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I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

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Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#31

Post by [deleted] »

aditya wrote: post #24
joshu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you like to see before you invest? idea? product? traction? I am trying to build intuition. So some of this is gut sense. Sometimes I look at deals and say, this is obvious. Sometimes I have to sell myself. I look for new things that are in spaces that have a comfortable competitiveness climate. > What do you give more importance? idea or team? Both are important. See above. > You've had incredible dealflow…

Thanks! To rephrase the NYC vs SF question, if you were starting a new company today, where would you do it?

[deleted]

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#32

Post by joshu »

aditya wrote: post #24
joshu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you like to see before you invest? idea? product? traction? I am trying to build intuition. So some of this is gut sense. Sometimes I look at deals and say, this is obvious. Sometimes I have to sell myself. I look for new things that are in spaces that have a comfortable competitiveness climate. > What do you give more importance? idea or team? Both are important. See above. > You've had incredible dealflow…

Thanks! To rephrase the NYC vs SF question, if you were starting a new company today, where would you do it?

Personally I would be ok with either. I know great investors in NYC. There are more investors in the Valley. If you have something that is harder to get funded, it may be easier here.

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#33

Post by joshu »

einarvollset wrote: post #8

Hi Joshua Would you invest in a pure mobile play (i.e. Something you needed a specific type of phone for)? Reason i'm asking is that I quite often hear "yeah but what about everyone who doesn't have an XXX". Cheers, Einar

I am not fond of secondary franchises. If you are going to live in the shade of one tree, it'd better be a huge fucking tree.

I am also not fond of temporary opportunities. If you are doing X for Android because there's a successful X for iPhone and nobody has done it yet, then it's not a scaleable business.

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#34

Post by joshu »

joshu wrote: post #28
patio11 wrote: post #17

1) Entrepreneurs need to understand that [ ... ] or I will stab their eyes out. Please fill in the blank. 2) What is the most broken thing about angel investing?

> Entrepreneurs need to understand that [ ... ] or I will stab their eyes out. Please fill in the blank. Communication is key. If you want people to do things, you must communicate in ways that facilitate the action. Make it easier for me as I am bandwidth constrained. > What is the most broken thing about angel investing? I haven't been doing this long enough to have a sense for that, which is surprising. I am frequ…

Funny story: When I see names in the press that look familiar, I often check to see if I've communicated with them. I saw an article about a company that raised money, and checked, and sure enough I had talked with them about it.

The entrepreneur had written ten paragraphs. I sent a "sounds interesting, send screenshots or a prototype" and they wrote ten more paragraphs. I didn't follow up.

However, smarter people than me invested, so what do I know?

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#35

Post by joshu »

patio11 wrote: post #17

1) Entrepreneurs need to understand that [ ... ] or I will stab their eyes out. Please fill in the blank. 2) What is the most broken thing about angel investing?

Incidentally, I have sent at least three startups to your blog, just for an example of crisp thinking they needed to emulate.

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#38

Post by patio11 »

joshu wrote: post #35
patio11 wrote: post #17

1) Entrepreneurs need to understand that [ ... ] or I will stab their eyes out. Please fill in the blank. 2) What is the most broken thing about angel investing?

Incidentally, I have sent at least three startups to your blog, just for an example of crisp thinking they needed to emulate.

Thanks, that is a wonderful compliment. If you have something specific you like crispified, I'd be happy to do a summary post about it. (The user experience of accessing my blog for the first time is terrible if you're not coming to a particular article, since it degrades into "what am I thinking about this week" and doesn't usually include context for the last four years.)

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#39

Post by joshu »

jmillerinc wrote: post #36
joshu wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion

Great. Any thoughts on parameter values?

According to Fred, 2 in 3 startups return even or fail, and 1 in 3 succeed.

Assuming I'm doing as well as he is (which I doubt) and that an exiting startup gets 10x the input, the formula suggests 25% or so.

This seems high. Also, startups are not independent bets. Who knows?

I've done 34-ish investments. One small exit. Two are doing very well. Two or three dead companies (sometimes, it is hard to tell.)

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