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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Alan Rossiter, Vice Chairman, Springboard Capital (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: You mentioned AngelSoft. How do you use AngelSoft?

Alan: Very sparingly. We’ll probably cease using it at the end of this year. We’re not particularly fans of proprietary software. We deal with a tremendous amount of confidential information. We use it because a lot of the other angel groups tend to use AngelSoft. We don’t use it to manage our deal flow. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Alan Rossiter, Vice Chairman, Springboard Capital (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Could you talk a little bit about venture firms in Florida?

Alan: For the venture firms that work in Florida, that invest in Florida, that means they may be domiciled in the state, but there are also others such as Intersouth,  Aurora, and Noro-Moseley that are not located in Florida but make it a point of actively seeking investments in Florida. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Alan Rossiter, Vice Chairman, Springboard Capital (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Those angels, are they all based in and around Jacksonville?

Alan: Generally so. I say generally because there are some outliers. We’ve got some people from Savannah, we’ve got some people in Tampa and that area, but generally, in the first two funds that we built we’ve been very heavily focused in the northeast Florida area, meaning Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra Beach, Amelia Island, this neck of the woods. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Alan Rossiter, Vice Chairman, Springboard Capital (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the thirteenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Alan Rossiter, vice chairman of Springboard Capital, an early-stage private equity fund in Jacksonville, Florida.

Irina: Hi, Alan. Could you please start with your own background?

Alan: In the recent past, I’ve been a private angel investor. Going back before that, I was a career naval officer, a Navy pilot for a number of years, and then I retired in the early 1990s. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Mike Maples, Founder And Managing Partner, Floodgate (Part 15)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What do you think the most important thing that angel-backed founders could do to increase their chances of success?

Mike: I would say do customer development in parallel with product development. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Mike Maples, Founder And Managing Partner, Floodgate (Part 14)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Do any of those have a particularly interesting story?

Mike: I guess a couple of them. This is why I like to joke about people who think they know everything. So, Twitter, I actually invested in the prior company, Odeo, which is a podcasting company. And Apple decided to give podcasting away on iTunes. So, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, we don’t have a business here. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Mike Maples, Founder And Managing Partner, Floodgate (Part 13)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Do you think about exit strategy at all when you’re investing?

Mike: Not really. We think, Who might buy this company someday? Could it be public someday? But the thing that we’ve learned is that exit’s going to be so far away that what you believe is true today about exits will be fundamentally different in the future. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Mike Maples, Founder And Managing Partner, Floodgate (Part 12)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: So, it’s not necessary that the company had on the team, previous CEO experience, or any senior executive experience?

Mike: I think it’s good to have, but sometimes I find that to be overrated.

Irina: What do you do with the deals that you don’t invest in or refer to anybody else?

Mike: It’s really hard because what a lot of people say is, Can you make some referrals? Usually, that doesn’t work because what happens is they say, Well, are you going to invest? And I say, Well, no, but I think that this team would like to meet with you. And they say, Why are you referring me a deal and you’re not interested in it? >>>