One of the lines in the article pretty much sums up one of the hardest things for Angel investors to do and something that happens on a regular basis: “I have had to release guys I loved, and keep players I didn’t necessarily care for.” In the world of startup investing, Angels invariably come across a lot of great entrepreneurs that they get to know on a personal level and think the world of. A few years ago, Joe Torre (when still managing the Yankees) wrote an article for Business Week ( Joe Torre on Winning ) that’s well worth reading. Unfortunately they sometimes have

Maybe you've already done an angel round and now you're looking for VC money. So how is it different pitching to VCs versus angels? Joe's a long term member of the Pasadena Angels; he's on the board and he's recently joined a venture capital firm in New Zealand. What kind of a year are the Pasadena Angels having in 2009? Joe Platnick knows. And how did their conversion to Angelsoft go?

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. If the company is going to need more capital than Angels can supply, that’s ok.  There are plenty of examples of Pasadena Angel companies that have 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

Shameless Self-Promotion Alert]…The last program of the day is the annual Pasadena Angels program on the state of Angel and Venture Capital in Southern California. Tags: Fundraising General Ben Kuo Joe Platnick LA County Tech Week Pasadena Angels SocalTECH.com On Thursday (10/22) this week, join us for a full day of worthwhile events in Altadena at Tech Week . The morning’s session features a Cleantech program , moderated by Ben Kuo of SocalTECH.com .

Interesting post on Jason Calcanis’ blog this week (also picked up by Ben Kuo and SocalTECH ) with further thoughts on Angel groups charging startup companies to pitch. All of his posts on the topic are not only good reading, but accurately describe what goes on within some Angel groups (e.g., Although I’ve written on this topic and share Jason’s ire,  I’m not yet at the point These pay-for-play scams remind me of the “modeling agencies” that charge people for representation, acting lessons and to have their headshots done.). Other than what Jason and I

For the first piece you can pretty much substitute ‘Angel’ for ‘VC’ and it’s right on the money with respect to the Pasadena Angels. The good news in all this is that although Angel and VC financings are down, there are still good companies getting funded as we speak. Tags: Company Creation/Operation Fundraising General David Rose Investor Pitch Joe Platnick Pasadena Angels Tony Tjan V Over the course of this week I’ve come across some great articles and blog posts that should be required reading for any entrepreneur looking for funding—including those that have done it before.

Tags: Company Creation/Operation Fundraising General Jason Calcanis Joe Platnick Pasadena Angels Sequoi By now everyone has seen the infamous Sequoia presentation, R.I.P. Good Times . From what I can tell traveling around the US and overseas, it looks like these slides have circulated faster than the Paris Hilton video (sorry, no link on this last one–you’ll have to find it yourself).

If you think VCs and Angels have had some of the biggest investment oversights, here are some of the bigger and more amusing ones from outside the VC community: “We These examples should give you a pretty good idea why Angels and VCs don’t typically invest in music, movies or other forms of content. ...Tags: Tags: General Anti-Portfolio Bessemer Venture Partners Clearstone Venture Partners Joe Platnick Seeing last week’s Venture Capital Dispatch in the online Wall Street Journal, When Venture Capitalists Let One Slip Away , reminded me of Jim Armstrong’s (Clearstone Venture Partners) comment last year about false negatives. “You

Was he rooting for McCain/Palin when he named his angel group Maverick? If I had this interview to do over, I'd ask, but we do cover all things related to angel investing in Southern California, especially its newest angel group, the Maverick Angels . Southern California already has mature, well established angel groups like the Pasadena Angels and the Tech Coast Angels ; is there room for one more? Westlake Village, to be more specific, which once hosted a Keiretsu Forum chapter. Is Maverick Keiretsu reincarnated?

Was he rooting for McCain/Palin when he named his angel group Maverick? If I had this interview to do over, I'd ask, but we do cover all things related to angel investing in Southern California, especially its newest angel group, the Maverick Angels . Southern California already has mature, well established angel groups like the Pasadena Angels and the Tech Coast Angels ; is there room for one more? Westlake Village, to be more specific, which once hosted a Keiretsu Forum chapter. Is Maverick Keiretsu reincarnated?