Dan Whitaker is an expert in the many ways that start-ups can raise money. Dan was first introduced to me as an Angel Investor, but he is also an experienced entrepreneur, having founded a number of different companies, some of which became very successful. In this conversation, we talk about his work as an investor, and the world of early stage financing in Oregon.
For a quick overview of start-up funding and how and why that all works, be sure to check out the previous episode of this podcast. Otherwise, feel free to dive into Angel Investing with me, I hope you’ll enjoy.
For a complete list of episodes, check out nicholaspihl.com
Topics Discussed
- When he gets involved as an investor in a start-up
- The stages a business goes through
- Identifying what they should build (ie product-market fit)
- Scaling up with investor money
- The best place to get funding is from your customers
- Funding capital efficient industries
- Most of the successful companies tend to have two co-founders involved with really different personalities
- You want to get funding from investors who have experience and contacts in the industry, who offer a lot of other resources in addition to their money
- With Oregon Angel Fund, investors are looking out for their companies, trying to help set them up with connections, customers, partnerships
- OAF is one of the top-performing funds in the United States
- This is largely due to extra support that funded companies receive
- Most companies don’t want less than a $25,000 investment, sometimes $50,000
- So investors get together as a group and pool their investments together
- As in individual investor, you need to have at least $50,000 that you can lose without unbearable consequences
- Failed investments die quickly, within 1-3 years. Winners take much longer to come to fruition, closer to 7-8 years before you really see them become successful.
- Usually, the fund will look at a couple hundred companies in a given year, and pare that down to around 10
- How investment decisions are made in Oregon Angel Fund
- Differences between investing in Oregon vs Silicon Valley
Angel Conferences Mentioned
Angel Oregon, Willamette Angel Conference, Bend Venture Conference, (5-6 conferences). Depending on the conference, everyone pitches in $5000, roughly, and they’ll make an investment of about half a million dollars in a company.
Book Recommendations:
Steve Blank The Startup Owner’s Manual
The Earth is Flat by Thomas Friedman
If you liked this podcast, please help me out by leaving a rating and a review on Apple iTunes. This episode’s review comes from someone who filled out “how about no” in the username section of the app. So far so good. They said, “Great interview with Jared Rallison, very interesting discussion on how he got started and the art of making wines. Keep up the good work!”
Thanks for the review! I really like hearing your feedback, so if you haven’t left a review yet, help me rise in the Apple rankings by doing that. After you leave your review, or if you’ve left one already, shoot me an email at nicholaspihl@gmail.com and I’ll send you the names of my two favorite books of the last year.
Music for this episode is by Cambrian Explosion, who saw a cloud that kind of looked like a dog this past weekend. Cooooooool story, Cambrian Explosion. I’m sure it was a very cool cloud-dog. You can find their music floating on the airwaves at cepdx.bandcamp.com, Apple iTunes, and Spotify.
Thanks for Listening
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:36 — 23.0MB)