Every Business Needs an Angel: Getting the Money You Need to Make Your Business Grow

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.15224
EAN: 9780609607787
ISBN: 0609607782
Label: Crown Business
Manufacturer: Crown Business
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2001-09-18
Publisher: Crown Business
Release Date: 2001-09-18
Studio: Crown Business

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: The first 3 chapters are worth the millions if you are successful!
Comment: I have the pleasure of being a member of one of John May's groups, Active Angel Investors (http://activeangelinvestors.com/) and I am extremely glad I joined this group.

And now for a one sentence review of the book:
Just the first three chapters (How Angels Evaluate Entrepreneurs, When to Dance with an Angel, & Finding Angels and Making your Pitch) are worth the price of the book and if you are a successful entrepreneur, they can be worth millions!

Some other good books for angel info can be found at the Angel Capital Association's website - http://www.angelcapitalassociation.org/dir_resources/books.aspx

Here's the list for your convenience:
* Benjamin, Gerald A. and Margulis, Joel B., Angel Investing - How to Find and Invest in Private Equity, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

* Benjamin, Gerald A. and Margulis, Joel B., The Angel Investor's Handbook: How to Profit from Early-Stage Investing, New York: Bloomberg, 2001.

* Gompers, Paul and Lerner, Josh, The Venture Capital Cycle, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1999

* Hill, Brian E. and Power, Dee, Attracting Capital From Angels: How Their Money and Their Experience Can Help You Build a Successful Company, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 2002

* Keeley, Robert H., Cooper, Jeffrey M. and Bloomer, Gary D., Business Angels: A Guide to Private Investing, available from the Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, 1998.

* May, John and O'Halloran, Elizabeth F., State of the Art: An Executive Briefing on Cutting-Edge Practices in American Angel Investing, Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, University of Virginia, 2003.

* Moore, Karl and Coveney, Patrick, Business Angels: Securing Start Up Finance, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998

* Osnabrugge, Mark Van and Robinson, Robert J., Angel Investing: Matching Start-up Funds with Start-up Companies - The Guide for Entrepreneurs, Individual Investors, and Venture Capitalists, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.

* Simmons, Cal and May, John, Every Business Needs an Angel: Getting the Money You Need to Make Your Company Grow, Washington DC: Crown Business, 2001.

* Williams, Kelly, Working with Angel Investors for Community Development, New York: Community Development Venture Capital Alliance, 2003.

To the entrepreneur with the next idea that will change the world & make you a billionaire:
1) Read Every Business Needs an Angel (or better yet all of the above referenced books).
2) Contact me & send me your compelling executive summary!

NOTE: By compelling I mean that your executive summary is going to have me calling you before I finish reading it. Good luck to you all! (...)

Customer Rating:

Summary: an easy, accessible style that works
Comment: A really good intro to the inner works of angel investing, useful for angels and entrepreneurs alike. Focuses on angel groups (the author makes his living managing some large angel groups). A must read insider account if you're starting an angel group or, alternatively, are an entrepreneur looking for angel money. Don't read it for a definitive textbook on everything you need to know about business plan writing, making a equity deal etc. but invaluable nonetheless.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Light-hearted view of subject
Comment: This is a fun, easy-read on the subject of angel clubs - which are valuable but should not be confused with real individual angel investing. John and Cal's writing style is case-book and easy to read. This is a business book that makes you smile ... a little bit because the stories are fun ... and a little bit because there are a lot of not-so-happy stories that they don't tell you about. But being the perpetual optimist, I like reading about the nice stories.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Real Help for PhD's and MD's (with no MBA's)
Comment: "Every Business Needs an Angel" will become a treasured resource to scientists and scholars with great credentials and ideas but with little formal business background and training. It is an excellent travel guide for "intellectual property" company entrepreneurs who are represented by top tier lawyers and accountants but who also wish to acquire, on their own and in advance, an overall perspective and broad oriention to the entire fund raising process along with insight into what to expect and direction about how to behave.

May and Simmons provide an entertaining, fascinating-to-follow road map of the complete process of working with investors which will appeal especially to those who are uncomfortable when put into the position of accepting advice and direction from their professional advisors without some overall comprehension of the substance and scope of the territory which will be navigated together. This book is a first rate companion for what may initially appear to be a very bewildering journey.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Not a relastic take for investors
Comment: I have read several angel books as well as having spent 5 years running a large fund in the Valley, and I just don't feel that Cal and John have their views correct. The investment world has changed and those who can be to the point and have a good idea with good management have a shot. However, I hope for these folks that Cal and John are not on the other side of the table evaluating.

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Editorial Reviews:

What’s the biggest problem most entrepreneurs face? Raising money: Without cash, you can’t get a
business off the ground or keep it running.

However, many entrepreneurs have a problem. On one hand, the traditional sources of financing—family, friends, personal savings, the local bank—are often inadequate. On the other, the venture capitalists who have played such an important role in the high-tech industry are interested only in investing much higher sums than most entrepreneurs need.

Enter angels: a new type of investor looking to invest between $100,000 and $1,000,000 in a company. There are about three million angel investors, and there’s a huge market of entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs who want to learn how to attract angels’ interest—and their money.

John May and Cal Simmons are at the forefront of this trend. Not only do they have years of experience in advising, managing, and investing in early-stage companies, they are also the originators of The Dinner Club, a Washington, D.C.–based group of successful businesspeople who hear pitches by entrepreneurs seeking funding and then decide whether to invest their own or the club’s money in those entrepreneurial ideas.

Every Business Needs an Angel offers a fly-on-the-wall look at how angel investors evaluate new entrepreneurial ideas, and provides a wealth of practical advice and insight for the countless entrepreneurs seeking help in their quest to find investors for their businesses. The book covers all phases of the process of finding angels and persuading them to invest, drawing on many examples of real-world companies that have pitched angels successfully—as well as unsuccessfully. These entrepreneurs are in a broad range of industries—from high-technology companies to more traditional businesses as diverse as breweries and concierge services—some quite well-known, like Nantucket Nectars and Preview Travel, whose founders had their own guardian angels.

For entrepreneurs who need money and advice on how to find it, the authors offer enormous insight into this new breed of investor. As the title says, every business needs an angel; this book tells you how to find one.