Top Five Angel Insights From An Entrepreneur in Residence at AngelLoft
The following is a guest post from Pete Sanders, the CEO of BrixHQ and an Entrepreneur in Residence at AngelLoft:
In March we were privileged to be accepted into the AngelLoft Entrepreneur in Residence program. In summary, AngelLoft’s mission is to provide angel investors and entrepreneurs with the ideal environment within which to have a meeting of the minds. The group is based in Sydney and is open, by invitation, to angel members and entrepreneur pitches from anywhere in the world.
We’re ecstatic to part of AngelLoft and the Entrepreneur in Residence program.
We attended our first Angel Loft dinner in late March and introduced ourselves and BrixHQ to the group which included a seriously impressive range of angels and other entrepreneurs.
The evening was a fantastic opportunity to meet the angels, understand their backgrounds and start to build a relationship with some of the angels, even if only for feedback at this early stage. The feedback and comments that we’ve received from a range of angels & VC’s that we’ve spoken to since the first dinner include the following;
* Who are you competitors?
* How are you different to your competitors?
* What’s your business model (i.e. how do you make money)?
* How are you currently funded? and so on.
There are always two sides to these conversations however and some of the key questions that we’ve sought to understand from the angels are;
*What types of businesses do you typically invest in?
* What are the key things you look for when you are considering investing in a business?
* Do you have any feedback or comments for us?
The first question is crucial, it is important to firstly qualify what sort of businesses the angels are interested in. Plus, if you are time poor and want to have a meaningful conversation and future relationship then it is best to get off on the right foot or you can be wasting everyones time.
From our experience the top 5 key things angels are looking to invest in are;
1. a solid business idea that is being executed on,
2. the business has to be scalable (i.e. how big can it become?),
3. revenue – the business has to be on the right trajectory with revenue and growth, it’s great to have a lot of customers but if you dont have revenue then you don’t have a business.
4. management team – who are they, what experience do they have and have they done this before.
5. how long can you keep funding yourself through current funding sources.
The great thing about angels is that they will have feedback and comments for you, it might just be that it’s not for them and they’ll explain why or give specific comments or advice or direction that can help to move your business forward.
There’s nothing new or different in these 5 points above, but all serve as a fantastic litmus test for any business which is in start up mode or looking to raise funding in the future.
Also know your business intimately, be able to speak at a high level about your vision and your market, but be prepared to dive deep into the detail when appropriate.
Tags: AngelLoft, BrixHQSydney: The World’s Best City, A Vision
Sydney has been my primary residence since 1995.
During that time I’ve travelled extensively all over the world. During that time I’ve often spent months away, living in the United States and Europe.
One thing, though, has remained constant – as soon as I return to Sydney I instantly feel at home.
And yet, despite its beauty, despite its wonderful people Sydney has failed to step up to its rightful place as The World’s Best City.
Why? We had the Olympics in 2000, didn’t we? Surely that is enough?
The Olympics gave a much needed boost to the city’s infrastructure for sure, but that was over a decade ago.
Then there is the other quip – mostly used in reference to our erstwhile state government: we’ve got the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, why do we need anything else?
Well thankfully that era has now drawn to a close. Many of us stood up for change in the state and many of us are eager to make change happen.
I am hopeful that, together with our newly elected state government we can all get our city to where it should be: the World’s Best City!
I’ve been quietly working away with a few colleagues on a brave new Innovation Agenda for the city and the state, an agenda that will require buy in from our government and buy in from industry. As we progress this forward I look forward to input from all Sydneysiders.
What inspired me to write this post, though, is the speech Sydney’s mayor is going to deliver this evening. Clover Moore will be delivering the Utzon Lecture and in it she will be talking about why Sydney needs to boost its cycle lanes.
I’m a huge fan of cycling and would love to be able to ride into the city every day. I’ve done it from time to time, but don’t enjoy competing with road traffic. Nor do I have the time to take the circuitous back street routes that get me into the city from St Ives sans traffic.
She speaks of Sydney needing a Vision, an overriding goal we can all point to. A goal we can all strive to achieve.
I submit that this vision should be nothing short of becoming the World’s Best City not only to live in, but to work in. A city that makes a difference and improves society for all.
In order to achieve such a vision Sydney needs to have a more cohesive and ambitious Innovation Agenda. Sydney also needs, in the words of Clover Moore:
not just the imagination to envision the kind of city we want, but also the continued innovation to develop the projects to achieve it, and the political will to put those plans into action.
Hear hear!
Tags: Clover Moore, Utzon LectureAngelLoft: A Manifesto for Angel Investing
Angel investing continues to grow by leaps and bounds and with it the level of interest in the space.
After having launched AngelLoft in December last year I’ve constantly found myself explaining to people – both angel investors and entrepreneurs alike – what it is we do, how we operate and what differentiates us.
And so I decided it was high time to crystallise a manifesto that I, our current and prospective members and entrepreneurs could refer to.
Expect an exciting announcement from AngelLoft next week, and if you haven’t already – RSVP for the next dinner on the 29th!
Cloning: An unAustralian Groupon?
I’ll be writing more and more about social commerce as I firmly believe this is the next evolution in the social arena, but at this point I want to make a comment on events taking place in Australia.
Groupon began rapidly growing as the poster child for group buying some eighteen months ago. And much like we saw with the proliferation of Twitter clones, we began to see Groupon clones spring up around the world.
Riding on the coat tails of others is nothing new. It’s how some companies conduct business.
We’ve seen this with Facebook. Once they grokked what Twitter was doing they implemented their own newsfeed system. Once they saw the benefits of Foursquare check-ins they installed this feature as well. In fact, they are now touting themselves as a social commerce business too, which means they’ll be competing against Groupon.
However, directly acquiring intellectual property in one country that mirrors another company’s IP is questionable conduct. And when Australians purportedly do this it’s unAustralian.
Andrew Mason, Groupon’s CEO has posted his views on why his company is not operating in Australia yet and in it there are some disturbing allegations that paint the Australian enterepreneurial community in a bad light:
One particular clone in Australia called Scoopon, created by the brothers Gabby and Hezi Leibovitch, has been making life difficult for us. Scoopon went a little further than just starting their Groupon clone – they actually purchased the Groupon.com.au domain name, took the company name Groupon Pty Limited, and tried to register the Groupon trademark (filing for the trademark just seven days before us) in Australia.
The way we see things, this is a classic case of domain squatting – an unfortunate reality of the Internet business. As Groupon became internationally known, opportunistic domain squatters around the world started to buy local Groupon domain names, thinking that we’d eventually be forced to buy them at an insane price. In fact, we tried to do just that, reluctantly offering Gabby and Hezi Leibovich about $286,000 for the Groupon.com.au domain and trademark—an offer they accepted. But now they’ve changed their minds, and we believe that they’ll only sell us the domain and trademark if we’re willing to buy the entire Scoopon business from them. Left with no other options, we’ve filed a lawsuit against Scoopon, claiming that their Groupon trademark was filed in bad faith (amongst other things).
I’m not going to comment on the veracity of Andrew’s views, as this is a matter for the courts.
However, such conduct by whomever is to be derided in the strongest possible terms. Australians are innovators, we have the mental capacity, the cultural agility and the ability to create incredible leaps in technology, in business and in creating meaningful things that progress humanity. We don’t need to copy what others do – that’s just unAustralian!
Tags: GrouponAnnouncing AngelLoft, the new angel + executive network
I’m very excited to be announcing AngelLoft, the new angel + executive network. It’s for serious investors and executives and it’s seriously Sydney.
The premise behind AngelLoft [website coming soon] is to provide a premium invite-only forum within which to bring together a group of angels, aspirant angels and top business executives.
The first AngelLoft dinner will take place on Wednesday, 15th December in a private loft at a top Sydney restaurant. The speaker will be Yammer’s newly appointed head of the Asia Pacific region. He’ll be speaking hot off the plane from Silicon Valley and will have some incredible insights to share with you.
In addition, one quality venture will be doing a pitch. In fact that is our mantra at AngelLoft: its about quality – of company, of speakers, of pitches and, of course, of dining.
As readers of Metarand, I am extending an invite to you to join AngelLoft and we’d love to see you at the first dinner. Can you please let me know asap whether you would like to attend on the 15th December. Places are limited and we’ll let you know if you’ve reserved a seat within the next few days. Cost for the dinner will be $250 a head, payable on the night by cash or via Paypal bump.
Let me know by emailing me at randal at seggr dot com.
Tags: AngelLoft, angels, SydneyA Day At Bondi with Aquabumps
Hugely inspirational to any (and many) waterman, Eugene Tan has kept us “in the water” with his excellent photography for over a decade. Entirely focused on Bondi, with occasional Mentawai or Bali sojourns, Aquabumps, as he is known, has a 40,000 strong following.
He’s now released his first book – check out the video below:
‘A Day At Bondi’ Aquabumps Book by Eugene Tan from Aquabumps on Vimeo.
Tags: Aquabumps, Bondi, Eugene TanDeloitte Technology Fast Top 50 – Take 2
Congrats to the companies that featured in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Australia list announced today.
Most pleasing was seeing two former portfolio companies of mine in the top 20!
* Tigerspike, of which I was Chairman through its formative years, came in at number 17 with growth of 170.7% and its their fourth consecutive year on the list; and
* Cogstate, which was part of my ADI portfolio, came in at number 19 with 150.7% growth and for them its a whopping sixth consecutive year.
Tags: Cogstate, Deloitte Technology Fast 50, TigerspikeWindows Into Time: Twitter reality meets beach Art
Yesterday morning I visited the 2010 Sculptures by the Sea event down at Bondi Beach. The video below is the result:
Connecting Tech & Surfing Downunder
Over at The Next Web, Kim Heras has done a fun interview with me on the connection between surfing and technology.
In it I discuss the need for more leading brands and success stories to flow from the Australian tech and sporting industries.
There’s a key quote from the piece I particularly want to repeat:
One area that I am really excited about in the surf arena right now is the scale at which stand up paddlesurfing is taking off – it’s the fastest growing water sport on the planet and there is a lot of tech experimentation around shapes and materials for both surfing and racing as well as with boards, paddles and clothing, not to mention tapping into social media to grow awareness and participation for the sport.
I am really interested in exploring the creation of a world class Australian SUP/sport brand – it’s an exciting time.