Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Bob Aholt, Pasadena Angels (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: So you have other angel groups in the Los Angeles area?

Bob: Yes. There’s Tech Coast Angels and they’re, like I said, a lot like us, but they’ve broken down into chapters so they have a chapter in San Diego, one in L.A., and one in Northern California. So instead of having one group of 100 people, they have five groups and they have actually more members if you total up the five chapters. But we come together at least once a month and meet as a whole group, whereas they do things a on a chapter basis. There are a couple of other angel groups that are now in L.A., such as Maverick Angels, and Keiretsu Forum I believe, has a chapter here as well. So, from an entrepreneur’s perspective, things are looking up. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Bob Aholt, Pasadena Angels (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the second interview in my series of interviews with angel investors and angel groups. This time I talked to Robert (Bob) Aholt, a vice chairman of the Pasadena Angels based out of Los Angeles.

Irina: Hi Bob, tell us briefly about your personal background and about your group. Let’s start with your personal background.

Bob: I’m the vice chairman of the Pasadena Angels, the angel investing group that I do most of my personal investing through right now. I come out of a background around technology, biosciences, and life sciences. I originally had a consulting firm here in Los Angeles that focused on technology consulting and strategies. The company was called Systems Development. I was fortunate enough to be able to sell that back in the early 2000s. Then I moved to a company called Phase III Medical, which was a publicly traded company in New York, and I was the chief operating officer of that company. Phase III focused on providing capital to biotechnology and life sciences companies by investing in a revenue stream or royalty agreement that a company might already have. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Nicola Corzine, Band of Angels Acorn Fund (Part 5)

By guest author Irina Patterson

Irina: What is the single most important thing that angel-backed founders can do to increase their chances of success?

Nicola: The important question they have to ask is, Do I really live this product, do I really want to build this company? Is it everything to me? That passion can’t be taught, that passion has to be there from the day one. If that founder, that entrepreneur, really believes in their heart of hearts that the only thing for them is to build this company, then those are the kind of the people that we want to engage with. Because business models will change, strategies will change over time, and hurdles will come and hurdles will go. But if in your heart of hearts you don’t have the dedication, the commitment, and the passion to believe in what you are doing, then there is no way we can help you over that issue. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Nicola Corzine, Band of Angels Acorn Fund (Part 4)

By guest author Irina Patterson

Irina: Do you invest in teams straight out of school, or do you require previous business experience?

Nicola: One of the great reasons to work with the Band of Angels at large is the network we bring to the table. It is not just the ability to inject money and sort of walk away and hope for the best; it is having access to some of the most successful angel investors in the United States, who are part of our group. And these are guys who are hungrily and actively looking to make a difference in the investments that they personally adhere to, so at the Band of Angels we have over 120 seasoned senior executives with very nice Rolodexes who suddenly have the ability to open doors for startups that might otherwise not be able to get those first marquee customers. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Nicola Corzine, Band of Angels Acorn Fund (Part 3)

By guest author Irina Patterson

Irina: And what type of experience do you require from the founders?

Nicola: We don’t necessarily expect CEOs, but it is great when they have good domain knowledge, so it is not uncommon or unlikely that we would like to see some VP-level people who are building out their first company idea. We want to help people to become serial entrepreneurs, but we also recognize that in Silicon Valley there is a little bit missing as far the support for that first-time founder. And we’d like to try to bridge that gap with the Acorn Fund. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Nicola Corzine, Band of Angels Acorn Fund (Part 2)

By guest author Irina Patterson

Irina: What are your current sources of deal flow?

Nicola: I should say that when the Acorn Fund was created, we recognized that a great deal of education would need to be done for our friends and partners. The reason for that is so many entrepreneurs are used to having to pitch based on the fact they were told that they must have a billion-dollar market opportunity. But we believe that there are tremendous opportunities for products and features that may have only a $50 million or a $100 million real market opportunity, that a company might be very successful [in such a market] and that it might be very right for a small fund like ours to participate. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Nicola Corzine, Band of Angels Acorn Fund (Part 1)

By guest author Irina Patterson

I recently talked with Nicola Corzine, deal manager and partner at the Band of Angels, Silicon Valley’s oldest seed funding organization. The Band of Angels is, I should say, a passionate and dedicated group of more than 120 former and current high-tech executives who are interested in investing their time and money into new, cutting-edge, startup companies. They have seeded over 200 companies with more than forty profitable M&A exits and nine Nasdaq IPOs. >>>

Entrepreneurship Education: Why Do Business Incubators Fail?

While my previous post on entrepreneurship education, Bootstrapping at B-Schools is still generating hot discussion, I would like to pose another important discussion topic: Why do business incubators fail?

Those among my readers who have perspective and analysis to offer on the subject, please feel free to jump right in.

[Please note that since this discussion started here on the blog in 2010, we have launched the One Million by One Million global initiative, and for incubators looking for a viable business model, you are very welcome to reach out to us to become a partner of our program.]