Angel Invest Boston

Latest Episodes:

K. Woodman-Maynard - The Business of Being an Artist Jan 27, 2021

Show notes

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join

Artist K. Woodman-Maynard discusses her gorgeous graphic novel interpretation of The Great Gatsby, the business of being a graphic artist and other engrossing matters. A delightfully different interview with a charming guest.

Highlights include:

Sal Introduces K. Woodman-Maynard, Creator of The Great Gatsby Graphic Novel
“Color is gorgeous. The drawings are extremely expressive and interesting… the style of the period is displayed.”
“…I think it's a good way to get people who might not otherwise read The Great Gatsby, the prose book, interested.”
Cashflow from a Graphic Novel Is Inconsistent – Good to Have Steady Income from Graphic Design
“…it was very painful for me to cut out specific lines, because I love those lines.”
“I'm in complete agreement that you shouldn't dismiss somebody's whole life's work just based on certain philosophies. It's a balance.”
“…it started by a very intense deep reading of the text…”
“The whole book took about 1500 hours. That's actively time tracked hours.”
“…the first thing for a beginner that they need to know is that they can do it. You can make a living as a graphic artist.”
“I was encouraged to go into architecture because that was considered to be more stable for artists. I'm so glad I didn't, because I graduated college in 2008.”
“One thing that's been key for me has been diversifying my income. I have income from graphic novels. I have income from graphic design work, from illustration.”
“I think it's an important thing for yourself as a graphic artist to be able to pivot and to be able to work in different ways.”
“…finding good mentors. That's something that I would encourage your niece to do.”
“Going to Harvard has really helped me with asking stupid questions.”
“You can be a good business person and also be good at your craft.”
“The Great Gatsby was a commercial flop at the time that it was published.”
“He was making a huge amount. He would just spend it before he even got it, which is the direct opposite of me.”
“…a captive audience of troops who read The Great Gatsby and then returned and spread the word about it.”
“I'm wondering what's going to happen once the vaccine is out. Will we experience another Roaring Twenties in a different way?”
“I do the Pomodoro method. …You work for 25 minutes; you take 5 minutes off. Then every two hours, you take a half an hour break.”
“In high school, we had to take career placement tests. I had equal likelihood artist and military officer.”
The Importance of Story Telling
Addressing Mental Health Issues with Kids via Comics: TKAMI.org
“I decided not to go into architecture because it wasn't my calling. Also, because I could see that it wouldn't be good for my mental health.”
“It's just gorgeous. I highly recommend this work.”

Kristen Overly - Life Science Financing Jan 20, 2021

Show notes

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join

Kristen Overly works as management consultant and is a leader at MIT Life Science Angels. Kristen and I discussed various aspects of the funding of life science startups. She, like me, is intrigued by the opportunities in what Jeff Behrens called the scrappy biotechs in his doctoral thesis. Highlights include:

Sal Daher Introduces Kristen Overly of MIT Life Science Angels & Back Bay Advisors
“…MITLifeSciAngels.com. And we look for companies that have some sort of affiliation with MIT, whether that's a founder or a board member or maybe a scientific founder or maybe the technology came out of MIT.”
“Who's invited to the [MIT Life Science Angels] meetings as potential investors?”
“…. I remember it was kind of in the beginning times of Rubius Therapeutics because that was a similar-ish platform play to Remora.”
“I suspect he had a hard time raising money, not having had a Ph.D. He's a brilliant guy, he could have done it but in the life sciences, it's almost like joining a holy priesthood or something. You have to have your Ph.D.”
“… the increase in the number of SPACs recently. I think it just shows how different the life sciences industry is from the tech.”
“…you just have to believe in the people, sign a blank cheque and hope that they can do their jobs right.”
“But still the [SPAC] model is untested…. Acquisitions are hard. Most acquisitions fail…”
“So basically 97% of the funding go to either life science companies that are created by the venture capital firms themselves or companies that have some kind of a star player, right?”
“…when I was at MIT, I found myself frustrated because there were so many amazing technologies just kind of stuck in a lab.”
“The number of scrappy biotechs is about to skyrocket.”
“And there's a lot of not great AI technologies. People are just taking the open-source code and applying it and calling it a product and starting a company and getting money.”
An Intro to Radio Pharmaceuticals
“…my senior year, I got a really bad concussion, freak accident.”
“Yeah, it was the hardest decision I had ever had to make in my life to take the year off at school. I mean, I was on this set path since I was born.”
I'm passionate about is that only about two percent of all VC funds overall go to female founded companies.

Chuck Donnelly and Julie Morrison - SaaS for Pre-Clinical Trials Jan 13, 2021

Show notes

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join

RockStep Solutions improves efficiency by 70% according to one client. This is why the startup is getting word of mouth traffic from clients running in vivo drug trials. Founders Chuck Donnelly and Julie Morrison tell their story and share valuable wisdom about this intersection of software and bio.

Highlights include:

Sal Daher Introduces Chuck Donnelly and Julie Morrison, the Founders of RockStep Solutions
RockStep Provides a SaaS Solution for a Sector of the Drug Discovery Space That Is Poorly Served by Existing Vendors
“The problem that we're solving is data chaos in drug discovery.”
“…we have one of our customers that's projecting a 70% efficiency gain.”
“We bring value to the pharmaceutical companies by speeding up that pipeline, reducing the number of errors that happen.”
“While I was at Jackson Lab… We recognized that there was this gap, if you will, that we just talked about. The NIH actually funded us.”
“One full day of my work week was designed to take all my data out of paper and put it into Excel even.”
"But they don't actually have any money." I said, "I'm not sure it matters at this point because I'm so passionate about the problem they're solving."
“I can tell you that these equity-only deals work very rarely…”
On co-founders: “You have to be aligned on your personal values because this is a marriage. In very many ways it's similar.”
“There's no question, your family is part of this company. You will not have a work-life balance.”
“Ultimately, if we don't get the pricing right, we're not going to succeed. You have to get your pricing right.”
“…they're just academic customers paying, I think our cheapest is $50 a user. Right now, in industry we're getting $1,800 per user. That's how different our pricing has scaled up.”
“We spent about a year and a half, two years, perfecting the product that we have out in our biopharmas today.”
“After a year and a half of doing that, we ended up with a product that is totally, uniquely positioned in the market…”
“…if she had gone in thinking that she already knew it and she just was trying to validate it, she would be coming in with her own biases, almost telling the people, "This is how it should be done."”
“If you have a toxic person or persons in the company, that goes through the entire company. You cannot; it will kill your company.”
“…a hire that almost tore the company apart, to be honest. It was a salesperson forced on us by an investment firm.”
“...we can teach anyone anything for the most part…But you can't really change someone's culture or their personality, their willingness to dig in.”
“First thing is that it takes a lot longer to raise capital than you might think. The other thing is that you're going to probably need more money than you think.”
Deep Wisdom on Grants: “All told we got three grants, total of 1.85 million… from the NIH. That was all great non-dilutive funding and life is good. But I would caution anybody who wants to continue living off of grants, don't do it.”
“We could have written another grant, but it's not going to be a market-driven product anymore, it's going to be a grant-driven product.”
“The market still needs to stop using paper and spreadsheets.”
“…it's hard. I spend a lot of my time raising money.”
“…our sweet spot really is the small, mid, to large biotech and global pharmaceutical companies.”
“…it feels good when you start seeing people coming to you on word of mouth.”
“…there are fires burning every day. It's overwhelming. The big mistake you can make is just trying to put every fire out because you're not going to make any progress.”
“…don't do it unless you're ready. This is the hardest thing you will ever do.”
“…manage burnout. Burnout is very real.”
“I would say another really important tip is you can't do this alone.”

Entrepreneurs Journey - Ham Lord - C Mirabile - Joe Mandato Jan 06, 2021

Show notes

Join Sal's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join

Launchpad, Boston’s leading angel group, has published a polished collection of stories that illustrate the success and failure of their portfolio companies over two decades. It is titled “The Entrepreneur’s Journey”. Listen to my interview of authors Ham Lord, Christopher Mirabile and Joe Mandato to learn more about this valuable resource for angels and founders.

Highlights from the interview:

Peter Fasse of Fish & Richardson Sponsors the Angel Invest Boston Podcast
Boston’s Answer to The Three Tenors, The Three Super-Angels
“…back in 2012, started working with some of the members within Launchpad to understand why some of our companies succeeded and why some of them failed.”
“But there was something about that team that we just couldn't disengage.”
“…it was one of these software purchases ... unlike a lot of enterprise software ... that immediately paid for itself.”
“…if we had looked at Mobius and said, "No, hardware company, we're not investing," we would have lost out on an investment that ultimately is going to be a 35x return.”
“…Intuitive Surgical, where it violated every principle of venture investing. Right?”
“…it was a 10 year, 35x. That is a beautiful, beautiful investment.”
“…I could sort of hear myself in some of these stories, and I've changed the approach that I'm taking in certain areas.”
“We included as much failure as success in this book. Every theme is illustrated by both companies that got lucky and got it right, and companies that didn't.”
“…One of the challenges is the timeline. For VC, the timeline, it's so long with the biotech's and that's really become problematic.”

Ham Lord and Christopher Mirabile - Winning Collaboration Dec 30, 2020

Show notes

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join

The collaboration of Ham Lord and Christopher Mirabile, two of Boston’s most consequential super angels, is widely admired. Its most visible fruit is the success of Launchpad Venture Group, which they manage together. In the relaunch of this revealing interview, they let us in on how this winning collaboration came to be and what keeps it productive as it approaches the end of its first decade.

Christopher Mirabile and Ham Lord are already familiar to our listeners. Each has been interviewed individually on earlier episodes of the Angel Invest Boston Podcast. In the current episode, the two different personalities interact and give us a glimpse into what drives their working relationship.

Click here to read the full episode transcript.

TOPICS COVERED INCLUDE:

Christopher & Ham’s Remarkable Collaboration
How They Connected
Division of Labor
Lucky to Have Jody Collier as Operations Manager
Complementary Skills & Creative Tension
What They Enjoy in Working Together
What Motivates Christopher and Ham
How Christopher & Ham Differ in their Investing
Gene Gregerson, an Engineer’s Engineer & Mobius Imaging – Astonishing Feat of Entrepreneurship
Blind Spots: How Having a Partner Helps Avoid Them
Integrity in the Founding Team is Essential – Due Diligence Screens Out Frauds
Geographic Focus Makes It Possible to Add Value
Dos & Don’ts for a Winning Collaboration
How Ham and Christopher Work Things Out When Problems Arise
Co-CEOs Raise a Red Flag but Can Work
Trends Christopher & Ham See
A Business Semyon Dukach Would Like!

Christopher Mirabile - Angel with a Plan Dec 23, 2020

Show notes

Mike Singer, MD/PhD - Polymath Founder Dec 16, 2020

Show notes

Patrick Rivelli, Founder and Angel Investor - How to Invest In Biotech Dec 09, 2020

Show notes

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join

Repeat biotech founder and angel investor Patrick Rivelli talks about his career and about how to approach the daunting challenge of investing in biotech as an angel.

Family considerations drove several of Patrick Rivelli’s career choices but did not prevent him from having brilliant triumphs. Success as a consultant was followed by success as an executive. This led him to found his first company and to fund another startup. The most eloquent evidence of his achievements was exiting two biotech startups in eleven years. If you are a seasoned biotech investor, I’m sure that grabbed your attention. Patrick was also instrumental in founding MIT Angels of the Bay Area and now leads the life science track at MIT Angels in Boston.

I learned a lot from this fun chat with Patrick. I hope it will be entertaining and instructive for you as well.

Note: When Sal talked about biotech booming circa 1996 he actually meant to say the internet. Biotech was still a backwater then.

TOPICS DISCUSSED INCLUDE:

Patrick Rivelli's Bio
Love Drives the Choice of Patrick Rivelli’s First Job
Family & Luck Steer One’s Career
Consulting at Bain Leads to Private Equity
Bain Paid for Sloan MBA
Work at Bain Was Different After Patrick Rivelli Graduated from Sloan
Patrick Rivelli Gets Involved in the Life Sciences – Pharma Companies Had Medical Device Businesses Then
Biology Was a Backwater in the 1990s – Then Human Genome Was Sequenced by 2003
Consulting Was Taking a Toll on Patrick’s Family Life So He Took a Corporate Position
Patrick Rivelli Goes to Work at a Medical Device Company in 1996 – First Internet Wave Just Starting Then
Netscape IPO & “The Nudist on the Late Shift”
Target Therapeutics Is Sold – Mass Firings Ensue
Patrick Rivelli Has a Tough Period in His Career – Growth & More Self-knowledge
Patrick Rivelli Gets Involved with a Startup for the First Time
Patrick Rivelli Founds Smart Therapeutics
“…Nobody Wanted Medical Devices. Everybody Wanted Pets.com and Whatever.com”
“You Went from Nerd to Cool Dude”
Markets Always Overshoot
Boston vs. Bay Area
How Boston Has Changed Since the 1960s
Patrick Rivelli Gets Into Angel Investing
Chestnut Medical Technologies Is Acquired in 2007
Patrick Rivelli Gets MIT Angels Moving in the Bay Area

Brian Mahon, Investor and Advisor - Expert DOJO Dec 02, 2020

Show notes

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join

Expert Dojo is the international accelerator based in Southern California. Founder Brian Mahon and team look for great founders with profitable businesses that can grow. Brian’s a delightfully articulate guest. Don’t miss this outstanding interview.

Highlights:

Sal Daher Introduces Brian Mahon of Expert Dojo, the International Accelerator in Southern California
“…we’ll invest as easily and as happily in Boston, as we will do in Bosnia…”
“…we wanted to be able to give ordinary people the ability to be able to grow extraordinary companies…”
“Actually, we have 70 investments in our companies now. Being part of that journey and watching them while they're at that stage is just absolutely beautiful…”
“…I'm over in our location, which is 10,000 square-foot facility on top of the mall in Santa Monica…”
“It cost me money. So, I'm not falling for it again.”
“…we copy the people who I don't necessarily admire what they do, but I admire how they acquire users.”
AdLaunch – Squarespace for Videos
Irish Nun Stories
“This is my point about entrepreneurship. It grew here. I could reread and re-watch the movie about the great Edison and Tesla battle a hundred times because this is where virtually all of it began.”
Making Mass Spectrometry Easily Accessible
“…these people have actually built an entire machine learning algorithm that goes deep into the scans themselves, it's not looked at by the naked eye…”
“…tuberculosis is a killer, but it's a stupid killer. This should have been eradicated years ago.”
“They're fighting the mutation day by day.”
Sal Daher Does a Pitch for His Investment Syndicate
“I remember two things with my dad. The first thing is he never complained.”
“It meant that you had a beautiful office right on the corner. You made it, no matter what you were working or how many hours you were there.”
“To the investors, they are incredibly fortunate to be part of your syndicate group. This is not a solo sport.”
“Suddenly, their foosball tables are not quite such enticing as a recruitment offer because they've just fired 30% of their staff.”

Ed Belove, Founder and Angel Investor Nov 25, 2020

Show notes

Join Sal's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join

Ed Belove is a very active angel investor. He's a successful founder in software and hardware. Just a very thoughtful person. Very, very smart, very observant, very committed. Founders would be very lucky to have Ed Belove in their corner. I really enjoyed this interview, which I recorded in the first season of the podcast. And it is a very, very meaty interview. Full of interesting stories. For example, helping build Lotus with Mitch Kapor and all sorts of other things. So, it's a little bit of history of the software industry. A lot of wisdom about building a company and an introduction to just a tremendous, tremendous angel investor and person. I highly recommend the conversation with Ed Belove.

As an undergrad at Harvard, Ed Belove hung out with people at the campus radio station that liked to play with computers. This eventually led to a brilliant career that included building software products with the visionary Mitch Kapor at Lotus Development. Ed co-founded a company that greatly expanded the Apple II’s ability to communicate. The company would eventually pivot to supplying the hardware for early Internet services such as CompuServe and AOL. This successful trajectory allowed Ed to dedicate his time to building early-stage companies and doing philanthropic work. As a much sought-after angel investor, Ed puts his capital and energy to work on behalf of promising startups. If you are building a software startup, you would be well served to listen to the thoughts Ed expresses in this podcast.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE TOPICS COVERED IN OUR CONVERSATION:

Ed Belove's Bio
Data General in the Early 1970’s Was a Hotbed of Entrepreneurship – Many Startups Came Out of Data General
Software As It Was Before It Ate the World
Data General Gave Away Software to Sell Hardware
Space War Video Game on PDP-10 Computers
“Soul of a New Machine” by Tracy Kidder
Now There Is a Huge Number of Software Building Blocks That Anybody Can Put Together – This Did Not Exist in the 1970s
Telex and TWX Emulation for the Apple II – Got Around Apple II’s Inability to Multitask
Ed Belove Went to Work Lotus Development – Mitch Kapor Was a Real Visionary
Ed Belove Runs into People Who Are Still Using Lotus Agenda
WorkFlowy!
Ed Belove, Lessons from Fetchnotes – Alex Horak & Alex Schiff
“Ease of use can't be overestimated”
Interchange Online – Put the First Major Paper Online, The Washington Post – Ziff Davis
AT&T Still Had a Monopoly Mindset despite Deregulation & Divestiture – No Hurry to Make Decisions in Fast-moving Market
“The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen
“The Road Ahead” by Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold and Peter Rinearson
How Ed Belove Got into Angel Investing
Do Help Get the Word out About Angel Invest Boston by Leaving a Review on iTunes
What Ed Belove Looks for in a Startup
Knowing What You Don’t Know
CEOs Need to Have People to Talk to In & Out of the Startup – There Are Now Many More Resources than in the Past
CEO, Don’t “Manage” Your Board, Work with Your Board
CEO, Founder, Know Thyself
Shares, Notes and SAFEs, Oh My!

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Angel Invest Boston

Related Podcasts

1

2

3

4

5

6