Josh Maher's Blog » Entrepreneurship
SAC III – Finale
Tweet The Seattle Angel Conference finale was nothing short of amazing. The fact that John Sechrest has been able to slowly grow a new early stage investment mechanism like this says a lot about John and the economic environment here in Seattle. The group of investors is slowly growing and the quality of companies coming into the conference continues to increase making it harder and harder for the growing pool of investors to pick the best ones. My experience through the process is well documented here on my blog. If you are considering participating in a future round or are interested in starting an investment group like this in your city you should go read these posts. There were many great things about the process and a few things that could be improved with the process. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Seattle, Startups, Technology
SAC III due diligence
Tweet After the semifinals, our group of 33 investors was able to actually vote on the finalists. We announced the finalists over on the SAC blog. They included the following companies: Phytelligence Nimia Shift Labs Staging and Design Network Daily Dollar Guide Analytics The due diligence teams began their deep dive into these companies. I ended up on the Staging and Design Network team and through the many weeks of narrowing the 43 companies to these final six felt that I had friends and responsible investment colleagues performing due diligence on the other companies. This was a good feeling, even if it is only a $5,000 investment – I am not the type of person who is ok with throwing the investment away on a company that isn’t the best risk adjusted option of the group. Through the due … Read entire article »
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Seattle, Startups, Technology
SAC III Semifinals
Tweet Due to some scheduling conflicts, we had to move to HUB Seattle’s space for the semifinals. The change of venue was refreshing having already spent 10-12 hours vetting companies at the Davis Wright Tremain offices with this group of investors. So far though, the actual interaction with the other investors was great. The group consists of male and female investors. Some in tech, some in real estate, some in the medical profession, some in the food industry, the list goes on. Meeting and beginning to build relationships with the other investors has been an important part of the process and one that I hope you get the chance to partake in for Seattle Angel Conference IV. The semifinals were great, the pitches were well polished, the attendance from the companies was … Read entire article »
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Technology
SAC III Quarterfinals cut meeting
Tweet If you haven’t been following the series of posts, let me quickly recap. The Seattle Angel Conference has pulled 33 investors into a room over a few weeks to sift through 43 companies and ultimately pick 1 company to invest their combined $165,000. The first round the investors picked the top 30 companies they were collectively interested in, then each of those companies presented a 3min pitch in the quarterfinals. Of those 30 companies in the quarterfinals the investors need to narrow the group to 12 semifinalists, then 6 finalists to present at the actual conference on May 16th. I believe there are still tickets to the May 16th event. When the group of investors piled into the Davis Wright Tremain conference room for the quarterfinal cut meeting, the energy was pretty high. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Technology
On failure
Tweet Failure has such a negative connotation in our society – the word itself though isn’t a negative word, it isn’t derived from some Latin root that forces it to be negative. It is entirely within our own minds and society that we have developed the understanding of the word failure to mean a bad thing. I have suggested on more than one occasion that we should embrace failure more thoroughly in our society. Even suggesting a Most Influential Failure award for Seattle’s GeekWire and including failure in my 10 brief thoughts on success. Most people have a hard time embracing failure though due to these social norms. Even my own kids do a terrible job embracing failure so I doubt that it is something that any one person can easily … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Entrepreneurship, Innovation
SAC III Quarterfinals
Tweet The quarterfinals were fast and furious, three minute pitches with two minutes of questions afterwards. With 12-13 companies pitching per night, there was a lot of information to process. Each new presenting company was pitching almost immediately after the last one and for the un-prepared investor it was a Jim Cramer lightening round dizzying even the most savvy trader. With the quality and excitement of the companies, the dizziness quickly wore off and all the investors began diving in with questions that went to the heart of the businesses being presented. The room was filled with incredibly intelligent people who have backgrounds in technology, business, the medical field, etc. and the questions that filled the two minutes almost always provided enough insight for the investors to understand where the company stood relative to the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Technology
TechCafe Happy Hour @Appature
Tweet Here is an update from TechCafe… If you are counting, this is the first event of the year! We’ve been busy (as you may have noticed if you are a regular reader). We still love putting on tech events in Seattle though!! If you are itching for great events in between TechCafe events you should check out the events at Surf Incubator and Hub Seattle. We feel great that the community is growing here and are honored to be a part of it! At TechCafe we work with awesome startups and technology companies to offer brilliant technologists a few things for free. Sure you’ll be stuck in Appature‘s slick offices. Yes you will have to participate a little in the technical talk at the event or at least listen to the discussion that … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Entrepreneurship, Lunch2.0, Lunch2.0, Lunch20-Seattle, NW events, Seattle, seattlelunch20, TechCafe
Seattle Angel Conference III
Tweet You may have noticed the slight increase in posts related to early stage investments and investing lessons from angels & VCs. This year, I am participating in the Seattle Angel Conference as an investor and have been learning a lot as I spend a few hours each week with 20+ other brilliant investors vetting companies. The experience is forcing me to put my thoughts about investment forward and explain to people how I view the world of investment opportunity vs. what others may see. It is highly stimulating and is most certainly making me a better investor of all types of assets. I have slowly been collecting my thoughts on the process itself and want to share those as well. The premise of the group is simple – a bunch of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Startups, Technology
