Seed Capital From Angel Investors: AngelList Founder Naval Ravikant (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: OK, so, team, traction, social proof, and product are the four criteria. How do you gauge team?

Naval Ravikant: Team is hard; we do not meet the people, so we just look at where they have been and what they have done. If they are at Stanford that helps, or on Facebook. All the usual metrics one would use, we use.

Traction is evidence that customers are adopting the product. This metric is different in different spaces, and right now the traction bar for social network companies or a Groupon clone is set a lot higher. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Julia Rosen, Associate Vice-President For Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Arizona State University, Venture Catalyst At ASU — Scottsdale, Arizona (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Are there any tools that help you to accomplish your mission?

Julia: We are, at present, the only U.S. university that is part of the TechStars Network. Being able to access and have a forum in which to talk to other accelerators from around the country and the world is immensely helpful. It is a specialized set of tools which we have already been accessing, that is already adding value. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Kerry: Scvngr is our best-known company. They are a mobile game platform that is used both in the B2B space, in that museums and cities can host Scvngr hunts for residents who can explore a community, and also a consumer game, where users can check in at different locations, compete in challenges, and earn the rewards from local business for frequenting them and participating in gaming events around their location.

We have several other companies that are all interesting and have been funded and are doing great things, so I could keep going … >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: AngelList Founder Naval Ravikant (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How many startups have you funded? I think you said about 200?

Naval Ravikant: We don’t know exactly because what happens is …

SM: They go offline!

NR: Yes, they accept an introduction and they go offline, and there are many cases like that. We had one startup go through recently that said that more than half its introductions to angel investors were made because of AngelList but not through AngelList. So, the investor just read the information, contacted to them through LinkedIn, or had another connection or whatever, and it boosted them along. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Julia Rosen, Associate Vice-President For Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Arizona State University, Venture Catalyst At ASU — Scottsdale, Arizona (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What are the sources of your applications?

Julia: They come from all over the world, from students to faculty in greater Phoenix, the nation, and the world. They really come from all over the place. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: What tools do you use to accomplish your mission?

Kerry: Because we don’t specialize in a specific industry, protocol, or niche, and we don’t specialize in a particular stage – they are obviously all early-stage companies – we don’t think they need a curriculum or set of processes. There are a series of topics of interest to them, so we bring in speakers. For example, we know we are going to have investors, marketing specialists, and social media people.

There are certain set of topics that are interesting to all early-stage companies. But, we really work with each company to see where it is with the appropriate set of factors for it to make a measureable impact in three months, and every piece of advice and sense of direction we give to each team is relative to where that team is and what it needs specifically. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: AngelList Founder Naval Ravikant (Part 1)

Some of you have read my recent post AngelList, CapLink and Financing Marketplaces, in which I publicly supported the work Naval Ravikant and others are doing to increase liquidity in the seed capital portion of the market. Following that, Naval and I decided to sit down for a more comprehensive chat. Over the next several days, we will publish the interview here as part of the Seed Capital from Angel Investors series. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Julia Rosen, Associate Vice-President For Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Arizona State University, Venture Catalyst At ASU — Scottsdale, Arizona (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Julia: Many times, our early-stage entrepreneurs don’t have the resources to pay professional service providers. They’re much more interested in working with a group of bright graduate students. So, we connect entrepreneurs with students who might be able to perform certain services for them. >>>