About our Guest Investor: Joe Milam is the Founder of AngelSpan, Inc., an Investor Relations Service for Startups, and the Legacy Fund’s ‘Venture Turnkey Asset Management Platform or V-TAMP, which is a division of AngelSpan.
AngelSpan leverages Joe’s almost 30-year career in financial services to address the last great inefficiency in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
We’re not covering straight-on investing this time, but rather, how transparency affects funding – how it does make a difference, exactly what it means for founders and investors – and how and why it makes investors more likely to write the check.
In 1993 he founded Legacy Capital Management, Inc., a fee-based RIA following the purchase of G.T. Investment Counsel from the Bank in Liechtenstein. Legacy was headquartered at 3000 Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. Managing both ‘old money’ and new – with clients from Sequoia Capital, Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati and Silicon Valley Bank, e.g., – gave Joe a unique perspective on both wealth preservation, wealth creation, and institutionally rigorous portfolio management. Having witnessed and participated in the birth of ‘modern’ angel investing, in 2000 Joe founded AngelSpan’s predecessor firm – Angel Legacy – to address the funding inefficiencies for early-stage companies.
About AngelSpan: AngelSpan provides best-in-class Investor Relations for early-stage companies. By using AngelSpan, startups receive business execution tracking to reveal the milestones driving the company toward success as well as potential roadblocks. Execution tracking is automatically integrated with our customers’ investor communications to create SMART IR. This structure provides a disciplined roadmap used to assess a startup’s operational execution across key value creation milestones throughout the startup lifecycle.
Post Event Summary
Are you looking for funding or thinking about starting a business that will need financing?
In last week’s Investor Insights event (formerly Breakfast with an Investor), we discussed the elephant in the room and everything that happened with #SVB. We then discussed a wide variety of topics including:
? How to professionally fund innovation
? Risk Management
? SEC rules and regulations
? Reporting best practices
? The role of boards (and why it matters who you put on those boards)
? How to read a company’s annual report (hint you should start at the back)
? Why following shiny objects is bad for business
? The role FOMO plays in how many startups get funded
? and of course, we dived into the value AngelSpan, Inc. brings to the startups who use their service.
As always our presenter then took questions from the attendees and shared a ton of information about how to report on your startup, what is important to report, and how to keep everyone on the same page and on track reporting on the business’ growth and success.
My personal takeaway was the importance of standardized transparency in the business. This then allows founders to focus on running the business and avoid falling into the traps of micromanagement, chasing shinny objects, and vanity KPIs.
If you run a VC fund or invest in startups, find some time to speak with Joe. You won’t be disappointed. One conversation might just make your portfolio companies that much stronger.
