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MenuAngel Investors & VCs: What inspires you to invest?
I am writing a blog post for the Clarity blog, rounding up reasons why angel investors and VCs give back to the startup ecosystem. I would love a 1-2 sentence contribution from you to include in the roundup. Thanks!
Answers
As an angel, what I look for is founder/market fit. Does this entrepreneur have a fire in their belly to solve a problem and a really unique and inspired look at the market they are attacking?
The motivation to angel-invest for me as an active entrepreneur is to build a strong network of founders who can help each other and share commonly applicable experiences.
As an angle and VC, the #1 reason you invest in a company is generate a 3x+ return on at least 45% of the deals. The main reason to " Give back" to the ecosystem is for deal flow.
There are tons of great ideas out there the hardest part is finding a founder who understand s their limitations and is willing to adapt with added leadership the Angles & VC's need to bring in.
Once the startup takes funding the game changes and now they have a fiduciary responsibility. If founders don't understand this change, it will become very interesting.
I used to invest in business plans and ideas. I gave that up pretty quickly as it is a failing model. I now invest in the following:
profit
revenue
customer lists
my enjoyment at working with the team.
That is it.
#1 by far is "People". I invest in startups based on who are the people involved, how skilled they are in their respective roles, how I like them, what their product or service is and if I personally am interested in what they are selling.
#2 by crunching the numbers. They must have a viable revenue stream from paying customers. Too many startups I look at live off their seed round and eat that up and start their A rounds while still in freemium mode. By the time they get that far they had better be producing enough revenue to sustain their day to day operations and use the A round to diversify and expand.
#3 I do my own market research on the market segment and current and future competition. I like companies who are #2 or #3 in their respective market segment. It's a nice comfortable spot to sit and "draft" behind the #1 market leader. When they make a shift you can react by coming up with a revised or better version of the same product or service. Let #1 make the big mistakes.
#4 Lastly, I look at who else has invested in the company or if they participated in one of the many incubation programs out there. I have about a dozen or so angels that I track and about five or six VC firms. If one of my tracked angels or VC's invests I pay attention and most likely follow suit.
#5 I track potential investments by geographic region and general industry segment like this:
Silicon Valley - Big Data
Silicon Beach - Internet of Things
Silicon Desert - Mobile Apps
Silicon Prairie - Aerospace
Silicon Slopes - BioTech
For each category as above I try to track 3 startups in each.
One difference between venture capitalists and angel investors is what money they use to invest. An angel investor is an accredited investor who uses their own money to invest in small businesses. Many angel investors are small business owners’ family and friends. Small business angel investors focus more on helping build someone’s business than profiting right away. Angel investors and venture capitalists invest in businesses at different stages. Angel investors are more likely to invest in businesses that are just starting out. Because of this, angel investors take more risks than venture capitalists. If you are just starting out, an angel investor might provide you with enough money to get off the ground.
You can read more here: https://www.patriotsoftware.com/blog/accounting/venture-capitalist-vs-angel-investor/
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
Related Questions
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When raising money how much of equity do you give up to keep control? Is it more important to control the board or majority of shares?
It entirely depends on the kind of business you have. If you have a tech startup for example, there are pretty reliable assumptions about each round of funding. And a business plan and financial forecasts are almost totally irrelevant to sophisticated tech investors in the early stages of a company's life. Recent financial history is important if the company is already generating revenue and in that case, a twelve-month projection is also meaningful, but pre-revenue, financial forecasts in tech startups mean nothing. You shouldn't give up more than 10-15% for your first $100,000 and from that point forward, you should budget between 10-20% dilution per each round of subsequent dilution. In a tech startup, you should be more nervous about dilution than control. The reality of it is that until at least a meaningful amount of traction is reached, no one is likely to care about taking control of the venture. If the founding team screws-up, it's likely that there will be very little energy from anyone else in trying to take-over and fix those problems. Kevin is correct in that the board is elected by shareholders but, a board exerts a lot of influence on a company as time goes-on. So board seats shouldn't be given lightly. A single bad or ineffective board member can wreak havoc on a company, especially in the early stages of a company's life. In companies outside of tech, you're likely going to be dealing with valuations that are far lower, thus likely to be impacted with greater dilution and also potentially far more restrictive and onerous investment terms. If your company is a tech company, I'm happy to talk to you about the financing process. I am a startup entrepreneur who has recently raised angel and VC capital and was also formerly a VC as part of a $500,000,000 investment fund investing in every stage of tech and education companies.Tom WilliamsTW
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What is the average cost to close a round of seed funding?
I'm reluctant to say "it depends," but legal expense for a true seed round varies dramatically based on: 1. Whether the investment is structured as a priced equity round vs. convertible debt (or variations on that theme such as "SAFE") 2. Number and location of investors, timing of closing(s), and prior angel investing experience 3. Company counsel's efficiency and fluency in industry norms 4. "Deferred maintenance" necessary in areas like corporate formation, founders' equity issuance and IP assignments. #4 is the item that takes many entrepreneurs by surprise. On the investor side, it leads otherwise very savvy observers to give unrealistically low estimates of legal expense because they assume starting from a clean slate. This item is also most resistant to automation or standardization because startups come into being many different ways; each story is unique. I would put the lowest estimate at around $3K, assuming the company is already formed as a Delaware corporation with clean, basic documents, has issued founders' stock and handled related IP and other matters, and simply needs to issue a convertible note to one or two accredited investors with minimal negotiation of documents. The highest I would expect for a true "seed round" is about $15K, where some corporate cleanup is needed, the deal is structured as a streamlined kind of preferred equity (e.g., Series Seed), there are multiple closings with investors on different dates and terms, etc. Beyond that point we're really in "Series A" territory, doing things like creating a full set of VC preferred stock investment documents (about 100 pages), negotiating with investors' counsel (at the company's expense), and so forth. The expense and complexity of a traditional Series A deal have been the main impetus behind using convertible debt or Series Seed-type documents for seed-stage investments of less than $1 million or so in recent years. I hope this proves helpful. Always happy to chat and answer further questions.Antone JohnsonAJ
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What is the generally agreed upon "good" DAU/MAU for mobile apps?
You are right that the range is wide. You need to figure what are good values to have for your category. Also, you can focus on the trend (is your DAU/MAU increasing vs decreasing after you make changes) even if benchmarking is tough. Unless your app is adding a huge number of users every day (which can skew DAU/MAU), you can trust the ratio as a good indication of how engaged your users are. For games, DAU/MAU of ~20-30% is considered to be pretty good. For social apps, like a messenger app, a successful one would have a DAU/MAU closer to 50%. In general most apps struggle to get to DAU/MAU of 20% or more. Make sure you have the right definition of who is an active user for your app, and get a good sense of what % of users are actually using your app every day. Happy to discuss what is a good benchmark for your specific app depending on what it does.Srikrishnan GanesanSG
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How much equity is typically taken by investors in a seed round?
From my experience I would not advise you to go with Venture Capital when you're a start-up as in the end they will most likely end up screwing you. A much better source for funding would be angel investors or friends/family. The question of how much equity should I give away differs for every start-up. I remember with my first company I gave away 30% because I wanted to get it off the ground. This was the best decision I ever made. Don't over valuate your company as having 70% of something is big is a whole lot better than having 100% of something small. You have to decide your companies value based on Assets/I.P(Intellectual Property)/Projections. I assume you have some follow up questions and I would love to help you so if you need any help feel free to call me. Kind Regards, GiulianoGiuliano SeneseGS
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What happens to a convertible note if the company fails?
Convertible notes are by no means "earned." They are often easier to raise for early-stage companies who don't want to or can't raise an equity round. Equity rounds almost always require a simultaneous close of either the whole round or a defined "first close" representing a significant share of the raised amount. Where there are many participants in the round comprised mostly of small seed funds and/or angel investors, shepherding everyone to a closing date can be very difficult. If a company raises money on a note and the company fails, the investors are creditors, getting money back prior to any shareholder and any creditor that doesn't have security or statutory preference. In almost every case, convertible note holders in these situations would be lucky to get pennies back on the dollar. It would be highly unusual of / unheard of for a convertible note to come with personal guarantees. Happy to talk to you about the particulars of your situation and explain more to you based on what you're wanting to know.Tom WilliamsTW
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