Bob is a Director and long-time member of the Pasadena Angels, has been investing in early stage companies for 5 years, and has been held numerous “C” level positions at private and publicly traded companies. To set the stage, as an early stage investor, I look to invest in a “perfect storm” company.  So for an example lets assume a $500k investment in a Following on the heals of last week’s post from Andrea Belz, we have another guest blogger, Bob Aholt. Bob also teaches graduate level finance courses at Antioch University.   By Bob Aholt

My friend Mark Long recently asked me about networking in Los Angeles. Mark is a CTO, see, and his company, PortBlue , was recently acquired (congrats, Mark!). Rather than write something just for Mark, I thought I would let everybody else know what the good, tech-oriented networking events are in Los Angeles. For meeting interesting People, After transitioning to the new team, Mark was left to wonder, what now? Where do I need to go to meet the people that I will “build the next big thing for”?

Last night I attended a DealMaker Media (whom I love because they always host such great discussions) panel on raising angel money moderated by Dan Gould and with panelists Rob Hayes (First Round Capital, more seed or A round than angel), Scot Sangster (with OrganicStartup and the best spokesperson for Tech Coast Angels that I have met to date), Tom McInerney (TGM) and Jarl Mohn (who invests on his own “account” and whose track record is truly humbling). recently wrote a post on angel financing covering the topic of convertible notes but I realized

RSS ); Why You Should Start a Company in... Los Angeles By: Laura Rich February 26, 2010

Los Angeles? ve spent the last year running a tech company based in Santa Monica , CA and I’ve spent countless weeks in the Bay meeting with hundreds of tech founders. At parties in Los Angeles people talk about a media deal they’re “closing”, what TV star is at the party, and some “gray hat” spam-like technique that made them an extra 100K last month. Folks Is there a difference between tech startups in Silicon Valley vs. Most emphatically, Yes !

Last week's angel investment report by the Angel Capital Association reported that investments by angel investors dropped nine percent in 2008, with a hefty percentage of angel investors--40 percent--expecting this year will be a down year. However, a quick check of local, Southern California angel investors finds that although angel investment is down, investors are still investing--albeit much more selectively. "Capital Capital efficient companies offering very competitive terms are still getting funded," says Al Schneider of the Tech Coast Angels , although it appears the group is much more sensitive about how it is investing in deals.

What would you do if you built a tremendously successful internet company and sold it? interviewed Ryan Scott to find out what he did after he sold Netcreations, the email list management company that he co-founded. (Curious Ryan is now an angel investor and the CEO of Causecast , an interactive community for people and brands that want to leave a positive impact on the world. I Curious about how Netcreations was built?

Last week, I was on a panel with other investors discussing the “do’s� and “don’ts� of angel and venture capital investing some one from the audience fired a series of intriguing compounded questions � why are the VC’s so illusive?, Investors don’t want to be running companies, period. 3- A days work: Being a why don’t they have all their information available? Why don’t they disclose how they come up with their valuations?

Jeff Fluhr and his friend from school got together and created a company called StubHub which they built up and sold to eBay. But, you know, I think it wasn't until after my first real company StubHub that people, I think, thought of me in that light. So I contacted the owner of the company and proposed to him that I be a distribution outlet for their product in retail channels outside of the Massachusetts area and began to help that company get In 2000, people had all kinds of assumptions about buying and selling tickets to events. They assumed it was illegal or

Sid Mohasseb, one of the Tech Coast Angels, just emailed out about a new “entrepreneur happy hour” the group is running in Orange County, which got me thinking about how entrepreneurs should (or shouldn’t) approach angel and venture investors. I’m sure there are many opinions out there, but based on my time working with angels and investors, here’s some of my random advice for would-be entrepreneurs going to the event (or similar ones): 1. Don’t start your conversation telling them the terms of your fundraising effort.