MIT Forum - Meet the Angels!

Villette Nolon, Cathi Hatch, Greg Huey

Last night I was one of the panelists representing ZINO Society as one of the seven local angel groups showcased at MIT Enterprise Forum Northwest also including Greg Huey of Alliance of Angels, Nathan McDonald of Keiretsu Forum, Byron McCann of NW Energy Angels, Stephen Handley of Puget Sound Venture Club, Villette Nolon of Seraph Capital Forum and Tom Kadavy of WINGS.  Rebecca Lovell, Executive Director of NWEN, did a masterful job of moderating the panel

Though there were a few entrepreneurs from other business genres, the room was filled primarily with technology entrepreneurs since the MIT Enterprise Forum is dedicated to the advancement of technology commercialization.  The entrepreneurs had a chance to hear a bit about each of the angel groups and about their primary focus(es).  Of the many specific questions posed by the attendees, the primary answer each time was, "It depends.", since each company is so individual.  It is impossible to follow a "rule of thumb" for establishing valuation, though some very good advice was given to avoid going over that $1 million valuation number for brand-new startups.

Rebecca Lovell at podium, Byron McCann, Steve Handley,
Nathan McDonald, Tom Kadavy, Villette Nolon,
Cathi Hatch and Greg Huey

There were questions about what percentage of a company should be the equity opportunity for angels and the response following, "It depends" was that angels are generally looking to own around 30-33% of a company with their funding.  Other important advice given to entrepreneurs was how important it is to communicate with their investors once they do receive funding; both the good and the bad things that always occur in starting up a business.  Byron encouraged the entrepreneurs to believe in themselves and not see themselves as "delusional" as they are passionately pursuing their dream and Steve advised that they be relentless in honing their story and continue to communicate it to their stockholders, their employees, potential investors, potential customers and the world at large.

My advice to entrepreneurs was to use the expert coaching that ZINO Society provides as part of our ZINOpreneur membership benefits and assume that they will need to pitch at multiple angel groups before they receive all the funding that they need to make their company successful.  It is in the best interest of the angel investors and the entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to get that funding   I believe that collaboration and sharing of information and dealflow between the angel groups is of great value because together we can all make the entrepreneur and angel investing landscape a vibrant one for the future health of new businesses in our region while helping entrepreneurs achieve their dreams and providing the best possible investment opportunity dealflow to investors in our community.

Cathi Hatch, Byron McCann, Steve Handley