Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Michael Gruber, Founder and Managing Director, Cornerstone Angels (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: Could you give us a timeline of your career up to this point? Michael: I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. I studied international relations and economics. It was basically an East Asian studies within the international relations. I studied Japanese, and I spoke

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Christina Brodbeck, Silicon Valley (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: What do you look for in the people? I see you’re very young yourself.  What kind of experience do you look for in the people? Christina: For two of the companies I’ve invested in, the founders have been very young. I think both of them were

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Building A Niche E-Commerce Powerhouse: Coastal Contacts CEO Roger Hardy (Part 4)

Sramana: Let’s talk some about your supplier terms. As a fresh company just getting started in 1999, were suppliers willing to give you inventory on credit? Roger Hardy: Initially we were pretty constrained. Often we would get half-way through the month, and we would have to take the revenue from the previous couple of days

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Michael Gruber, Founder and Managing Director, Cornerstone Angels (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold This is the thirty-ninth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking Michael Gruber, founder and managing director of Cornerstone Angels, a Chicago-based group of angels that seeks to provide financial capital and mentorship to early-stage companies in the greater Midwest.

Catching Up On Readings: African Entrepreneurs Emerging

This week’s roundtable included BongoLive!, a startup from Tanzania. This blog has occasionally covered entrepreneurship in Africa, primarily through the stories of VisionSpring and the Nigerian clothing design industry. I hope to hear more from entrepreneurs living and working in this incredibly diverse continent as 1M/1M expands. Click on the full article for the rest

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Christina Brodbeck, Silicon Valley (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: When you see a promising pitch, what is your next step? Christina: It’s two ways. If I just read about something that I like, or hear from somebody, I’ll usually reach out to [the entrepreneur], and say, “Hey, I’m really interested. Let’s sit down and grab

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Building A Niche E-Commerce Powerhouse: Coastal Contacts CEO Roger Hardy (Part 3)

Sramana: When you decided to launch your online e-commerce solution, what was your pricing strategy? Roger Hardy: We sold them for about $19. The rest of the market had very little competition. It is a very fragmented market with little consolidation.

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Mike Hirshland, General Partner, Polaris Ventures (Part 9)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: You were talking about public debate about angels versus VCs, throughout the blogosphere and how in some instances it has gotten pretty colorful. Mike: Yes, it doesn’t make sense to be antagonizing an entire category of investors that you’re going to need to be partnering with.