41–50 of 57 posts
This distills the current situation (as I've spent months piecing together through various means) as well as could be desired.
If you're at all concerned about raising money in the near future, get the scoop here and then spend your time building a great company instead of trying to figure out what the deal is with fundraising at the moment.
Is this a legitimate opportunity, or would it simply not be worth the effort to find the few needles in all those haystacks?
Angel investing is kind of a fad right now. Everyone's doing it. My gut instinct is that it's at least a mini bubble. In 3-5 years a lot of angels are going to be unhappy about negative returns, the stock market is going to be looking stronger, and they'll shift their money back to stocks and bonds. Surely this huge influx of angel investors has contributed to the much higher valuations early stage startups have been…
He doesn't mention crowdfunding at all as model, though it's clearly generating enough funding for several businesses.
> So if some of the super-angels were looking for companies that could get acquired quickly, that would explain why they'd care about valuations. But why would they be looking for those? Because depending on the meaning of "quickly," it could actually be very profitable. A company that gets acquired for 30 million is a failure to a VC, but it could be a 10x return for an angel, and moreover, a quick 10x return. Rate…
To Paul G: What's the ETA on the model convertible note you said http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1655585 you guys were releasing soon?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't normally downvote or harsh on comments because there are plenty of other people around here doing that, but in this case I'm going to apply the golden rule and give you some brutally honest feedback that I wish someone would give me if I were digging myself into a hole the way you are doing: > I challenge the name. If, as you say, you are trying to start a company then you should have twenty thousand more imp…
>> Or even "angels"? ...Wait a minute, they're NOT supernatural beings? That awesome observation made me laugh out loud :)
I'm not saying that the influence is necessarily a bad thing because I believe that what these investors stand for is good in principle. These people are taking huge risks with their hard-earned money in ideas that fail 99% of the time... but doesn't anyone find the title "Super Angel Investor" just a little bit over-the-top?
I didn't think that this comment would offend so many people, but I have to say... I'm flattered that everyone cares enough to respond! I'm getting a ton of points! ...but what is that little dash doing on the left side of them?
It's great that people are proactive in enforcing the caliber of intellectual conversation that occurs here... but seriously though, a response with a link to a 6 tier article on "How to Disagree?" Hahaha! Come on guys, lighten up.
- If the bottleneck for VCs is board seats, why hadn't VCs already stopped taking board seats? Surely they thought of this. Implicit collusion? Entrepreneur ignorance?
- What, would the "mouse skins" analogy from the SS talk have been too distracting? Alas.
s/accomodating/accommodating/
I hope no offense is taken. ;)
And now, the more important stuff...
As you know, the terms often control the discussion, so kudos for your notes listing the various terms, i.e. "Super Angels" "Mini-VCs" and "Micro-VCs." Some have balked at the use of the adjective/term "super" as misleading, but the terms typically used, and their corresponding definitions don't have distinct lines. A potential resolution might be using the term "archangel" for the investments/investors beyond the typical "angel" round? Anyone fluent enough in English to know the term "archangel" will understand the implication of it being greater than "angel." --It's just a thought.
Another thought would be to break down the classifications by their most defining aspect, namely amount of capital. The lines will still be imperfect, and you have a better grasp of the numbers than I do, but the language would be generally more clear. I was thinking something like this:
seed: angel: 30,000 - 150,000
archangel: 150,000 - 1,000,000
vc: > 1,000,000
That would classify YC pretty much as you describe it, namely, as a "seed fund," or better said, specializing in "seed round funding." At present, I still not convinced my little idea above is any better than the currently confusing status quo, but at least it's an attempt.
EDIT: Uggh! Fix line breaks ;)
What occurs to me reading this is that there's a big untapped market for super-angels in areas _outside_ of Silicon Valley. Sure, there's fewer investment opportunities (to put it mildly), but the super-angels in these areas simply don't exist, and the VCs in these areas are often buffoons. Is this a legitimate opportunity, or would it simply not be worth the effort to find the few needles in all those haystacks?