Keiretsu Forum

Jake Brown

Lessons, Keiretsu Forum

 I spent a good part of the morning, mingling with investors and other guests to get a feel for the environment, and what it takes to pitch a successful business project. I myself am working on a proposal so attending the forum gave me lots of insight as to what I should and should not do when preparing and pitching my own project. Taking a look at two of the projects pitched, OnFarm Systems and AnyMeeting I felt the proposees lacked sufficient evidence and knowledge of the market. I felt this way because the projects offered solutions that were either impractical or served no new need in the market place. Looking at OnFarm Systems first, most farmers in America are not computer literate of technologically proficient to say the least. The expectation was to have an aggregated informations system to run all the various processes and procedures with a farming system from one centralized place. This would mean someone would need advanced training on this new technology, the farm would have to be re-calibrated in order to make readings even possible for this new sensor based platform and additional hiring would need to take place in order to manage such a system. While OnFarm's solutions sounds practical at face value, it really doesn't offer a practical solution when analyzed with any depth of logic. In the case of Anymeeting, there are tons of solutions that offer the same features and benefits that come free with Microsoft Window 7, Cisco Systems software/hardware, and even with Lotus Notes. I happen to use MS Lync daily, and I can do webcasts, web conference calls, video chats, video meetings, and the list goes on. Why add an additional costs, and additional piece of software that cost's money to license when you can use a product already bundled into a desktop solution or ERP system? This is the logic that was missing in the presentation. For the reason listed above, I would not invest any additional monies into either project as I don't see a ground-breaking product or products that would revolutionize society, the way we use technology and most importantly that would give a large return on investment. Overall, the Keiretsu Forum was an awesome learning experience and I know what I have to do before I present my project later this year. Before I even present, I will anticipate all questions that investors might have and will present solutions to any doubters so that there is no question that my project is a worthwhile investment. Simply defending your project's worthiness is not enough. It must sound logical and detrimental to the angel investors in order to get a green-light.

PLEASE MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR WRITE-UP PRIOR TO POSTING!

Tariq M. Haniff

Lessons from Keiretsu

After mingling and meeting with some of the angel investors, it seemed that many of them had a common area of interest when it came to new ventures. Their area of interest seemed to be “Green technology” or “Clean tech”. After some thought I understood that this made sense. An angel investor may have more philanthropic motivations than an institutional investor or a venture capitalist. When I pointed out that most of the companies presenting on that day were software based or software oriented, the reply was “I’m still a businessman, I won’t turn away a good deal when I see it.” I also noticed that interestingly a few of the non-member attendees were patent attorneys.

The group of investors was diverse. Members included former professional athletes, national laboratory scientists, and others in finance, sales and other business ventures. The accredited members group is quite exclusive with the requirement of $1M minimum net worth.

CEO Randy Williams walked us through the “Deal Flow Process” which outlined the process by which entrepreneurs could secure funding through the keiretsu forum.

Of the companies that presented on that day I found “on Farm Systems’ the most interesting. Their outreach was up to 4 million farms with 68 million integrated agricultural sensors. It seemed like a low cost solution for farmers to embrace high technology.

All of the presenters had a common vocabulary which I suppose is normal in the sales pitch world.  The vocabulary included words like “traction, organic growth, agnostic, white label, etc…”

Overall it was a very educational experience and I’m happy to have had the opportunity to attend.

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George Fuentealba, GMAN 509

Keiretsu Forum, Thu, May 31^st

Keiretsu Management Team and Members

Randy Williams has successfully created a global network of Angel Investors who have been successful in their own careers and want to give back.  Randy’s welcoming demeanor made the meeting feel as though we were both in a classroom and knew each member personally. As each member listened on to each presenter, I found myself taking tons of notes and recording each Q&A session to better understand how the investors were analyzing the data in the presentation and formulating critical success questions for the presenters to answer. Additionally, Randy would further help both the presenters and members understand what one another were saying and asking. Being surrounded by that much expertise, knowledge and candor would inspire any individual watching (yes, me) to begin thinking about how they can better the world around them and bring a concept to fruition.

The Presentations

I found the presentations from Lance Donny (OnFarm Systems), Jeff Curie (Bitvore), and Bing Byington to be the strongest. All three presenters came extremely prepared and were extremely confident in their pitch. This was demonstrated by their thorough understanding of their product, their environment, their competitors, financial position and clear exit strategies.

Additionally, I found it extremely educational to see formerly Keiretsu funded companies come back to provide an update and ask for more funds. This really demonstrated the power of the Keiretsu Form by showing that they really do care about the success of those companies that have already been invested in.

Personal takeaways

Many of the elements that were presented were concepts that we had already learned throughout our EMBA program to date. In economics, we were introduced to the concepts of barriers to entry and exit, oligopoly and monopoly markets, and breakeven analysis. In finance, we learned how to evaluate a company’s performance through financial tools such as npv, irr, payback and bond calculations to help assess one project’s success over another. In marketing, we learned about the various elements that are needed for a marketing plan and how those directly feed into a comprehensive business plan. Lastly, our technology class has helped bring many of these concepts together where we can actually see how these companies and their leaders have created their companies.

At the end of it all, a group of us stayed back at the end of the forum to share our thoughts with Randy and the team. I plan on reaching out to Randy very shortly to see how I can become more involved with the Keiretsu Forum.

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Keiretsu Forum

Menelaos Zotos

06/02/13

·         Keiretsu Forum is a place where companies go present their companies and try to get angel investors to give them money and invest in their companies

·         At the meeting there were 5 different companies that they were presenting and 3 companies that had presented before and had raised money that they were back for an update and trying to raise some more money.

·         It was very interesting listening to people talk about the companies that they started and seeing how passionate they are about them.

·         It was great to see what angel investors are looking for and how they are approaching the presentations. Especially that one of the important things that they were looking for was what the exit plan is for the business

·         The benefit that a forum like Keiretsu has is that you get a lot of different angel investors that participate that they have different interest and expertise and that way it can be easier to find people to help you raise the money that you need.

·         Also very interesting was that Keiretsu forum investors were looking to help connect the presenters and their companies with other people in the industry or potential customers that can help built the business.

·         As an angel investor you get a great benefit from being part of a group like that as you have people with expertise in a lot of different fields and a lot of connections that you can use to do your due diligent before you make your final decision on investing or not in a business.

·         As a company trying to raise money you have access to the same network of people and it seemed like even if people were not looking to invest in a business they were willing to use their connections to help both the businesses but also the fellow angel investors.

·         Overall it was a great meeting and a great experience and I will try to go to more of them in the future  

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GMAN 509- Keiretsu Forum Summary- May 30, 2013

Vicky Fernandez

The Keiretsu Forum was such an enriching experience to have attended, especially to be in the company of a diverse group of entrepreneurs and angel investors for the first time. What impressed me the most was not just the tenure of service and chapters created, the number of sponsors and partners in contributing to the forum, or the knowledge base and the business experience the members had, but it was the close relationships and networking across business partners which have attributed to the growth of this renowned association.  Randy Williams, the Founder and CEO, emphasized the notion of relationships throughout the facilitation of the meeting and upon his introductions of each Keiretsu members to audience.  My observations of the forum hit key points of how collaboration and networking are important as it (1) can provide opportunities for both angel investors and entrepreneurs to make profit, (2) how collaborators can help to change societal advantages for consumers by bridging technology and capabilities, and (3) there’s definitely less than 6 degrees of separation.

            Of the five entrepreneurial pitches, a good majority of them introduced their technology emphasizing data integration to improve operational productivity and increased profitability.  Although OnFarm Systems, BitVore, and Caretrends represented varying industries, from agriculture, healthcare, and social media, each of their products identified the capability to enhance or be functional with other existing products or platforms which businesses already use (e.g. OEM). With existing patents established and demonstrated as first movers per their valuations, companies such as these are relying on their core competencies in these niche markets to beat out competition and share or “pitch” their organic growth with the investors present.  During the summary discussion, one investor commented, “there seems to be an increased trend in data integration occurring in different industries, and it’s apparent these companies are saying there is a pathway for growth in this area”.  Although these investments seemed attractive for the investors, the investors did stress the necessity for each company to demonstrate the formulated revenue valuation and exit strategy appropriately.  A deal can be made or broken if these key financial aspects are not considered; and at a forum like this- your window of 10 minutes to present can mean everything.

            I enjoyed meeting the Keiretsu Forum because it brought to life the main concepts of how technology meets business and commerce compared to what we have learned in class.  Most importantly, other than driving innovation and making a profit, business relationships and collaboration are key to sustain and/or grow your business.

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Keiretsu Forum Northern California

East Bay Chapter Meeting Key Take A Ways

Nory Goyes

•  Randy Williams founded Keiretsu in September 2000 with the desire to connect investors with entrepreneurs.
• The company has over 1,000 members and 26 chapters across the world.   It has become the largest angels investment community in the world.
• The forum facilitates a safe environment for entrepreneurial companies seeking for capital from local or foreign investors to fund their desire to continue growth.
• As a facilitator, it doesn’t provide representation of any of the companies presenting, however it connects them to potential investors in the different industries.
• After the companies presented there was a short session to discuss about what investors thought about the projects presented, always in a positive note.
• The presentations format in general encompassed topics like:

1. Company Overview
2. Problem
3. Solution
4. Opportunity
5. Competitive Advantage
6. Financials
7. Needs, Reasons to Invest

• One of the things that got my attention the most, is the way how Randy handled the crowd and his ability to make the connections right on the spot. In my opinion, his charisma most definitely is what facilitates the business deals.

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Noor Patel

Although I have attended handful of angel investor forums in the past but this was my first opportunity to attend the prestigious Keiretsu forum at St Mary’s College. It was a great learning experience for me, to actually see multiple industries represented in the forum, from healthcare to agriculture. Also, it was a firsthand experience in seeing how technology and innovation is changing so many different domains that one cannot fathom. For example, till today I had no idea that information systems could be used in the agriculture industry to determine how growers can manage their farms to enhance their productivity and profitability. And on the other extreme, how the data collected at the bed side or practically at any location for a patient could be automatically transferred to the EMR (Electronic Medical Record). It was stimulating to witness the Q&A after every presentation, and when Randy asked the question to one of the Co-founders of Caretrends if their technology was “Disruptive”, and the Co-founder replied yes to that question. Although I think its arguable, as similar technology do exists in the market today like Siemens, who is one of their competitors, which uses similar methodology to transfer data to their MRI system. The difference or the value-add by selecting Caretrends technology solution seems to be their product is hardware agnostics, which is a good feature set by itself as the hospitals don’t have to purchase new hardware to integrate their software solution.

 Additionally one other domain which always intrigues me is the Big Data technology. I was amazed to see Bitvore’s technology solution which seems to be very innovative as it cuts the implementation life cycle to mere three days compare to six months. It is great to see how the entrepreneurs are working on cutting edge technologies and try to find the right niche to carve-off market share for them. Besides the new entrepreneurs who pitched their ideas today, it was also pleasing to see couple of updates from previously funded entrepreneurs.

Overall it was a great learning experience for me and I’m definitely looking forward at becoming a member in future, and even pitching one of my ideas in one of these forums.

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Thoughts on the Keiretsu Forum- Kelly Bostwick

I have to say that attending the Keiretsu forum was a very unique experience for me. I have never attended any entrepreneurial forums such as this, so this was a first. I thought it was informative to see actual business pitches and to lay witness to the thought process and discussion of the investors.

One of the takeaways for me was the preparedness required to pitch a business idea, you have to anticipate questions and know your business inside and out. I was impressed with several of the presentations, for example the Fairway America presentation, the Bitvore presentation and the update from AnyMeeting.  A few of them fell short for me, from both a content and preparedness standpoint, such as the On Budget presentation and the CareTrends presentation.

The Mind Share portion at the end of the day was the most interesting and revealing for me. There seemed to be reoccurring questions that the investors were focused on during this portion of the day.

1)      Protection of Intellectual Property: The question came up on multiple occasions, how are you protecting your IP? Do you have proper patents filed? This was familiar and relevant to me, from our lecture and discussion from a few weeks ago.

2)      Barriers to Entry: What are the barriers to entry? Are there any? If so, let’s call them out as positives to possibly investing. If not, then the idea might be replicated easily by business with more resources and larger capability. An example of this was the On Budget pitch. There seemed to be no obvious barriers to entry here, so the investors were wondering what prevents Wells Fargo, or other large commercial banks from quickly going to market with something similar that they can extend to customers.

3)      Exit Strategy: In all of the presentations this came up. Even though these businesses are just ramping up, it is clear that you have to have a good general understanding of what your exit strategy is going to be.  The investors showed a lot of curiosity around this. 

I would be interested now in understanding what goes into the due diligence process, as I’m sure it is thorough. Overall, I thought the experience was great. It is very fortunate that we were afforded the opportunity to attend a typically private event and gain such a valuable personal and professional experience.
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Chance Durham

Keiretsu Forum–May 30^th 2013

It was an honor to attend the Keiretsu Forum, the world’s largest angel investor network!  Attending allowed a firsthand experience to see how entrepreneurs pitched their ideas and investors analyzed the viability of the business model, financials, competitors, revenues, exit strategy, etc.  All of the speakers were very professional, and it was a good learning experience to watch them.

 The forum was run with great precision and grace, and I was thoroughly impressed the entire time.  From the event, I learned about the Keiretsu Academy and want to attend to learn more about the art of developing a new business.  The academy website is located here:  http://www.k4academy.com/.   From all the talent the forum brings together, it is very exciting how it enables people to turn an idea into a successful business.  During the event I met an exciting array of people including an intellectual property lawyer, an angel investor, a marketing specialist, and a person who works at running the Keiretsu Academy.  I was happy to learn how the forum supports the development of the business idea before it is presented to investors. The forum puts the right people together to make business happen.

  OnFarm - I like that this product brings disparate agricultural sensor data into a unified database and dashboard.  In my humble opinion, the product would have even greater value if  the data was used to make programmatic decisions to autonomously manage the crops.  Based the data gathered, the software could automatically turn solenoid valves to water the crops, thus eliminating errors  and labor that come with human operations.  Technology use in farming has been growing, and it seems like a natural progression to develop this product as an Agricultural Resource Planning system in the same way ERP/MRP systems are used in other businesses.

AnyMeeting – Web meeting technology has been growing exponentially, driven by many factors including cost savings, cultural acceptance, and the proliferation faster internet speeds that can support streaming video.  However, the video conference space is crowded with competition and the equipment used to pair live video streams can be expensive to operate.  The revenue model based on advertising, or a subscription payment option to turn off the ads would need to be precisely managed to make profit.

Bitvore – Big data is a hot trend, and yet it can be a bit of an enigma.  Bitvore is addressing a big data need with its solution.  The proposition of being able to tap into big data quickly and easily use it for a custom business purposes is intriguing.  The data is said to be “real-time”, and compiled by Bitvore with Meta tags that make the technology work.  The refresh rate of the big data and quality of the data itself may be a key determinant in the value of this product and service.

OnBudget – This product provides a way to gain deep insights into consumer decision making in order to save money.  Certainly, for people who currently use an “envelope budget system” this technology could offer a great value.  Any added effort in loading the card and retrieving savings information has the potential to add a time cost to the user.  A seamless user experience is a key ingredient for success.

Fairway America, LLC - High interest, “hard money” loans with a track record of low default rate, combined with the ability to invest in these loans through a fund.  This investment makes sense, and the value is all in the numbers.

CareTrends – Like the OnFarm Systems product/service, this product gathers data from remote sensors and brings it to a database or dashboard. The electronically gathering the data from disparate medical devices into a centralized database in order to meet upcoming legal requirements sounds quite viable, as it fulfills a critical need.  The product was presented to primarily consist of custom drivers written to allow medical devices to communicate data through a network.  As hospitals realize they need connectivity of their devices, they may make future purchases of equipment that is compatible to communicate out of the box.  Continued innovation will be required to maintain a long-term growth strategy.

Susan Walsh - Feedback on Keiretsu Forum Northern California – East Bay Chapter – May 30^th 2013:

·         The Keiretsu Forum is the world’s largest angel investor network and has over 1000 members globally throughout 26 chapters.  They give entrepreneurs equity and resources in different capital markets. Keiretsu members invested $8.5 million in 30 ventures in 2012.

·         This was a fantastic opportunity to participate in the Keiretsu forum and hear the Entrepreneurs pitching their presentations to the Angel Investors.

·         The Keiretsu forum was informal and very informative.  There was a lot of energy in the room and all the presentations were excellent.

·         Three companies focused on similar issues but from a different angle.  OnFarm, Bitvore and Caretrends all tackle the management of digital data and how it can be manipulated. These were the three presentations that I would rank the best.

·         OnFarm offers a solution to access diverse data and use it to plan and make decisions that are critical in farming operations.  Farms currently have data but the problem is how to use it effectively. OnFram establish partnerships with existing agriculture companies that already have the hardware and software.  They integrate this information into one solution.  It collects real time data and allows farmers to make daily decisions regarding their crops.

·         Bitvore’s data platform allows companies to clean, correlate and analyzes different types of data from multiple sources in real time.

·         CareTrends application automates communication between electronic medical devices which normally is done is recorded manually.  It writes software that can translate between electronic medical devices and electronic records.

·         If I was to choose one, I would do due diligence on CareTrends.  I wonder if companies like Siemens that have software to read their medical devices allow an external company to design drivers for their equipment.

·         If I was in a position to invest $1 million in one of these companies I would decline.  The two angel investors that I spoke with also said they would not be investing in any of the companies that presented.

Keiretsu Forum

Meher Venigalla

Professor Bachani

Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation – GMAN509

27^th May 2013

Keiretsu Forum – Analysis & Takeaways

·         Novel experience for me. Excellent idea of bringing entrepreneurs and investors together (put money and the ideas together)

·         This forum is not to pitch ideas or thoughts. It’s for entrepreneurs to raise additional capital for their existing businesses to expand, grow and exit profitably.

From an entrepreneur’s standpoint:

·         Do not try to sell your product; rather try to demonstrate the business opportunity, its validity and your strategy to promote the business.

·         Valid marketing strategy is very important (Difference between the agrotech product and the medicare product, though they were both technically similar solutions in rigid and technically backward markets).

·         Very important to demonstrate competitive advantage and have appropriate protection mechanisms (Patents, Copyrights, trade secrets etc) in place.

·         Ensure appropriate valuation of business. The business valuation needs to be more than 2X the money you are trying to raise or else you will end up losing controlling share of the business which is very important to ensure integrity of your strategy and vision for the business.

·         Investors are interested in facts backed by proven data and not presumptions about market or product. If you say that the market for your solution is $1mm then you need to provide references to resources that allowed you to make that valuation.

·         Exit strategy is very important. Not just the plan but the tenure. A range is acceptable but the plan should be well laid out.

From an Investor’s standpoint

·         It’s better to be part of a group of investors for any project so that the risk is diffused rather than being a lone wolf. It’s better to maintain a portfolio of multiple investments to minimize risk and maintain diversity.

·         Ensure due diligence about the valuation of the project. Not to gain more(controlling) share of the business but to ensure that your investment is valued appropriately. Not a good idea to gain majority share as the risk and responsibility of running the business is increasingly on your shoulders.

·         It is more important to look at the tenure of the investment than the size of the return. The longer the tenure for the exit strategy the higher the risk. Relatively lower rate of return over a shorter investment period is much better than higher tenures and rate of returns.

·         You don’t need to be a successful entrepreneur to become a successful investor. These career paths are not interdependent.

·         According to my conversations with some of the investors expected average rate of return seems to be 9X over a 3 to 5 year term of investment. However the success rate is much lower.

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Jason Au:

Keiretsu Forum

I greatly enjoyed being able to attend the Keiretsu forum and found many different components of the forum very interesting.  In addition to being able to gain insight on a number of very different and intriguing businesses, one of things I appreciated as a professional sales person, was seeing the entrepreneurs passionately pitch their business ideas to the investors.  I also found it interesting that there seemed to be a number of reoccurring commonalities and themes with the different businesses that came up several times throughout the day.

Though each business that we saw in the forum was in a different industry, there were commonalities amongst them and the entrepreneur’s that started them.  Whether it was agriculture, technology, or finance, each of the entrepreneurs had years of experience in their respective field and surrounded themselves with a team of equally qualified professionals in their respective industry.  From seeing them present, you could see that each of their businesses were started to solve a problem or opportunity that they identified in their respective market.  After identifying the problem and coming up with a solution for it, each of them came up with a creative way to differentiate their business idea from everything else that was on the market.  Regardless of business or industry, each of the entrepreneurs started by establishing a bold, creative, and differentiated business to address and problem that they uncovered.

In addition to the commonalities of the entrepreneurs, there were other themes that seemed to stick out to me through the forum.  Big Data seemed to be a growing market and very lucrative business opportunity that many of the entrepreneurs wanted to target.  Exit planning also seemed to be a popular topic of conversation.  I found it interesting that although these entrepreneurs were still in the startup and growth stages of their business, they were already looking ahead and planning their exit strategy.  

I also appreciated seeing first hand some of the business concepts that I’ve learned over the past 15 months come up in real terms in front of me.  As we’ve recently discussed in this course, the deal flow process within the Keiretsu forum itself shows how many ideas are needed and funneled down to create one successful business venture.  What starts with 30-50 business going to Keiretsu’s committee review, only 2-3 will make it through deal screening and forum meeting to arrive the due diligence phase.  As we discussed in our finance classes, we also got to see first-hand how important and challenging the valuation process is for both the entrepreneur and investor.  The valuation of each of these companies as well as their forecasted growth and earning potential was a major component to each of their entrepreneur’s presentations and may have influenced the whether or not an investor was going to move forward with their business. 

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Diane K. Reyes, GMAN 509 – Professor Bachani, May 30, 2013

Keiretsu Forum: East Bay Chapter Meeting

            This was a first-time experience for me to attend an entrepreneurial-investor event like the Keiretsu Forum.  My expectation was to experience something similar to the television show, Shark Tank where entrepreneurials with new gadgets and ideas pitch it to a set of high profile angel investors.  The entrepreneurials at the Keiretsu Forum I found, were more prepared, experience, and brighter than those in the Shark Tank. Their ideas were far from conception, and although the most if not all of the presenters were startups with a handful of employees; their companies were already generating revenues.

            Randy Williams and his Northern California Keiretsu Forum team did a phenomenal job facilitating this event.  Randy was great with moving the forum along and making sure that the agenda was kept and that the presenters had equal time presenting as well as the Q & A portions.  During the meeting gaps, I enjoyed how Randy introduced guests in the room as this posed a great avenue for making connections and networking.  It goes to show how engaged, involved, and how big of a network Randy has as he had his own pre-introduction to each person.  I liked how he mentioned that Tina, an EMBA student from cohort 12, should connect with the fifth presenter, Bing from CareTrends after she asked her question about how CareTrends is competing with existing EMRs already out in the industry.  It showed me that even a CEO from a company can gain information and knowledge from an EMBA student who has industry experience.  I especially enjoyed the Mindshare towards the end where positive encouragement was given for comments and then constructive feedback.  The Keiretsu Forum gives multiple options for feedback such as the Due-Diligence Call Ins, direct contact with the presenters, Mindshare, and the Gold Sheets which indicate that anything helps with these startups as far as feedback goes.

            If I had money to fund any of these presenters, I would invest in OnFarm Systems with Lance Donny.  Lance has thought of a great concept of introducing and integrating technology with this industry.  Farmers have a lot of money to invest.  There farm is worth millions of dollars considering the agriculture they materialize as well as they land and equipment they own.  Farmers are laggards with technology, so Lance has targeted a particular segment of customers – customers who already have hardware installed to assist in monitoring their equipment.  Lance’s technology piggy backs current hardware with his specific software so that more accurate measures can be automated with farmers’ horticulture.  Integrating OnFarm into farmers’ current process will help minimize human error.  Lance presented to the angel investors very well.  He was prepared stating his market, the problems faced within this market, and how his product offers a solution.  I particularly liked the 45 second clip he had playing in the background which was a sample of his program while he continued with his presentation – I thought that was different and that portion of OnFarm’s presentation stood out to me.  One thing I would caution OnFarm is to start thinking about staying competitive as the barriers of entry is low in his product since it is simple software programming.  I would also advise for Lance to think about the other segment of farmers who don’t use hardware and how he would plan to penetrate that market with his product.

            Attending the Keiretsu Forum inspired me to look into joining the Keiretsu Academy, get more involved with giving back to my local community, and to gain more knowledge in the utility industry.
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Weekly Summary Assignment

Week 8 Submission – Chris Hilgers

Keiretsu Forum Takeaways:

·         Very difficult to get a sense of a company’s potential success

o   Is this due to my lack of knowledge within the area?

o   Would be helpful to talk to current investors

§  What do they look for in evaluating a company for investment

§  Have they had situations where they knew after a 5 minute pitch that they wanted to invest, or is this always a starting off point?

·         Each of the presentations was made by already successful or at least achieving companies looking for further financing

§  Generally are companies looking for first investors with just ideas or is it more frequently operating companies looking for additional capital?

§  It seemed more like a private equity venture capital meeting than an Angel investor network?

§  Where were the idea pitches opposed to operating company pitches?

§  The real estate fund pitch also seemed completely outside the norm for an Angel investor network

·         An Angel investor workshop seems like a very interesting idea

o   Could be very useful to know what investors are looking for, but concern that this would create a simple model or form for everyone to follow

§  Isn’t the idea to not just facilitate but encourage variety and unique paths and expertise?

·         I LOVE the idea that new investors cannot invest in the first 6 months of joining

o   Really gives confidence in the structure of the forum, and that it has all investors and companies seeking funds best outcomes in mind

o   Very important to listen to a variety of pitches and ideas, even tracking a fictional investment, prior to actually investing