in San Francisco began Tuesday at QB3 at UCSF Mission Bay. Douglas Crawford invited meet to speak to his mostly life science lunchtime audience. It was a great time, a very warm reception. Then I got this letter. Hope you enjoy these occasional Letter of the Week posts.

Hi Frank,
I have had time to look at your

Hi Frank,

A provocative question for you, but one that's emerged from talking with a lot of angels:

Why on earth should an individual angel ever choose to lead a round?

Here in the UK, it seems to be that all the angels left in the game are finally realising that their typical historic exposure to individual investments (say, $50K) is simply too high in anything other than outright boom-time. While it's nice to dream that any individual investment is going to turn out to be an Amazon or eBay, realistically the beta for all of them is just too high for anything less than a portfolio of (say) 12+ investments to make sense.

All of which means that a typical non-hyper-rich angel should put no more than $30K into any one investment target. But at that low level, is it ever really worth the hassle of leading a round?

Vegas Valley Angels Chairman William Botts writes: I have received emails from several of you about the status of the Vegas Valley Angels. Instead of one-off responses, let me give you all an update.

Well, I've just downloaded a fair amount of your shows on iTunes to enjoy on my drive from Burlington VT (my hometown, which has several members as a part of North Country Angels) to Boston, where I am an LP in Common Angels' new fund and sit in sometimes with Walnut Ventures and other groups.

As a typical angel (retired, having sold my own company, now hoping I'm not part of the punchline to the old classic joke "How do you make a small fortune in angel investing?"), I appreciate your more humble approach, as opposed to the more caffeinated versions of Jason Calacanis. I appreciate that the focus is with other angels, as opposed to focusing solely on the latest, hottest entrepreneur, all of whom attribute their success to brilliance as opposed to good fortune and sweat. (F: Amen)