by John Harbison, TCA Venture Group Chairman Emeritus (originally published by the Angel Capital Association in their Data Insights Series) In conducting due diligence for early stage companies, we often [...]
Richard Austin is the CEO of Reglagene, a therapeutics company developing brain-penetrating medicines to make breakthroughs in brain cancer treatments. In Today’s “How Did You Do It?” we sat down [...]
by John Harbison, TCA Chairman Emeritus (originally published by the Angel Capital Association in their Data Insights Series) We all know that investing in early-stage companies is a very risky [...]
Jerome Tse (J) is the founder and CEO of Berri Organics, a southern california company creating all natural, organic electrolyte products. In today’s ‘How Did You Do It?’ We sat [...]
Single Pass is a local OC company solving the unique problem physicians face when conducting biopsies. David Friedman was the Deal Lead for Single Pass. In today’s “Angel’s Angle”, David [...]
Bill Colone is the CEO of Single Pass, is a local Orange County company solving the unique problem physicians face when conducting biopsies. In today’s ‘How Did You Do It?’ [...]
Sebastian Amengual is the co-founder and CTO of YBVR, a virtual reality (VR) software company creating immersive virtual experiences for sports fans around the globe. In today’s ‘How Did You [...]
Chris Wentz (CW) is the founder and CEO of Everykey, a company solving the $2 trillion per year problem of password mismanagement. In today’s ‘How Did You Do It?’ We [...]
by John Harbison, TCA Chairman Emeritus (originally published by the Angel Capital Association in their Data Insights Series) We all collectively dodged a bullet after the collapse of Silicon Valley [...]
Anca Copaescu (AC) is the founder and CEO of Strategikon Pharma, a SaaS company streamlining key processes in the pharmaceutical industry. In today’s ‘How Did You Do It?’, we sat [...]
Ben Mones is the Founder and CEO of Fama, a SaaS company revolutionizing the hiring process. Mones has transformed Fama into a hyper-growth operation with a lean business model. In today’s [...]
Steve Kochan is the Founder and CEO of Comfreight, a FinTech SaaS company. He is a former freight consultant who has transformed Comfreight from a weekend side project to an [...]
David Perry is the Founder and CEO of Carro, an Orange County SaaS company revolutionizing e-commerce. Their tagline is: “Sell more Together.” Perry’s previous company sold to Sony PlayStation for [...]
By Girard Miller, Tech Coast Angels Orange County Angel Member and Investor The collapse of SVB bank has left a huge air-pocket in the startup economy. Although others will eventually [...]
by John Harbison, Chairman Emeritus of Tech Coast Angels (originally published by the Angel Capital Association in their Data Insights Series) Early-Stage investing is inherently cyclical, and for the first [...]
by David Friedman, Chairman of Tech Coast Angels These past several days have been extremely difficult for many executives as the uncertainty of what will happen in the aftermath of [...]
By Noela Tuquero, TCA Marketing Jay Cormier is the founder and CEO of Eyedaptic, an Orange County based augmented reality (AR) eyewear company helping individuals with low-vision diseases see better [...]
By Noela Tuquero, TCA Marketing Jason Wang is the Founder and CEO of TrueVault, the "TurboTax for data privacy" platform that helps direct-to-consumer businesses like MUD\WTR and Salt & Straw [...]
By Noela Tuquero, TCA Marketing Joshua Liu is the founder and CEO of SeamlessMD, a SaaS company helping top healthcare systems engage, monitor, and stay connected with their patients throughout [...]
By Noela Tuquero, TCA Marketing Thor Culverhouse is the CEO of Submittable, a software company helping to streamline social impact programs for foundations, governments, and corporations. With average time savings [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus So, your business has begun to take off. You’ve figured out your channels of distribution, pricing model and how to support your growing list [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus If you could predict a crisis within your business before its occurrence, wouldn’t you move to prevent or reduce its impact? Making such predictions [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus Here’s a lesson from experience. Venture capitalists sometimes make an error in directing their portfolio company CEOs to push resources to the limit and scale [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus It is all about execution. Waiting over a year to see results is too long, since your chance of mid-course correction is greatly reduced. To [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus Is this a problem or an opportunity? This insight is like a Hans Christian Anderson parable, but aimed at you and your business… There are [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus We’ve debated this one forever it seems. Should be overwhelm prospective employees with stock options and perks? Or concentrate our available resources on just [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus Digging through your IP closet for gold… In past years, several times a month I’d have lunch with one of my CEOs, and each [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus Here’s the argument: Many people believe that bottom-up budgeting leads to waste and misdirection. The advocates of top-down budgeting are strong in their belief [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus Here’s the bright side to patents. When you think of patents, you think of added value to the corporation in the form of protection [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus Here’s the question: This piece of wisdom came from Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, during a board meeting for one of the companies where [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman Emeritus When do most companies communicate? Early stage company investors as a group have a common gripe – almost universal. Information flows from the company [...]
by Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus Here’s one that most small company founders and CEO’s miss until it may be too late. What is the role of a chief financial [...]
By John Harbison, TCA Chairman emeritus Tech Coast Angels’ San Diego network first saw at its 2016 Quick Pitch competition what Discover Echo’s Revolve microscope could do: the company won [...]
by Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus The title of this insight happens to be the name of a CEO roundtable organization I belong to and have been a member since [...]
by Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus It seems to be a rule, not an exception. Many senior managers and early entrepreneurs create their own mess with this one. The first [...]
by Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus You’ve surely heard the variations on this theme. “Ready, fire aim” was popular in the 1990’s, accredited to any of several authors. I used [...]
by Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus Investors love it when entrepreneurs draw little or no money from their startups. It extends the cash available for research and other necessary fixed [...]
by Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus My dad was a smart businessman, even if not formally trained. He occasionally gave me advice that turned out to be more than wise, [...]
By John Harbison, TCA Chairman emeritus TCA members who invested in the Series A Round of Companion Medical in 2014 realized a 58x return when the company was acquired by [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus The biggest error in planning may not be spreadsheet calculation error. Or cost estimation. It is most often missed assumptions about the market, the [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus And sometimes that idea is just too small a slice of the big picture to be interesting to investors. There was a recent investor [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus Remembering our original vision When we start a business, we are optimistic that we will succeed and dream of riches to follow when the [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus Yes, we’re invincible when young When we are young and early in our business lives, we feel infallible to the degree that we do [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus How about outside investors? Sometimes the end game or sale of the company is not a happy event. Especially when outside investors, venture capitalists, [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus Catching up from past insights Growing companies usually require more working capital during their periods of rapid growth. In past insights we have calculated [...]
By Dave Berkus, TCA Chairman emeritus The need for real time information From sports car to aircraft to super tanker, successful operation depends upon the pilot’s understanding and urgent timely [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels So many tasks; so little time As a manager, you have a number of critical tasks that are general to your position [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels Great executives and managers seem to intuitively know what they don’t know. But it is not at all uncommon to not even [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels How it happens When you seek professional investors, whether organized angels or venture capitalists, one of the early questions you are asked [...]
By Dan Rosen, Tech Coast Angels member and Chair of Alliance of Angels The COVID-19 Pandemic has caused every startup to assess how to survive and plan to thrive in [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels Most of us are affected by this current crisis. Many businesses threatened with closure forever. Small businesses are the most vulnerable, even [...]
by Dave Berkus, , Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels And these are indeed strange times, especially if you haven’t lived through 2000-2002 and 2007-2008 recessions and difficulty in finding money from [...]
By Dan Rosen, member Tech Coast Angels and Founder of Alliance of Angels Being trained as a scientist, and having lived through several investment cycles, I’ve been asked to share [...]
By David Friedman, President , Orange County Tech Coast Angels As an angel investor, I have been asked numerous times by entrepreneurs: when is the best time to seek seed [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels The worrying that always precedes a change When a new CEO or manager is hired into a company, for a while lots [...]
By David Friedman, President, Orange County Tech Coast Angels At the Meet the Angels event in Irvine, CA last month I had the privilege to talk with many of the [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels Here’s a puzzle where the answer come first. “Help me.” Over the years I have heard many stories from entrepreneurs, students, news [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels OK. We know that an executive’s job is not easy. Nor is there much time in a typical day for outreach of [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels A trend for businesses large and small There is a major trend shaping up that is worldwide, already identified by hundreds of [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels It’s a fact of life that a banker, lender or lessor will ask for a personal guarantee from the founder or entrepreneur [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels Oh, I know. When you started the business, you took investments from friends and family in small amounts just to get you [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels I cannot tell you how many times I have seen executive summaries of business plans in which the entrepreneur seeks $5,000,000 to [...]
By John Harbison, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels More money is being raised before Series A, and companies which receive Series A rounds are further along in terms of being [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels First, there are at least three types of exits I’ve been involved with well over twenty successful exits and four initial public [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels You’re building a company from your vision and a passion, and lots of people are going to tell you that you have [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels Have you ever thought of creating an advisory board? As you can guess, that would be an informal group with no legal [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels Give one percent equity to each outside board member vesting over four years of service. Many early stage CEOs and board members [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels Some of you have gotten along forever without a board of directors, or used your spouse as the “other” board member from [...]
By Dave Berkus, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels Most entrepreneurs and certainly all investors would like to see “a positive liquidity event” (a good sale of the business) someday. Boards [...]