Get Off Your Butt and Start Startuping

Seattle Angel Conference

This message is for those of you who are either

  1. “Stuck” in a great paying job at BigCo in the Seattle area (Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks, etc…)
  2. Living near Seattle & trying to figure out what to do with your life after “calling in rich”.

In either case, I’m guessing, you are:

  • Smart.
  • Love technology.
  • Have an entrepreneurial spirit.
  • Want to get involved in startups, but haven’t figured out how.

A group of us in the Seattle area has helped put together an event designed just for you.

Seattle-Angel-Conference-A-LogoThe Seattle Angel Conference is an investor-driven event bringing together startups and Angel Investors from the Northwest.

The Seattle Angel Conference is a structured investor-driven investment conference. Qualified Investors create an LLC, engage in due diligence in startups, and ultimately pool funds to invest in one of the presenting companies. The target structure used in other conferences of this nature, has an LLC formed with 40 SEC Qualified Investors (Angels) who contribute to a fund value of about $200,000. This is awarded as an investment in the winning company(s).

This format of a Angel Conference was pioneered by the Oregon Entrepreneur Network (OEN – http://www.oen.org)

The Seattle event will be held on May 31st, 2012

I’ve written about this before when the idea was first spawned. But here’s the summary:

  • Two tracks of people are involved:  Potential investors and early-stage startup entrepreneurs.
    • Each investor will commit to funding 1/40th of the investment fund (e.g. for $200,000 fund, each investor will commit $5000).
  • During the 8 weeks leading up to a grand gala event on May 31st these groups will go through a set of exercises together:
    • The potential Investors will learn all about angel investing (deal flow, due diligence, etc…) as they work to filter the startups.
    • The startups will gain mentorship and visibility.
  • At the gala event about 6 of the startups will be invited to pitch.
  • One of those startups will go home that night funded to the tune of up to $200,000, managed by an LLC created specifically to manage this investment on behalf of the investors.

I see you sitting there at your desk at Microsoft (or other BigCo) reading this. I know you are itching to get involved in startups but don’t really know how to get started. You are intrigued by the potential huge upside of angel investing, but are too smart to just pour money into something without really understanding it.

The Seattle Angel Conference is the answer you’ve been looking for: 

  • You must be a SEC Accredited investor.
  • It will only cost you $5500 (the amount, you as an investor, will commit to the fund, plus the program fees of $500).
  • In the absolute worse case, that $5500 will have bought you exposure to dozens of early stage startups in the Seattle area, great programs and training on what it takes to be a successful angel investor, and a fun night at a gala event.
  • But far more more likely you’ll own a piece of a startup that has a much better than normal chance of being successful. It will have been vetted and picked out of a crowd of others in the time leading up to the gala, and you will understand it’s people, model, and technology deeply because you will have participated.

Think of it as a relatively cheap way to ‘dip your toe in the water of angel investing’.

Sign up, it will be a lot of fun!

I’ll see you there.

 

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