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

Unfortunately they sometimes have to say “no” to these individual because they aren’t completely comfortable with the company’s market space and/or technology. Conversely there are company founders that drove us crazy, where we ended up investing in their companies because we knew the venture had a very high likelihood of success. of all applications submitted to the Pasadena Angels get funded. 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. One of the lines in the

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).

I would guess that there was about 100 people - on a Saturday in Pasadena. My main points were: Social Everywhere - I work with a lot of different shapes and sizes of companies and it's interesting how each one has opportunities to leverage its users to form different kinds of communities, create connections, encourage contribution, etc. Last Saturday, I was a panelist at the CalTech - Social Networks event. It was a really good event with lots of interesting folks in attendance.

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. Other than what Jason and I have already mentioned, the only other advice I can give is beware of for-profit angel groups based on a franchise model–as those are typically the ones that charge companies. As I was writing another All of his posts on the topic are not only good reading, but accurately describe what goes on within some Angel groups (e.g., These pay-for-play scams remind me of the “modeling agencies”

As Bessemer puts it, “Whatever the reason, we would like to honor these companies, whose phenomenal success inspires us in our ongoing endeavors to build growing businesses. Or, to put it another way: if we had invested in any of these companies, we might not still be working.” Tags: General Anti-Portfolio Bessemer Venture Partners Clearstone Venture Partners Joe Platnick Pasadena Angel 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

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 -- Funding Early Stage Tech Companies. Pasadena Angels. How will the stock market and possible recession impact early-stage company financing? What companies and deals are most attractive to investors? What are the metrics investors look for today? Can you build a high growth startup inexpensively?

I recently reviewed a set of investment ready criteria published by a respected Angel Group (not the Pasadena Angels). No doubt the intention was to fund the company,  establish a market position, grow market share and then somehow harvest the venture. Tags: Company Creation/Operation Fundraising General Company Sale Exit Strategies Investment Criteria Tom McKaskil All the usual factors were there–what problem was being sold, the extent of competitive advantage, the experience of the management team, size of market, etc.  You could quickly infer from the questions

based companies. Cost: Free Review: None Added 10/4/09 by Todd Zebert Name: Pasadena, CA Job Club - Professional Network Sites: www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1775486 Companies researched and applications sent. This is YOUR networking group, so we cover the topics YOU need! " Frequency: Every Friday 10 AM to Noon, La Pintoresca branch, Pasadena Public Library, 1355 N. This is will be a continually updating post. I'll be creating additional lists for educational, chamber of commerce, etc. Organizational representatives: please contact me directly for updates, etc.