Can you imagine? Just as you're about to start your presentation to an angel group, the projector burns out! That would stress me out! That's how things began for Derek Lyman, co-founder of Dexrex, the universal adapter for text.

I met Derek through a referral from Paul G. Silva, co-founder of the UMASS Amherst's Entrepreneurship Initiative, at my alma mater. Paul introduced these young entrepreneurs (age 22 at the time) to some individual angels and later to the River Valley Angels.

Show #169 (35:14)

Events
Join me Oct 15-17 at the 2008 National Angel Summit in Halifax Nova Scotia

You've heard about a Fast Pitch, right? Those bake-offs where entrepreneurs get just 60 seconds to pitch their deal to a panel of angels and VCs. Wanna know how to set one up for your angel group?

The Newfoundland and Labrador Angel Network's Executive Director Cathy Favre describes angel investing in the eastern most locale in North America. Founded in 2006, she called to ask me about the Tech Coast Angels' Fast Pitch. After eight years we finally know what we're doing, so today's show is all about organizing the entrepreneurs, the coaching sessions, impaneling the judges and scoring the finalists; everything you'll need to know.

I'll join Cathy at the National Angel Summit in beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada October 15-17, 2008. Never shy, always irreverent, I'll be on a panel discussing "Sustainability of Angel Groups" and Cathy and I will host a workshop on videotaping entrepreneur presentations. Join us!

Apply to pitch today! Deadline: August 22nd for the next Fast Pitch in San Diego, 5:30pm Thu October 2nd.

Show #168 (56:39)

Remembering a child's birthday with a gift is how grandparents stay in touch and involved, but isn't gift giving becoming a little impersonal? A toy, a card, or increasingly a giftcard just doesn't create much impact. Instead, wrap a gift in adventure; that's the idea behind Steve Mock's Giftventure.

Angelsoft facilitates deal sharing between angel groups, in this case Giftventure is a Vegas Valley Angels deal led by Jim Shaw. I visited the Las Vegas group a few months ago and heard Giftventure pitch. "What's the process to bring Giftventure to the Tech Coast Angels?" Jim asked. My challenge, there was no procedure; we've always only invested locally, but Giftventure seemed like a good deal so I risked some degree of rebuke and brought them to LA. "This is the best deal I've seen all year," said one TCA angel, "I don't care where the deal comes from, I want to see the best deals." I felt redeemed. And I gained an insight into just what collaborating on deals via Angelsoft could mean to the future of angel investing.

Meet Giftventure's Steve Mock; he's almost funded.

Show #167 (44:12)

Hear the stories of the well known successes like Salesforce.com and MySpace, and some not so well known; it's all part of the ongoing legacy of USC's Entrepreneurship program. My guest is Tom O'Malia, Director of the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Currently rated #1 in the nation by Entrepreneur magazine, Tom has reason to brag.

Get Tom's book, The Entrepreneurial Journey, through Brandywine Publishing.

Show #166 (51:37)

A new member of a brand new VC fund, Richard Yen commutes from San Francisco to Century City. The fund is Saban Capital Group; it brings strong ties to music, television and media markets. Founder Haim Saban's big hits: the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, ABC's Family Channel and UNIVISION. How new is Saban? No fundings yet, but they do have a term sheet out.

Richard was placed at Blueprint Ventures through the Kauffman's Fellows Program. While there he focused on digital media and the internet space which he's putting to use at Saban.

How did we meet? A common friend, Greg Galant who produces the Venture Voice podcast was recently visiting from NY and introduced us.

Show #165 (38:26)

Pre-order your copy of Scott Shane's new book, Fool's Gold: The Truth Behind Angel Investing in America.
Here's the spin:

"Finally, the truth! Follow the facts in Fool's Gold. It is the entrepreneurs' guide to angel investing."
Barry Moltz, Angel Investor, Entrepreneur, and Author of Bounce

"Venture capitalists, policy makers and entrepreneurs should read this book and take note. Scott Shane has uncovered the mythology surrounding angel investing by examining the facts and drawing crystal clear conclusions. I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone, especially VCs, aiming to understand how they should engage with business angels in the future"
Simon Barnes, Venture Capitalist with Tate and Lyle Ventures

"The story of angel investing is long on opinion and short on data; this book does the opposite and makes a valuable contribution to this emerging financing niche with a practical and skeptical data centric approach to understanding what is going on in the world of angels."
Ian Sobieski, Managing Director, Band of Angels

"There is so much confusion today in the market place regarding start-up and angel financing. Having a definitive, factual based book about the subject is not only refreshing but a 'must have' if you are contemplating using this form of financing for your new company. Understanding how to finance your new company is such an important decision, learn as much as you can about that process by owning this book."
Randall Bambrough, Silicon Valley CFO and Lecturer at Santa Clara University

"What do we think we are doing? Scott Shane shows that we're not consistently targeting the best investments, or the best terms; that we're not as professional as venture capitalists--and our results reflect this lack of focus. Become a professional angel investor; start here to first learn the mistakes and omissions that angel investing is fraught with."
Frank Peters, Chairman, Board of Governors, Tech Coast Angels

Shane, the A. Malachi Mixon III Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University and author of The Illusions of Entrepreneurship, was my guest for show #148. He'll be back on the show in November.

WebVisible, is it a double entendre, a play on words? Co-founder Kirsten Mangers suggests it could be called WebInVisible, because of the subtle behind the scenes work they do for others. It's a story of a not-so-small startup, she closed her B-round in March and just hired employee #89. That's a lot of growth! What's changed? Plenty, but especially Kirsten. She doesn't behave like a founder anymore; she's grown into the role of CEO, working towards a potential exit.

So what is WebVisible? If you're an investor you've seen lots of business plans to bring the web to local businesses, like the plumber, the pizza parlor and the carpet cleaner. For myself personally, I've lost more money on these schemes than anything else. So who is making the web work for local business? WebVisible.

Who's on the board? Redpoint's Brad Jones, FieNet's Ted Smith and Sutter Hill's Jim White.

Show #164 (41:58)

Amplyx Pharmaceuticals got its initial funding from the Life Science Angels then they were introduced to Jack Florio and the Tech Coast Angels. Founder Andre Marquis describes how they're out to improve drugs that already have large markets; think Lipitor. Addressing big markets is sure to attract lots of angel investors, so that's where this show goes.

He's got a simple presentation for a complex product; he's a serial entrepreneur and he has the support of a former Eli Lilly exec. It seems like it's all coming together; he's almost funded.

Show #163 (48:39)

The Tech Coast Angels have just crossed the $1B threshold, attracting third party and venture capital funds to their portfolio companies.

Sometimes it's said that due diligence takes too long. We've all heard of companies that begin the due diligence process and never close. Is it a fault of the process, or is there more to it?

Tech Coast Angels founder, Luis Villalobos, describes one critical part of DD as a transformation process; it's not just getting answers to a 9-page checklist, it's helping to focus an efficient strategy on the startup's most promising market. TCA deal lead Steve Block liked what he heard about eGuardian before they even presented! He had another company that was dealing with children online. Steve would put the two companies together and bring the critical focus to transform eGuardian.

Attorneys General from 49 states are pressuring social networking sites to protect kids. eGuardian partners Ron Zayas and Robert Patrick have a new approach to protecting children while they're online. Robert's the technical one, Ron is Mr. Marketing; now they're back to complete the funding cycle.

It's been a long process, has that initial group of interested angels grown cold? How will the company regenerate some buzz in the investor community?

It's Part 1 of a Series: Almost Funded.
Show #162 (36:46)

Today's new sponsor: Vencore Capital

My best show ever? I'd like to think they get better every week, but many listeners say "this is the one". From back in December 2006, you'll have to give me credit for improved audio since then, but who am I to argue?

Jim Armstrong of Clearstone Venture Partners put the podcast on the map.

According to one listener: "The points made by Jim are priceless. This should be required listening for all angel investors. No wishy-washy nonsense here... some really great wisdom."

Show #161 (45:41)

Stephanie Hanbury-Brown is the founder of the Golden Seeds forums; there's four: in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia and coming soon to San Francisco. Golden Seeds is angel investing for both men and women, but they only invest in women entrepreneurs. Is Golden Seeds a social enterprise? Are there enough women-led startups? And does this single minded strategy complicate portfolio diversification?

She's the 2008 winner of the Hans Severiens Award, given by the Angel Capital Association.

You know I love video. She describes Golden Seeds' evolution in video capture of the entrepreneur's pitch. It's Part II in a series on women as angels...

Show #160 (37:49)