

AngelConf 2010 streams live on Justin.TV - randall
http://justin.tv/ycombinator

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joshu
Some good stuff here. I'm speaking on a little bit.

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grellas
Just some scattered notes I took on broad trends identified during the
presentations:

1\. Old way of raising rounds (lead investor, minimum investment amount, fixed
amount for round) is dead and is now being displaced by founder-controlled
rounds with rolling closings - only a few companies are doing this as yet but
they are among the _best_ companies and thus it likely signifies a trend (pg).

2\. Last year's huge unexploited opportunity for angels to fill the gap for
fundings in the few hundreds of thousands range has now been capitalized upon,
and it is now easy to raise funds in that range, with many angels having
rushed in to fill the gap - the number of angels now investing is plentiful
and growing (pg).

3\. One of the downsides to the new investing ecosystem is that too many
entrepreneurs are thinking small and executing small (Mike Arrington, in a
quite wittily presented twist of the knife with, I think, tongue at least
partly in cheek).

4\. Key is to invest in people, as ideas can morph (Ron Conway - the man
exudes character).

5\. Angels can make money and have fun (the two primary motivators) and will
find themselves more easily being able to align their sympathies with the
entrepreneurs in the early stages than would be possible under the rules of
the VC game (Mitch Kapor - who has been on both sides of that fence).

6\. Even top-tier VCs are looking for angels to co-invest with in early-stage
companies or from whom they can cooperate in receiving deal-flow (Greg McAdoo
of Sequoia Capital).

7\. It is critical to individual angels (as opposed to institutionalized
super-angels) to apply some strict filtering rules, and to be disciplined in
doing so, as a way of screening their potential investments - the field lends
itself to a systematic approach (Joshua Schachter - very nice presentation, by
the way).

8\. Three major factors identified by YC companies in informal survey in
deciding which to take among competing angel offers: (a) quality and
reputation of the angel; (b) clean terms; and (c) willingness to move quickly
and decisively (pricing of the deal as a factor came in nowhere near these
three) (Sam Altman, in a subtly spirited presentation that emphasized the
entrepreneur's perspective).

9\. On the legal side, some 80% of recent early-stage funding deals in the
presenting lawyer's recent experience have involved convertible notes (John
Battista of Orrick - this surprised me, as such notes have fallen into some
disfavor over the past year in my experience).

10\. On the darker side, there is a trend of sorts in which entrepreneurs are
doing quickie acquisitions involving, e.g., $20M deals coupled with rich
option packages for themselves, leaving angels with basically a return of
their money with little or no premium (a couple of the speakers referred to
this).

And, last but not least, time to write that check (!), as there are an
abundance of opportunities out there for angel investors.

Speaking from my own experience, this is undoubtedly true about the
opportunities, as the investing ecosystem has shifted significantly toward the
angels and away from the VCs in many ways during recent years - it is now
almost axiomatic in founder thinking that VC funding is to be at least
deferred while a company goes through at least one angel round in order to
avoid too heavy a dilutive hit out the gate.

There were a variety of other excellent points made along the way as well, by
Aydin Senkut, Andrea Zurek, and Mike Maples, among others, sharing points they
have learned through some fairly extensive investing experiences. I would have
jotted more detail on these as well but only had a 2 x 3 card to write on and
ran out of space!

All in all, a quite stimulating conference. Thanks to pg and YC for making
this possible (and for the invite).

~~~
joshu
grellas, you are too kind. i stumbled hard in the middle. it was a pleasure to
meet you.

i forgot to say a bunch of stuff. most of it was targeted at how to actually
be an angel.

\- stop going for crazy protective terms - if stuff goes pear-shaped, you lose
your money. period. and it makes life harder for entrepreneurs as terms given
up in the first rounds are never recovered.

\- invest in people you would consider working for and with. you will be.

\- learn to give a clean, proper no. it's hard, and i do this badly.

\- don't sit on deals hoping they get hot.

~~~
grellas
joshu, very nice to meet you as well - your investment philosophy and
methodology came across nicely in what you presented and the minor glitch in
the middle only left one wanting to hear more.

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abstractbill
If you missed any of it, the archive is here:
<http://www.justin.tv/ycombinator/b/267534289>

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richcollins
Looks like they need to do some work on Safari support:
<http://i.imgur.com/OJJkU.png>

~~~
abstractbill
Forwarded to our QA guy, thanks very much for reporting.

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stuntprogrammer
A fun afternoon and a chance to speak to great people; not just speakers but
also the fine audience. Sound in the room was a bit rough at times..

Format needs tweaking IMHO. Geoff tried to get some more audience interaction
going but would be nice to have a more workshop type feel. Afterwards was good
but a bit longer break in the middle may have been useful.

Shame Arrington ran for the door after his dipshit company comment..

~~~
joshu
I thought Arrington was right on the money. Best talk out of all of them.

~~~
stuntprogrammer
For sure - a relief from the cheerleading or timeshare selling feel it
otherwise had at times. I would have enjoyed some more to & fro on that. My
startup was acquired in more than a talent acquisition deal but far less than
a big swing for the fences (55MM but entirely founder funded).

Thinking of the powershift to founders.. and future bigger attempt, I'm not
convinced yet to even consider outside money.

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DanielRibeiro
How long will angel con be and is there a list of scheduled speakers?

~~~
abstractbill
Here's a partial list of speakers at least: <http://angelconf.org/>

