Second, saying "it takes a lot less money to build a company nowadays" has become a cliche. Unfortunately few people really explain why this is. I thought this was an excellent explanation.
> I emphasize product to distinguish it from building the company. Building modern companies is not low risk or low cost: Facebook, for example, faced plenty of competitive and market risks and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to build their business
Important point. People use the term "startup" nowadays to refer to products more often than companies. Building a company is a totally different endeavor. It's surprisingly easy to build a profitable, popular product on the Internet. But turning that into a global, thriving company is a totally different ball game that few people have managed to do. I think it starts by picking an important problem to solve. Most of the startups I've seen (some of mine included), have gone after small, niche problems that won't lead to large companies.
> When we invest in angel rounds, we behave like an angel. As angel investors, we can invest as little as $50,000, we do not take board seats, and we do not require control.
That's an awesome pledge. Anyone know other VC's that also do this?
Beware: just because they don't have a board seat or formal control doesn't mean they won't have a lot of influence, and possibly even de facto control. In particular, if you need to do a follow-on round (and if you only get $50k the first time around it's almost certain that you will have to) you will almost certainly have to do it with them, because if your initial investor doesn't follow on it's extremely unlikely that anyone else will.
Second, saying "it takes a lot less money to build a company nowadays" has become a cliche. Unfortunately few people really explain why this is. I thought this was an excellent explanation.
> I emphasize product to distinguish it from building the company. Building modern companies is not low risk or low cost: Facebook, for example, faced plenty of competitive and market risks and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to build their business
Important point. People use the term "startup" nowadays to refer to products more often than companies. Building a company is a totally different endeavor. It's surprisingly easy to build a profitable, popular product on the Internet. But turning that into a global, thriving company is a totally different ball game that few people have managed to do. I think it starts by picking an important problem to solve. Most of the startups I've seen (some of mine included), have gone after small, niche problems that won't lead to large companies.
> When we invest in angel rounds, we behave like an angel. As angel investors, we can invest as little as $50,000, we do not take board seats, and we do not require control.
That's an awesome pledge. Anyone know other VC's that also do this?