Articles & Resources
Articles and resources for angel investors, entrepreneurs and people interested in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
How to keep Investors for your next round by keeping them informed
Keep your investors informed - You’ve won investment from angel investors. What next? Of course, build your business. But what about 12-18 months from now? Where’s your next funding going to come from? Keeping your investors updated is simple, takes 20 minutes a month and the upside is massive:
Profile of Jennifer Ernst, CEO of Tivic Health
Jennifer Ernst is the CEO and co-founder of Tivic Health. This profile, based on an October 2020 interview with her, is part of a series to highlight founders of companies in the Sand Hill Angels portfolio.
Tivic Health is a bioelectronic device company focused on designing home-use products that are drug-free to treat chronic conditions. Their first product is ClearUP Sinus Pain Relief, is an FDA-cleared handheld device that treats allergy-related sinus pain using low level electrical simulation called microcurrent. The company was founded in 2016 and the first commercial offering of ClearUP was in September 2019.
Create Your Deal Room Before You Start Raising a Financing Round
Sand Hill Angels recommends that startup founders start creating their investor deal room before they start raising a financing round of any size. When startups apply to Sand Hill Angels, our members often start doing some due diligence even before we decide on funding interest. Seeing a proper deal room in place is often a signal to investors that the founder knows what is needed and is well organized. Getting the deal room can also avoid a scramble to pull together items in a short amount of time.
“Tell me in 30 seconds Why Talking with You for 5 Minutes will Make Me More Money”
Back in the greedy 1980s, around the time of Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street, I saw a TV profile of an obnoxious businessman who answered the phone every time with the phrase: “Tell me in 30 seconds why talking with you for 5 more minutes will make me more money!” He said he answered the call the same way every time, even if his mother called. The TV show portrayed him as a bad person and emblematic of everything that was wrong with the 80’s.
Sand Hill Angels’ Focus on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
Sand Hill Angels is one of the oldest and largest angel investment groups in the United States. For much, if not all of that time, we have focused on being diverse – both in membership and in the entrepreneurial businesses in which we have invested. Personally, as someone who identifies as diverse – I’m gay – my observations during 5 ½ years of membership are that we are diverse in both aspects, and I have not felt discrimination either blatantly or indirectly.
I am the self-appointed, volunteer Sand Hill Angels’ Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) champion.To codify what we have been doing and what we want to do in the future, we have five objectives as our guiding light.
Make Your Startup’s First Sales
Most startup founders learn quickly that they need to record some revenue before angels will invest in the company. But for founders without much sales experience, especially technical or product-focused founders, making these first sales can be a real challenge.
Angel investors like to see revenue traction because it is evidence the company has overcome some hurdles that can kill a startup. Paying customers prove there are people who want to buy the product or service. It also means the startup has likely figured out the target market, channels, and the right messaging. The product must work, or the customers would have cancelled or returned it. And having revenue means the startup leadership team has a commercial mindset, rather than “engineering delight,” holding back to polish the product and add more features.
Top 10 Pitch Deck Rules
Few startups at the time of raising their angel round use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. As a startup founder, you might use a spreadsheet or keep track in a notebook. That is a mistake. You would be wise to develop the habit of using a CRM tool from the time of the first customer contact.
Here are ten reasons why you need to use a CRM sooner than you think.
Startups Need a CRM Sooner Than They Think
Few startups at the time of raising their angel round use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. As a startup founder, you might use a spreadsheet or keep track in a notebook. That is a mistake. You would be wise to develop the habit of using a CRM tool from the time of the first customer contact.
Here are ten reasons why you need to use a CRM sooner than you think.
Important Elements of Financial Forecasts for Startups
Great news! You found angel investors who show interest in learning more about your business. One of the first things they will ask to see is your Financial Forecast. Are you ready? This is a brief overview of what I try to find out when looking at a company’s numbers.
What Makes for an Attractive Angel Investment - Part 2
In an earlier blog post we described some of what Sand Hills Angels members look for in attractive angel investments, focusing on the importance of the business idea. But that is not the only factor that angel investors look for. Another recurring element in the investment criteria is the founding team.
What Makes for An Attractive Angel Investment?
Just about every time Sand Hill Angels hosts our practice pitch nights, which we call Sand Hill Angels RAW, startup founders ask our members what we look for when we assess an angel investment. It turns out that each of our members has different criteria; there is no one, simple answer. So we asked a handful of our experienced members what they look for in an attractive investment, and summarize and share here some thoughts and quotes.
Top Books for Founders’ Bookshelves
Many of the Sand Hill Angels members have been startup founders, executives, advisors, and investors many times over many decades. We reached out to our membership to share their thoughts on the best books that have helped them on their journey. Consider this to be our unscientific collection of the Top Books for Founders’ Bookshelves.
Post-Money SAFEs: Investor-Friendly Option
For many years startup founders raised their early finance rounds using convertible notes. The legal costs and negotiation time for priced rounds were prohibitive. In late 2013 Y Combinator introduced the original SAFE, which stands for “Simple Agreement for Future Equity”. These became popular throughout the Silicon Valley, along with 500 Startups’ KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) variation, but they had some drawbacks that disturbed some investors, which could sometimes hamper a founder raising as much as she wanted.
How to create a winning pitch deck
I’m an active angel investor and member of Sand Hill Angels, one of the big Silicon Valley angel investor groups. I review dozens of pitch decks each month and unfortunately most suck.
So to reduce my ongoing frustration, I’d like to help you create a winning pitch deck…