Ralph Sheridan – Angel Video Interview Series

[This post is part of an on-going series of video interviews with members of the start-up community – see a list of links to the full series here.]

A chemist turned turned IT security and clean tech expert, Ralph Sheridan has been buying and investing in companies for over 30 years. For the last five or so, he’s been concentrating on doing it with his own money as an angel investor. Ralph’s a thoughtful and intelligent investor who is always wiling to make time to speak with an entrepreneur (see the video at the 1:30 mark if you don’t believe me!). He’s also been a great source of advice and counsel for me, so when we got together for breakfast recently, I figured it was high time to add him to the video interview series. This conversation was recorded in May 2012. (Email subscribers, click here for video.) [Read more…]

Jean Hammond – Angel Video Interview Series

[This post is part of an on-going series of video interviews with members of the start-up community – see a list of links to the full series here.]

Jean Hammond is an institution in the Boston start-up community. She’s a Sloan MBA with a ton of entrepreneurial experience in the digital signal processing and networking space who eventually found her passion in early stage investing and coaching. She is a prolific investor with a good eye for ideas (she was one of the first investors in ZipCar) and member of Launchpad Venture Group and Hub Angels. She was also the co-founder of the Boston chapter of Golden Seeds, and angel group focusing on women led businesses. Despite being as busy as a one-armed paper hanger, Jean always has time and advice for an entrepreneur, and no matter how dire the circumstances, can always find something good to say about their plan. She is a tireless champion of startups and a good friend to those of us in the early-stage investing community, so it was high time that we sit down together for my video interview series. [Read more…]

Pitch Clinic at MassChallenge (Video)

Christopher Mirabile warming up the crowd.

Ham Lord, Gail Hoffman and I recently held a pitch clinic at MassChallenge.  The entrepreneurs were good sports: both Claudia Espinola of Casa Couture and Krishna Ramchandran of UberSense bravely gave rough, outdated pitches to allow the critiques a bit more bite.  It was a lot of fun, followed by a great Q&A.  Video below (case-sensitive password is Round2Pitch). [Read more…]

Basil Peters – Angel Video Interview Series

[This post is part of an on-going series of video interviews with members of the start-up community – see a list of links to the full series here.]

With the possible exception of Eric Ries (The Lean Start-Up), no one has had a greater impact on angel investors’ current thinking than Basil Peters, who has been preaching the gospel of “early exits” tirelessly for the last several years. (It’s obvious I am a disciple in some situations when you read a post of mine like Why Angels Chase Electrons). Basil quite literally wrote the book on this topic (it’s called Early Exits) and he is a frequent, and excellent, speaker and advisor on the subject. He is also a terrifically nice guy and a true gentleman (or maybe it is just that he is Canadian), so it was an absolute pleasure to interview him for my video interview series.  [Read more…]

Frank Peters – Angel Video Interview Series

[This post is part of an on-going series of video interviews with members of the start-up community – see a list of links to the full series here.]

Few people outside of the early-stage community probably realize there is a terrific show devoted to the topic of angels, angel investing, angel groups and entrepreneurship. But angel investor Frank Peters has been cranking an excellent one out for several years. There are a ton of great shows – worth a troll through the archives.  In addition to being a fan of the show, I have enjoyed getting to know Frank over the years, so I was quick to seize the opportunity to interview him for my video interview series. [Read more…]

Dave Berkus – Angel Video Interview Series

[This post is part of an on-going series of video interviews with members of the start-up community – see a list of links to the full series here.]

To angels, Dave Berkus needs no introduction.  Dave is a prolific angel investor with Tech Coast Angels, an author, blogger, speaker and consultant and all-around good guy. While his profile is pretty high as a general matter, he may be best known for his authorship of  The Berkus Method of valuing early stage companies.  I have enjoyed getting to know Dave over the years and found his observations very useful in many areas, so I thought he would be a great first interview for my video interview series.   [Read more…]

Top 20 Dos & Don’ts with Angel Groups & Early Stage Financing

Ham Lord (center), Anita Brearton (right) and Christopher Mirabile (left).

Ham Lord, Anita Brearton and I gave a talk tonight at Mass Challenge on the top 20 dos and don’ts when dealing with angel groups.  I promised I would share the list, so here it is (video is below if you want to see the discussion unfold):

[Read more…]

Open Forum with Angel, Seed and VC Investors (Video)


L to R: Rob Puopolo, Jeff Bussgang, Christopher Mirabile, Rob May, Rob Go

Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge, Rob May of Backupify, Rob Go of NextView and I recently participated in a roundtable discussion about working with angels, seed micro VCs and life-cycle VCs at MassChallenge.  Rob Puopolo of Greenberg Traurig moderated the sometimes very lively discussion.  Turns out that Rob and Jeff don’t always see things exactly the same way.  It made for a great discussion and Q&A.  Video below. [Read more…]