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Interview with Mike Napoli, Tech Coast Angels

socalTECH

Investors are very focused on diligence, on business models that make sense, and those companies that have a definite competitive advantage and defensibility to what they're doing. Mike Napoli: We've revised the way we review companies at the prescreening stage. The ideas and people seeking money are out there in quantity.

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6 Due Diligence Goals When Vetting Business Partners

Startup Professionals Musings

You need to do the due diligence to make that decision before you sign away your equity. As a former startup investor, I was often involved with due diligence on founders, and I felt that founders should do the same on co-founders, as well as investors. Start now, and you won’t have to look back later.

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Document Your MVP for a Developer

SoCal CTO

He is not a technical person, but is somewhat web savvy. Me : Product definition, use cases, feature list, wireframes, comps, really whatever you have. It's the same as when I've created financial models and then have it reviewed by a hard-core CFO, sophisticated investor or similar kind of expert. Founder : Ummm. Founder : Umm.

Develop 354
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Invest in Lines, not Dots

Both Sides of the Table

You’ll be able to give them an update on key hires, pilot customers, key tech innovations – whatever. Note that “performance&# on my chart is a loose term for my definition of perceived progress that can take the form of product, customer adoption, employees, investors, press or whatever. Quick coffees, whatever.

Invest 411
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Hiring a CTO for Your Startup

SoCal CTO

I'd suggest: Startup CTO or Developer , Startup Founder Developer Gap , Part-Time CTO , Technology Advisor , CTO Founder , Acting CTO. Interviewing them is also tough, especially if you are not yourself technical. Get a Technology Advisor that can help. This happens A LOT among technical people. This is a must.

CTO Hire 282
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A Seriously Great Story and Why We Funded Them

Both Sides of the Table

So this was definitely an introduction I was going to take. We did a full-court press led by Steven because once we decided this was the team we wanted to work with and this opportunity mapped to our belief system that content + tech will build a generation of great Internet companies. Tech Market Analysis Upfront Ventures'

Funding 373
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The Changing Structure of the VC Industry

Both Sides of the Table

When you think about the trends of faster-growing startups due to social networking, credit card enable and mobile first consumers – the reality is that many startups are becoming very large financially before needing to go public. From a technology perspective our journey is nowhere near over. 2007 was the watershed year.