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Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

angelsoft.net

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#21

Post by pg »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #18
pg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several angel groups that charge money to present to them. I would not recommend doing this. Angel groups generally are worthless (out of 102 YC-funded startups prior to this cycle, zero got money from angel groups), and the ones that charge you to present seem particularly dubious. If they had good deal flow, they wouldn't have to charge you to pay their operating expenses; angels would pay them for access…

Paul -- could you elaborate a bit here? We all see hundreds of angel groups all over the world. There must be thousands or even tens of thousands of angel investors. How come "Angel groups generally are worthless"? Unable to make decisions? Poor management? No funds to invest? People just fishing for good ideas? etc? I know a lot of people have tried something like "E-bay for Funding Startups" but not to much success…

I'm not sure what the cause is. I've just noticed that I never come across startups who've been funded by them. If I had to guess, I think the problem might be the investors they attract. None of the top angels I know would join an angel group; they're all already plugged into the startup world, usually because they came from it themselves.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#22

Post by drstarcat »

amobilebiz wrote: post #13

Angelsoft has two business models. One is where they charge entreprenuers to essentially pitch their angel members. The second is they provide a platform for angels and even some VCs to automate their application process. With this model the process is free to the entreprenuer and the angel or VC covers the cost. While I believe the first model is useless money spent, I do believe the second model is much better and…

As the COO of Angelsoft and the creator of the Open Deals/The Investor Community, I can shed some statistical light on this question.

First let me clarify that since 2004 Angelsoft has been building tools that help Startups and Investors communicate more effectively. That's what we talk about every day. That's what keeps me up at night. Open Deals is one of those tools.

We originally released Open Deals as a way for Angel Groups to post deals that they wanted to do, but didn't have enough cash to do alone (This is a surprisingly common problem for these groups).

As Open Deals gained traction with our groups, we thought we could use it to solve another problem: Unknown entrepreneurs applying to groups and getting rejected because they were unknown. Most guys who are unknown are unknown for a reason, but obviously if you can never get an investment unless you've been successful before, we've got a problem.

We figured we'd encourage these new entrepreneurs to apply to Open Deals, let the investors crowd source them, and if a guy was legit, he'd get voted up and referred into some groups. Since he was referred, we figured the group might pay attention to him.

So has it been successful?

1. First, our marketing around it has sucked (and still does). We're more of software company and marketing hasn't come naturally to us. We're working on a complete site redesign coming out early in March we think will fix this.

2. Since we began we've had 243 companies referred from Open Deals to groups. That's about 25% who applied.

3. Companies that are referred from Open Deals are 225% more likely to get a meeting with a group than a direct submission to that group.

In short, Open Deals is doing okay. You guys are smart enough to figure out if it's worth $250 for you, but I can say, that for most entrepreneurs its more than worth the money. And I'm not talking about those that get meetings. A lot of entrepreneurs get dinged or ignored when they apply. We take some heat for that, but the truth is, these guys paid $250 to find out they're not ready for prime-time. And speaking as an entrepreneur who has spent thousands of dollars and years of his life pursuing ideas that were not ready, I can say that $250 is a bargain.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#23

Post by steveplace »

point wrote: post #19
andrewljohnson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our site already got funding, thanks. And an fbFund grant. Of course, we'll need more in 2010, hence my constant quest for more money.

So you have no plan to make money for the entire year of 2009? Are you running a business or a charity?

I'd suggest that you keep a more constructive tone on this board.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#24

Post by andrewljohnson »

drstarcat wrote: post #22
amobilebiz wrote: post #13

Angelsoft has two business models. One is where they charge entreprenuers to essentially pitch their angel members. The second is they provide a platform for angels and even some VCs to automate their application process. With this model the process is free to the entreprenuer and the angel or VC covers the cost. While I believe the first model is useless money spent, I do believe the second model is much better and…

As the COO of Angelsoft and the creator of the Open Deals/The Investor Community, I can shed some statistical light on this question. First let me clarify that since 2004 Angelsoft has been building tools that help Startups and Investors communicate more effectively. That's what we talk about every day. That's what keeps me up at night. Open Deals is one of those tools. We originally released Open Deals as a way for…

I think a cheaper way to figure out how ready you are for primetime is to submit your site to Hacker News. It doesn't cost a penny.

I appreciate and agree with most of your comments, but saying that $250 is a cheap price to learn the ropes seems wrong and somewhat predatory to me. I think you should spend time polishing your value prop if you have to fall back on this sort of rhetoric.

I think I'll follow pg's advice.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#25

Post by kwamenum86 »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #14
point wrote: post #11

If you're dumb enough to pay money for this, you're dumb enough that your site will never make any money. The only ones who will get rich from this are the owners of the site - they are selling you a dream, and you are paying for it. Spend the money on some proper SEO services instead, it will do you more good. And let me give it to you square - your site will NEVER get funding. It's not hot, it has little potential…

Our site already got funding, thanks. And an fbFund grant. Of course, we'll need more in 2010, hence my constant quest for more money.

what site?

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#26

Post by andrewljohnson »

kwamenum86 wrote: post #25
andrewljohnson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our site already got funding, thanks. And an fbFund grant. Of course, we'll need more in 2010, hence my constant quest for more money.

what site?

www.trailbehind.com

We have a buggy, but much more powerful and fast, update on cabin dot trailbehind dot com (spelled out like this so Google won't index it).

New features include:

* rankings of sites by popularity/popularity-based search

* static caches of maps

* better arrangement of icons on the maps

* updated reporting interface

* expanded data set

We're in bug fix mode right now, and we'll be pushing the update Monday or so.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#27

Post by ecommercematt »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #24
drstarcat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the COO of Angelsoft and the creator of the Open Deals/The Investor Community, I can shed some statistical light on this question. First let me clarify that since 2004 Angelsoft has been building tools that help Startups and Investors communicate more effectively. That's what we talk about every day. That's what keeps me up at night. Open Deals is one of those tools. We originally released Open Deals as a way for…

I think a cheaper way to figure out how ready you are for primetime is to submit your site to Hacker News. It doesn't cost a penny. I appreciate and agree with most of your comments, but saying that $250 is a cheap price to learn the ropes seems wrong and somewhat predatory to me. I think you should spend time polishing your value prop if you have to fall back on this sort of rhetoric. I think I'll follow pg's advice…

Submitting your site to Hacker News can yield insightful comments, new users, and potentially result in an investor taking some notice. That isn't the same as deliberately pitching investors, though. I don't see how charging a specific fee for a specific service in an up-front fashion like this is predatory. A barrier to entry such as the fee charged probably makes the quality of applications and applicants better. That being said, at this point, I can't imagine myself paying for such a service. I prefer to network the old-fashioned way.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#28

Post by mathewgj »

pg wrote: post #7
andrewljohnson wrote: post #2

This site charges $250 to put you in front of a bunch of angels. They claim 5% get funded. Has anyone ever gotten funding through this outfit? I'm considering applying for my company - www.trailbehind.com, after we launch our new version next week.

There are several angel groups that charge money to present to them. I would not recommend doing this. Angel groups generally are worthless (out of 102 YC-funded startups prior to this cycle, zero got money from angel groups), and the ones that charge you to present seem particularly dubious. If they had good deal flow, they wouldn't have to charge you to pay their operating expenses; angels would pay them for access…

+1!

Totally agree. There are serious angels who co-invest fairly regularly with other angels they know and trust - but these organized groups, especially the pay to pitch ones are a bad neighborhood.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#29

Post by mathewgj »

mathewgj wrote: post #28
pg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several angel groups that charge money to present to them. I would not recommend doing this. Angel groups generally are worthless (out of 102 YC-funded startups prior to this cycle, zero got money from angel groups), and the ones that charge you to present seem particularly dubious. If they had good deal flow, they wouldn't have to charge you to pay their operating expenses; angels would pay them for access…

+1! Totally agree. There are serious angels who co-invest fairly regularly with other angels they know and trust - but these organized groups, especially the pay to pitch ones are a bad neighborhood.

'regularly'

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever gotten funding from this website?

#30

Post by brlewis »

pg wrote: post #21
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul -- could you elaborate a bit here? We all see hundreds of angel groups all over the world. There must be thousands or even tens of thousands of angel investors. How come "Angel groups generally are worthless"? Unable to make decisions? Poor management? No funds to invest? People just fishing for good ideas? etc? I know a lot of people have tried something like "E-bay for Funding Startups" but not to much success…

I'm not sure what the cause is. I've just noticed that I never come across startups who've been funded by them. If I had to guess, I think the problem might be the investors they attract. None of the top angels I know would join an angel group; they're all already plugged into the startup world, usually because they came from it themselves.

I came across framemedia, not that that proves anything.

http://www.commonangels.com/loader_funded.html

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