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I read about 5-10 pitches a day, whether pitched by email, from angellist, friends referrals, or wherever they may come from. I also proactively peruse angellist when I have time. I invest in about 10 companies a year, (I try to stay around $25-$250k/each). People ask me what I look for when I’m reading the pitches, or reviewing the companies. Here is a non-comprehensive list of some of the reasons you may not hear back from me, and how I invest. The basics that everyone talks about still apply too (great team, great product, traction, uniqueness, etc)
- Don’t lie on your resume, linkedin, angellist profile or anywhere. It’s okay to have failed, it’s not okay to keep that info from a potential investor/partner. I’ll search your social profiles, call your references, and if something is out of wack, i’m out.
- There are some investors / VC’s I won’t invest with. If I see that these people are on your profile, I just move on. I won’t name names here, and it doesn’t mean they’re evil, or anything, I just don’t want to be associated with them, I don’t like the way they’ll treat you, or maybe I’m just superstitious.
- I like to see a revenue stream. Even if you aren’t there yet, have a good plan to make money, lots of money.
- Go big. I’m probably not going to invest in a company that might double every year. I want to see huge growth potential. Dream big!
- I might not ask you too many questions about your exit strategy, but I’m thinking of it. An investment pays off when you go public, or get sold, so that’s always in my mind.
- I’m an angel investor not a VC, so you need to have the key team in place. I can help introduce people, and I have a good network, but I’m not in a position to hire your executive team for you. If you want me to advise at first, and help grow the team, that’s something else, and I’m only open to that on rare occasions.
- For the most part, I am a pretty silent investor, unless we agree on more. I’ll leave you to make the right decisions for your company.
- If you ask me for advice, I’m almost always willing to give it. I’ll send an email now & then or make an introduction as I see synergies. I’ll try almost any beta software, and give constructive feedback. I know how to code, I understand SEO & I do database stuff, so I can advise on that. I’m not opposed to an official advisory role, but I’m not looking for another day job.
- I fund fast. I know it’s hard to fund-raise, and when I decide to invest, I don’t play games.
- If you play games, pit me against other investors, stall too long, or the agreements are too messy, I lose interest. You’ve got to make it as easy as possible.
- Most of the time I won’t question your valuation. If I don’t agree, you’ll probably never know, because I’ll bow out gracefully.
- Location doesn’t really matter to me, but you should be in the best place for your business. I’ve worked with people in the same town as me who I only meet with over Skype or phone. The Internet is cool.
- If I say I’m open a particular day, suggest a time quick. My schedule fills up fast. If you wait a day or 2, that time will be filled, and you make it a pain for me.
- Don’t blow me off, or cancel a meeting unless you have a damn good reason. I rarely re-schedule.
- I invest in a lot of companies; I talk to a dozen people a day, and get a lot of emails. Include the previous emails in the thread when you reply.
- The best ways to contact me: #1 email, #2, text, #3, twitter DM or @, #4, call. I don’t mind getting calls, I just am rarely in a position to pick up.
- I’m a great guy, and I can be your best friend and partner. If you respect me, my team & my time, I’ll respect you too.
Like I said this isn’t a comprehensive list, but these are just some recent things that have come up, and I hadn’t blogged in a while. I may be alone in some of these, or maybe all angel investors think like this, I really don’t know, and I didn’t ask anyone else.
I probably could’ve written 5 blog posts on this, but I guess I’ll save more detail for my book. I’ll also probably edit this post throughout the next few days as I think of other things to put in here.
Looks like April is going to be another busy month for me!
About a week ago, I worked out a deal and was able to acquire the EarnMojo.com website and content. It’s a really cool site. You probably saw the little badge pop-out from the side of this page. —>
Basically it allows you to earn badges for visiting websites. It’s already quite popular with over 1,000 sites and close to 10 million badge views. While I try to come up with a white-label model, I’ve hired a programmer to help me on the editing and speeding the system up a bit. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
I’m still working on the Endorse.Me business, and somewhat on the SocialStats.com site too. Those are a tad slower, but are coming along.
The House is cranking along too. We’ve got doors inside, and the outside has most of the rock on it. The RV garage is complete, and I hope to be moving that over there in a few days. The tile is going down on the upstairs, and the wood floors and trim is mostly done upstairs too. Still a lot to do, and we anticipate it being done at the beginning of September. We’ll be putting our current house on the market in a few weeks.
I created a fan page on Facebook, so be sure to like that to keep up with the not-so-personal things that I’m doing. I’m starting to write a book, and I’ll probably post some of what that will be about on that page.
Hopefully everyone is doing great, I know I’m excited for the warmth of summer, and a 7 mile hike tomorrow and getting outside more. Here’s a couple pictures of the house:
 A Friend I met in Mexico Wow, 2 months into this year and it’s been interesting so far. It’s been almost 3 years since I sold my last company… Hard for me to believe. I hardly even look back at it anymore. I miss a few of the folks, but I’m happy where I’m at now. I’ve been traveling even more this year so far, and having fun and meeting lots of people. I’m back home today after a couple back-to-back trips. I need to start planning the trips earlier, to take advantage of the deals though. A weird experience yesterday coming home though. I was one of the first people off the plane, but it was practically empty in the customs area, I walked right through customs, and almost nobody was at the bag claim; I carried my luggage, so I walked past there, and was the only one going through the final line there too… I took a pic, but the officers made me delete it (something about police security)… It was odd, but nice getting through there in like 2 minutes.
Lately, some changes have been happening. Here’s a few updates.
- The Company Factory – Going through changes. It’s been decided that Chris & I will be going our separate ways in terms of the business. I will be keeping the office for now, and changing the business slightly, starting by growing a couple ideas I have and building the businesses around them. If you don’t have the iPhone app yet, be sure to get it!
- House – It’s coming along. The inside has all the sheetrock done, and it’s being painted now. The outside rock should be going up soon, the roof is done. 5 of the pipes burst during the big freeze here, so they’ve finally got that repaired.
- I crashed into the neighbors mailbox. It was icy, and I’m an idiot, so when you put those 2 things together, you get a smashed lexus and a smashed mailbox. (see pic below)
- Biking – Okay, so I decided that the cross-country trip is something I need to do. Not sure of how I’ll do it, but I’m thinking that I’ll do the Southern Tier after Spring Break 2012. I will hopefully find a support group (ie: someone to drive the RV & someone to ride along with me). If you’re interested in this trip, email me. I think i said it before, but I may do a going from nothing to across the country, so if you have 6-7 weeks and not much training, that’s probably about where I’ll be starting.. slooooow the first few days and working my way up.
So, that’s about it for now. There’s probably more, but my memory sucks. If you’re interested in helping with the new businesses, or want to join me on the bike trip or anything, just let me know. Here’s a pic of the house in progress.
 Oops, sorry about that, neighbor.  Back of the House in Feb 2011
So now that the year is over, I skimmed my calendar and came up with Neal Rapoport’s 2010 Year in Review, a list of some of my favorite things I did of 2010. These are in no particular order. If I needed to rank them, the family stuff would be #1, then the investments/business and lastly the concerts & events.
What I did in 2010
- Disturbed Concert with Ryan
- Jimmy Buffet Concert
- Don Henley fundraiser
- Virgin Airlines party with Willy Nelson & LMFAO
- Nascar Race in Pit & drive one of the racers in a lap
- Hawaii for 2 weeks with the family
- Helicopter ride over volcanos
- Bike down Haleakala
- Snuba in molokini
- Vegas For Home Builders show
- SXSW
- Cheap Trick
- Suzanne Vega
- Stone Temple Pilots
- Smoky Robinson
- Denver in April
- Campout at the Zoo with twins
- Start building a new House
- Attended Startup Weekend & met new biz partner/friend Chris
- Invested in Tech Wildcatters Incubator
- Went to fun parties at friends houses
- Saw Blues Traveler (few songs at Gilleys Dallas)
- Went to New York & DC with the family
- Ryans Bar Mitzvah
- Invested in Image Vision Labs
- Invested in Startup Digest
- Invested in Apartment in Arlington, tx
- Invested in Factoring company
- Went to 3 day Adventure camp with twins 5th grade.
- Went to a party at a County Club
- Went to the World Series final game
- Started a new company
- Went to Colorado in October
- Attended & participated in local angel groups
- Went to Disneyland & California.
- Went all Apple, Macbook air, ipads for everyone in the family, mac mini’s, more iphones, etc.
I’m sure there was a lot more I did, with other trips & things, but these were the ones I could remember by skimming the calendar. Lets see if 2011 can be even more exciting!
 So Thanksgiving was a blast, we had fun in California, and Disneyland. I’m back now, and getting in the swing of things in the few weeks before the end of year break.
Company Factory is getting rolling. Today I submitted our first iPhone app to the app store. It’s not too fancy, but it pulls the RSS feeds from a few places and puts it out there. I used AppMakr which made it pretty simple. I’ll post a link to it when it’s approved (well, if it’s approved).
There are currently 2 projects active within Company Factory, but we’ll be releasing a few changes to our model and hopefully that’ll make it easier for us to keep adding more businesses.
On the Investor front, I’ve decided to go for a second season of Tech Wildcatters incubator here in Dallas. It was fun helping as a mentor on the first set, and the companies are really doing well! I’m very impressed! I’m still active with some investor groups, and investing in some great folks. I’m really excited about a company in Atlanta that Ive been in contact with. I’m not invested yet, and it’s not public, so I can’t give it away yet, but I’ll update on that one too.
We decided to drop the subleased office, because it was just under-utilized, so we’ll probably just get an executive suite in the meantime until we find people who don’t want to just work from home & meet at Starbucks. (No, I still don’t drink coffee.)
Enough rambling for now. Peace-out!
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