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It's not about VC. It's about angels, and Angel List. Angel.co has gone from 25 to 3000 investors in 18 months. Add 10 to 12 IPO's in the next few years, and

It's not about VC. It's about angels, and Angel List. Angel.co has gone from 25 to 3000 investors in 18 months. Add 10 to 12 IPO's in the next few years, and you'll see thousands of newly minted "Qualified Investors" interested in angel investing. Where are they going to go? Angel List. They've gotten over 600 startups funded in the past 18 months... I think they're just getting warmed up.

ekanes 15y ago
AngelList is shockingly effective, I can't recommend it highly enough. We were at the end of our fundraising when we opened up that channel, and we ended up turning away 14 investors. YMMV of course.
- dirtyaura 15y ago
  Did you raise for FastCustomer? I would love to hear your fund raising story in detail.
- diolpah 15y ago
  YMMV indeed. AngelList only works for those companies who already have preexisting connections to the angel/VC community. For companies with little or no existing social proof, AngelList is shockingly ineffective.
  - ekanes 15y ago
    I had very few pre-existing connections to the angel/VC community when we started raising, but we did have some social proof when we opened up on AngelList.
    - diolpah 15y ago
      Case in point. Your social proof enabled you to "be seen" on AngelList. Hundreds of other startups go entirely unseen and unnoticed on AngelList because of their low follower count and nonexistent social proof, regardless of team, idea, product, traction, revenue, or earnings.
  - wensing 15y ago
    (I decided to turn this comment into a blog post with pictures here: http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/11062968069/hacking-angellist-or-social-proof http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/11062968069/hacking-angellist...) Stormpulse first appeared on AngelList on 8/24/10. We go no interest whatsoever and didn't even make it past the gatekeepers for any kind of introductions. It stung, bad. We had lots of traction, some revenue, and millions of visitors. And the best product in its class. I pretty much swore off AngelList with the same attitude you have right now. 13 months later we have 46 introductions and 149 followers, and the gatekeepers are saying it's one of the hottest listings on AL. How did we do this? * I applied to StartupRiot in Atlanta. I got accepted and pitched my heart out for 180 seconds. Didn't win, but met a guy from IBM. * Guy from IBM invites us to Austin, TX to IBM SmartCamp. We pass through each of their interviews and become an Austin finalist. I pitch to a room full of investors for 5 minutes. We didn't win, but we met a lot of interesting folks in Austin, including Joshua Baer. * Things were going pretty well for us earlier this year. We decide to try fundraising again. I email Joshua Baer. Joshua Baer invites us to Capital Factory Demo Day 2011 in Austin. I pitch for 180 seconds to a room full of investors. All of a sudden investors start handing us their cards and other entrepreneurs start offering to introduce us to anyone they can. * We re-apply to AngelList, voila. If you want to raise money, there's no substitute for working hard on your reputation. I'm a nobody from West Palm Beach, Florida. Seriously. If I can do it, maybe you can too. It's worth a try. (Also, please understand I'm not saying that working hard is the key to success--you may work just as hard or much much harder than I did and still fail. But that's for another blog post).
    - diolpah 15y ago
      Thanks for the story, and congratulations on your success. You helped give me a better picture of how one goes about building social proof with the investor class. We don't actually need funding, as we have successfully bootstrapped our business and are quite profitable. But we set up a profile on AL anyway, in case we ever do decide to shake the money tree to accelerate growth beyond what our cash flow permits, in the future. Naturally, we have 0 followers. Interestingly, 42 Floors (http://angel.co/42-floors http://angel.co/42-floors) has done the same thing, and they have managed 112 followers despite not seeking funding.
  - iamelgringo 15y ago
    Ties.com might be an amazing and wonderful business, but I can't imagine too many investors getting excited about they types of exits they might have by investing in Ties.com. I wouldn't necessarily blame Angel List.

ekanes 15y ago

AngelList is shockingly effective, I can't recommend it highly enough. We were at the end of our fundraising when we opened up that channel, and we ended up turning away 14 investors. YMMV of course.

dirtyaura 15y ago
Did you raise for FastCustomer? I would love to hear your fund raising story in detail.
diolpah 15y ago
YMMV indeed. AngelList only works for those companies who already have preexisting connections to the angel/VC community. For companies with little or no existing social proof, AngelList is shockingly ineffective.
- ekanes 15y ago
  I had very few pre-existing connections to the angel/VC community when we started raising, but we did have some social proof when we opened up on AngelList.
  - diolpah 15y ago
    Case in point. Your social proof enabled you to "be seen" on AngelList. Hundreds of other startups go entirely unseen and unnoticed on AngelList because of their low follower count and nonexistent social proof, regardless of team, idea, product, traction, revenue, or earnings.
- wensing 15y ago
  (I decided to turn this comment into a blog post with pictures here: http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/11062968069/hacking-angellist-or-social-proof http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/11062968069/hacking-angellist...) Stormpulse first appeared on AngelList on 8/24/10. We go no interest whatsoever and didn't even make it past the gatekeepers for any kind of introductions. It stung, bad. We had lots of traction, some revenue, and millions of visitors. And the best product in its class. I pretty much swore off AngelList with the same attitude you have right now. 13 months later we have 46 introductions and 149 followers, and the gatekeepers are saying it's one of the hottest listings on AL. How did we do this? * I applied to StartupRiot in Atlanta. I got accepted and pitched my heart out for 180 seconds. Didn't win, but met a guy from IBM. * Guy from IBM invites us to Austin, TX to IBM SmartCamp. We pass through each of their interviews and become an Austin finalist. I pitch to a room full of investors for 5 minutes. We didn't win, but we met a lot of interesting folks in Austin, including Joshua Baer. * Things were going pretty well for us earlier this year. We decide to try fundraising again. I email Joshua Baer. Joshua Baer invites us to Capital Factory Demo Day 2011 in Austin. I pitch for 180 seconds to a room full of investors. All of a sudden investors start handing us their cards and other entrepreneurs start offering to introduce us to anyone they can. * We re-apply to AngelList, voila. If you want to raise money, there's no substitute for working hard on your reputation. I'm a nobody from West Palm Beach, Florida. Seriously. If I can do it, maybe you can too. It's worth a try. (Also, please understand I'm not saying that working hard is the key to success--you may work just as hard or much much harder than I did and still fail. But that's for another blog post).
  - diolpah 15y ago
    Thanks for the story, and congratulations on your success. You helped give me a better picture of how one goes about building social proof with the investor class. We don't actually need funding, as we have successfully bootstrapped our business and are quite profitable. But we set up a profile on AL anyway, in case we ever do decide to shake the money tree to accelerate growth beyond what our cash flow permits, in the future. Naturally, we have 0 followers. Interestingly, 42 Floors (http://angel.co/42-floors http://angel.co/42-floors) has done the same thing, and they have managed 112 followers despite not seeking funding.
- iamelgringo 15y ago
  Ties.com might be an amazing and wonderful business, but I can't imagine too many investors getting excited about they types of exits they might have by investing in Ties.com. I wouldn't necessarily blame Angel List.