Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Randy Williams, Founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum (Part 10)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: You do track your returns internally, right? And it’s about 20%? Randy: That study was done to the end of 2007. We founded it in September 2000, so it was a seven-year study. The next study is being done right now, and that study will be

Read Full Article »

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Randy Williams, founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum (Part 9)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: Do you have any advice for angel-backed companies? What should they do to increase their chances of success? Randy: Number one, they need to truly integrate and meet the members of the forums that they may be going to and in their markets they know of.

Read Full Article »

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Randy Williams, founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum (Part 8)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: What level of experience do you require entrepreneurs to have? Is that important? Randy: Yes, we really do like experience, as I alluded to earlier. We like the management team to have past experience. Generally, if they have revenue associated with their company when they come

Read Full Article »

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Randy Williams, Founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum (Part 7)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: How much of a company’s equity do you usually seek? Randy: It’s usually about 25% of the company is being given out in the form of equity for our capital. Irina: What’s the typical return you seek and over what period of time?

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Randy Williams, Founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Randy: Speaking of exits, one of the reasons why we’re growing internationally is because we really want to look at other indexes. We want to look at other exits past, above, and beyond NASDAQ and our indexes here. For instance, we went on a small IPO at

Read Full Article »

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Randy Williams, Founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Randy: I think we’re very interactive, a very gracious community, and we care deeply about the entrepreneurial community and we want to give them as much information as possible for future success. And it’s not easy making the forum and if you do the math, if only

Read Full Article »

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Randy Williams, Founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: So, let’s talk about how entrepreneurs can reach Keiretsu Forum. Randy: The best way, if they’ve never been to Keiretsu Forum, is to go online. We have a very simple process to apply, and then what happens is we then introduce them to a committee that

Read Full Article »

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Randy Williams, Founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: How do these local chapters operate? Randy: They have great autonomy, but conversely, they enjoy the structure and the model that we’ve developed over the past ten years. It started off in the East Bay of Northern California. Keiretsu Forum started in September 2000, and the

Read Full Article »