Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (Part 8)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: Could you compare TechStars to Y Combinator? Brad: They are similar types of programs. Y Combinator was the first, TechStars was the second. The historical difference between the two programs has been that when TechStars was started, it was very much mentor driven. So, if you

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (Part 7)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: Do you have any preferred investment types? What is it? Preferred shares? Brad: Yes, we always make equity investments and we almost always take preferred shares. Irina: Do you think about exit strategy when you invest? Brad: We don’t think about it.

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: And what about your equity share and your returns? Do you have any rules about those numbers? Brad: Again, it varies dramatically. We don’t have a specific rule. Our goal is to work with entrepreneurs to build as much value as possible. Irina: What stage of

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Brad: And then we look at the actual entrepreneurs behind the product, and we do that in concert. I don’t actually think you can really evaluate a product effectively without using it or having interactions with the entrepreneurs so, we tend to lump those two together.

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: How do you spend time with the entrepreneurs? Brad: They come to us and we go to them; we spend a lot of time together. I think it’s really us developing that relationship with them. We made an investment recently in a company called Sifteo, I’m

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: Have you ever thought about what could make your deal flow more efficient? Brad: I like the chaos. I like the randomness of it. I have plenty of interactions with people. I try to learn at least one thing in every interaction. We’re very focused on

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: Let’s talk about your deal flow. Where do you get your deals from? Brad: They come from all over the place. I think a chunk of them come from people who we already either know or have an existing relationship with, who we’ve worked with before.

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold This is the fifteenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Brad Feld, managing director of Foundry Group , venture capital firm focused on making investments in early-stage information technology, Internet, and software startups, based in Boulder, Colorado.