MIT's "Talk to an Angel" Panel

Last night I attended the MIT Enterprise Forum's "Talk to an Angel" panel discussion.  The talk was led by James Geshwiler of CommonAngels in Boston.  The panelists were John May, Chairman of the Angel Capital Association and Managing Partner of New Vantage Group in the DC-area, Cynthia Fisher of BioMed 20/20 Technologies, David Friend of online backup provider Carbonite, and Bob Greene of Contour Venture Partners.

Bob was the butt of many good-natured jabs since he was there wearing his hat as a current VC and former angel.  Quite a lot of time was spent differentiating between the two investment groups, though Bob suggested a more apt differentiator is institutional vs. individual money.  I think that point of view has some merit, as some of the larger angel groups seem to come closer to VC firms in how they operate, both before and after a deal.

Individual angels -- lone rangers as one panelist put it -- often get involved for more than pure financial interests, which is something that drives VC's as they have a fiduciary responsibility to their limted partners to maximize the ROI.

The entrepreneur panelists helped discuss the importance of good communication with all investors to ensure that expectations are shared and there are no surprises. 

Prior to the panel, there was a period for networking. Unfortunately, the rains disturbed the plans to mingle outside and instead everyone was crammed in to the foyer of the auditorium building, which could have used some air conditioning.  Nevertheless there were lots of smart, ambitious people milling around. 

In an interesting twist, the name badges were color coded to indicate who was an entrepreneur and who was an investor (or as one attendee put it to me before we had our badges -- "are you looking for money or do you have it?").  Another angel and I didn't understand this until about two-thirds of the way through the reception.  We were both having a hard time understanding why we seemed so popular (it isn't as though we were two cool-looking guys impressing people with our charm and good looks).  Finally, an entrepreneur explained the color coding to us and we understood why were watching people come up to us like moths to a flame.

Overall it was a useful and enjoyable event.  I look forward to similar ones from the MIT Enterprise Forum in the future.  (For those interested in seeing the discussion, I believe at some point the video of the event will be available online here.)

UPDATE: Samuel Chow offers his own summary of the event.