Part IV of a Continuing Series on How to Select an Angel Group Several months before Jason Calcanis’ crusade (or jihad—depending on your political affiliation) against for-profit angel groups, I wrote a post about evaluating angel groups and the criteria to use when seeking investment. Although pitching fees—or pay to play—is a good litmus test for weeding out disreputable angel groups, you’ll also find that for-profit angel groups typically have a poor track record with these other criteria. For those that didn’t see the earlier post, the list included:

Seattle's Alliance of Angels has had a single executive leading the group for its 11 year history, Dan Rosen. Yes, succession problems come to mind and it reminds me of Duwayne Peterson of the Pasadena Angels who eventually found a successor after many years at the helm, but having strong leadership in an angel group has got to correlate with good deals, good relationships with entrepreneurs and even better returns. Contrast manager-led groups, The manager-led groups are funding more startups this year. As the economic turmoil of the past year has roiled early-stage

Such is the fate of a podcaster after interviewing 265 of the world's experts in angel investing. It's the same when we prognosticate on deals as when commenting on alternative approaches to angel investing in these turbulent economic times, like angel investors everywhere, my opinions are no more valid than any of my fellows'. It's hard for collegial angel investors to collectively admit that they're continuing to fund a startup that should be wound down; we're all Chairman-elect Richard Sudek has sent each of the TCA board members a copy of Spencer Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese prior to our 2nd Annual Offsite Strategic Planning Session at Chapman University.