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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Paul Olliver, Wider Wake Networks (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many investments have you made in the past 12 months?

Paul: Four. It’s probably a reflection of the fact that we’re a group of individuals who invest together, not a fund. When we set it out from when we knew the numbers we were aiming for in terms of membership, what we knew about those individual members and what their investable funds would be on a yearly basis, that’s the number we came to. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Paul Olliver, Wider Wake Networks (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: So, appssavvy is one of Wider Wake deals?

Paul: Yes, appssavvy is one our deals; KlipSmart is the company that we built years ago [before Wider Wake] . . . Smartclip is a company within Thomas Falk’s (one of our cofounders) empire, and that’s a video ad network that’s going great in Europe. As for Wider Wake exit success stories, the companies that we’ve invested in, it’s too early for us to have exited from them. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Paul Olliver, Wider Wake Networks (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: So, right now you have about 20 members in Wider Wake. How do you prescreen for your membership?

Paul: The membership criteria are quite tight, actually. All of the founding members have very applicable experience in digital media advertising. And that’s also reflected in the regular membership. So, we don’t have any silent money. We don’t have doctors, we don’t have structural engineers, we don’t have anybody who doesn’t have some insight, functional expertise, or experience in digital media advertising. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Paul Olliver, Wider Wake Networks (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the third interview in our series on seed financing and angel investing. Today we are talking to Paul Olliver, cofounder and CEO of Wider Wake Networks, Inc. and Steve Stratz, Wider Wake spokesperson. Wider Wake is headquartered in New York City, its member network is global, its members think of themselves as a trans-Atlantic angel forum, and they invest predominantly in digital media advertising. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Bob Aholt, Pasadena Angels (Part 10)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: And what do you think angels could do to be more successful?

Bob: There’s a couple of things – fantastic question, thank you for asking that. One of the things I think that we can do better is not filter out the companies that we invest in based on presentations and slickness and the ability to have a great presentation, but more on content and substance of the companies. That’s much easier said than done. We need to get to companies that are really good, that may or may not have a good presentation. And sometimes I think we get sold on a slick presentation. Another thing that, I think, has to happen is after the investment, I think that the angels need to provide more value downstream. And that’s one of the things that’s a competitive advantage for the Pasadena Angels. Our tagline is: More than money, we’re going to provide capital and guidance to a company. So if we can open our Rolodex and give a company a contact that it wouldn’t normally have, if we can stay close to the company and give it that benefit of 35 years of running a consulting firm, those are the things that are going to make a company more successful than others. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Bob Aholt, Pasadena Angels (Part 9)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What about your investment type?

Bob: Generally we’ll do a convertible debt into an equity instrument, but that equity instrument is usually preferred stock. We have done common stock deals. Maybe 25% of the deals we do are common stock. Some members are okay without the governance that comes along with preferred; some members would rather have a preferred instrument where they get a little bit more governance over the company.

Irina: And about royalties?

Bob: That’s not something that’s come up. I won’t say that we would never do that, but – at my previous company, Phase III, that’s exactly what we did – but I haven’t seen anything come through in the Pasadena Angels like that. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Bob Aholt, Pasadena Angels (Part 8)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: You already told me that for businesses that don’t get invested in, you send them a nice notice and maybe tell them to work on their businesses, right?

Bob: Yeah. We actually have a category that we put a lot of businesses into; it’s called mentoring. It’s part of our being a nonprofit organization – it’s a 506 3(c) or something. But the reason is that we have two parts to our mission. One is to find investment opportunities for our members, and that’s pretty obvious, but the other half of our mission is to educate entrepreneurs. So we really try to give feedback. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Bob Aholt, Pasadena Angels (Part 7)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: As far as the total available market for an idea, do you have any recommendations for that?

Bob: Again, total available market, total addressable market, and the amount of market you’re going to capture are all a function of what that return is and how much you’re going to sell the company for. So, if you’re only looking for $100,000 and you can turn that into $1 million by growing this to a $10 million company, then that’s a pretty soft market. And it’s a plausible story and we’ll listen to that. The number you’re looking for? We’re looking for companies that can give us an exit when they have a market anywhere from $35 million to maybe $60 million. >>>