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As of July 2021, Marcia is currently the Chair of the board of the Angel Capital Association (ACA). She also founded and leads the Growing Women's Capital group within the ACA working to get more funding to women-led early stage companies. Prior to her role as chair she was the co-chair of the Marketing and Membership committee.
The ACA is a collective of accredited angel investors, North America's most prolific early-stage investment class. The association is the largest angel professional development organization in the world. ACA provides an insider perspective that can help an investor make smart investment decisions.
https://www.angelcapitalassociation.org
https://www.marciadawood.com
https://www.mindshiftcapital.com
https://www.marciadawood.com/the-angel-next-door-podcast
Listen in as groundbreaking leaders discuss what they have learned. Discover the books, podcasts, presentations, courses, research, articles and lessons that shaped their journey. Hosted by: Kevin Horek, Gregg Oldring, & Jon Larson.
Intro/Outro: Welcome to the learner.co show hosted by Kevin horic and his fellow learner co-founders listen in is groundbreaking leaders discuss what they've learned, discover the books, podcasts, presentations, courses, research articles, and lessons that shaped their journey to listen to past episodes and find links to all sources of learning mentioned. Visit learner.co that's learner with two L's dot co.
Kevin Horek: Welcome back to the learner.co show. Today we have Marsha Dogwood. She's angel investor podcast, or, well, she's really been in the venture capital space for a number of years now. I'm really excited to talk to her. I haven't talked to her in a number of years, and I'm curious to see what she's doing now, John and Greg, any thoughts before we can actually talk to her?
Jon Larson: Yeah, I'm excited in that. She's got a, a different perspective than our first two guests in the show. It just by virtue of being a woman. That's, I'm excited about that and she's also done a ton in helping and empowering women as entrepreneurs. There's gotta be a lot of things that she's learned along the way in that, which will be super interesting for sure. I'm excited to hear about that too, cause I think that's such a great cause a great thing to be able to get behind. There are so many women, so many talented people in this world that yeah. Can use more opportunity to take advantage of those skills. So I'm excited to hear that.
Gregg Oldring: Yeah, I've, I'm really interested in what she has to say. I'm interested in what she looks for in her investments. And, and as angel investor, that's definitely that's, that is different than our, some of our other guests. She has definitely a different, like, it seems to be a broad portfolio of companies that'd be interested to see what are the commonalities between them and what has she learned along the way and in, from investing in these companies.
Jon Larson: Yeah. As always, I'm always interested in the surprises, the things that you just wouldn't expect that somebody knows about. Those are always kind of fun too, to see what we wouldn't have guessed that she's learning about. Those are cool.
Kevin Horek: Cool. Well, on with the show, welcome back to the learner dot Kosho today. We have Marsha Dalwood, she's angel investor and chair of the angel capital association. Marsha, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Kevin. Yeah. I'm excited to have you on the show. You did my other show a number of years ago, and I've talked to you before and you've done an astronomical amount of stuff in the venture space and the space, but maybe before we get into that, let's get to know you better and start off with where you grew up.
Marcia Dawood: Sure. So I grew up in Pennsylvania. I lived there most of my life before I met my husband. We have now moved quite a ways around the country from Pittsburgh to New York, to Dallas, to San Francisco. Now we live in Charlotte, North Carolina. So it's been a whirlwind.
Kevin Horek: Nice. I've actually been to Charlotte. Like I didn't really know what to expect, but it was like so beautiful and like just, I don't know. I thought it was like really kind of, I felt like so relaxed and it just seemed like this chill, like beautiful place to live.
Marcia Dawood: It, it definitely is. It's a, you get the seasons, but not the snow. Yeah.
Kevin Horek: Oh, that's nice. Very cool. So you went to university. What did you take and why?
Marcia Dawood: Well, I went for a business degree just because I figured I would end up in working in some kind of business, which I did. I was a retail buyer for a while when I first got college. I worked for capital and education for several years.
Kevin Horek: Very cool. Walk us through your career, up until what you're doing today. Maybe just some highlights and learnings along the way, because you've done a ton of stuff.
Marcia Dawood: Well, I was lucky when I was at Kaplan. I ended up, even though I had, I think when I went back and looked at one point, I had the same basic three bosses the whole time I was working there at different times, but I had 13 different jobs. I think one of my bosses and I actually sat down one day and counted. Cause I started just in a, very entry level, right out of college kind of job. I was working in one location and then I ended up working in a regional job and then I got promoted into a national position. I think my learning from all of that is, you can really, you can move around in a big company and kind of reinvent yourself but it does help sometimes to actually leave a company and go to a different company. Nowadays we hear that a lot from the younger generation, oh, where my parents, it was more like, Hey, you better stay with a company until you get your watch at the end of the 50 years or whatever it is.
Marcia Dawood: In this case, I think it really, it can help you to move along and learn other skill sets. I started in sales and marketing and then I did that for many years, but then realized I really had some operational skills too. I moved over to that and that was really kind of what gave me the background that I needed in order to help early stage companies, which is what I do now.
Kevin Horek: Very cool. How did you get into the investment space? Then?
Marcia Dawood: Somebody invited me to angel investing meeting and I, my answer to the invitation was what's angel investing. I don't even know what that is. They started to kind of explain it, but then they were like, well, just come to the meeting and you'll see. I went and I just realized how much innovation and really cool things were happening. I was still living in my bubble of, one corporate company. I Stayed working in corporate for a while as I started to learn about angel investing, but then realized that I could make a lot of impact if I started to do this on a more regular basis. So I started working with different companies. About six years ago, I became a member of the board of the angel capital association. In July of 2021 is when I took over as the chair of the board.
Kevin Horek: Very cool. Congrats on that. That's huge. Thank you. What exactly does the angel capital association actually do?
Marcia Dawood: That is a good question. That's when I first heard about it, that's what I said, the angel combos. We are professionals, the professional society in the U S and we also have global members of angel investors. What we want to do is be the place that people come for, anything related to angel investing, but we're an association, we're a nonprofit. You don't come to, get money. It's not like entrepreneurs apply to the angel capital association, but it is the place where angels can learn where we network, where entrepreneurs can find out about different angel groups that are out there that they could potentially go in and contact. There's a lot of pillars that we have. We basically four pillars that we work with, education, data analytics, public policy, and our membership and marketing pillar. All of those things together really create the angel capital association, which is the place that if you're angel investor, you really want to be so that you can get to know your fellow angels, because at the angel stage, we're not like venture capitalists that have lots and lots of extra money to spend on analysts and all of these things, we have to rely on each other and find expertise within our own network.
Marcia Dawood: Especially if you're investing in something that's kind of a little more complicated.
Kevin Horek: Got, you know, that's actually really interesting. For people that maybe don't know and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems to maybe vary cash wise, depending on where you are geographically, but what does it actually mean to be angel investor and what accreditation or financial situation do you need to be, and then kind of fo what range do you typically invest in?
Marcia Dawood: Yeah, all good questions. The way that I explained it to people is the sec has a definition of what is required to make a, what we call private investment. People who go and invest into a stock like apple or something like that's on the public market. When we're talking about making an early stage investment in a company that's private and very small, that would be a private investment. We're making these investments, it's important to remember that people make, angels definitely write checks out of their own checkbooks. That's what makes us different from a venture capital firm, which they pool other people's money. And that's how they make investments. Angels, we have to kind of band together, use our expertise and the accredited investor definition. It basically says that you have to have $200,000 income, 300,000, if you are including your spouse or $1 million net worth minus your home.
Marcia Dawood: That's a definition that's kind of out there for the country to take in. Now, if though there is one other way that people who maybe don't meet that definition would, and we'd like to invest. There's something that got passed a couple of years ago called crowdfunding, and it's called reg CF. It's where for as little as a hundred dollars, you can go onto a platform. There are several platforms out there. We, funder Republic are two of them that I've used in the past. You can make an investment in a company for very little money. You, it's kind of literally the wisdom of the crowd is what kind of puts that all together and gets funding for a company.
Kevin Horek: Interesting. Okay. How are you guys actively trying to recruit new investors to be a part of your association?
Marcia Dawood: There's a couple of ways, we, our association makes, is made up a lot of groups. We have a lot of angel groups that are members of the angel capital association. We do have individual members as well. It is, I, I believe that it's important for people to realize that this is something that they can do according to the sec, which is the securities exchange commission of the United States. There are 16 million potential angel investors out there, meaning there are 16 million people that meet the accredited investor definition. However, the angel capital association only has 14,000 members. Right now of statistics that we've seen, and I think this is outdated. It could be a tiny bit higher than this, but basically about 300,000 angels are active in the U S so there's a huge discrepancy there of the amount of people that could be involved in the asset class, but just don't even realize that it exists.
Marcia Dawood: I talk to people the time and they say the same thing that I did back when I got invited to a meeting 10 years ago, which is what is angel investing. I don't even know what that is.
Kevin Horek: No, totally. That, that makes a lot of sense. Are there things that people learn or any resources that you could maybe suggest people look into or start actually reading or consuming to actually potentially decide if they want to become angel investor?
Marcia Dawood: Sure. I mean, there's tons of information. I mean, there are books out there that you could read, but probably the, one of the better things to do might be to one you could just Google, like angel investing in and then just list where you live and something will pop up. There's likely some type of an ecosystem in your own community. The whole reason that angels invest really, I mean, one of the big reasons is of course people like to get a financial return, but again, this is a very risky asset class, and I'm not giving any type of financial advice here. Definitely a disclaimer that always talk to your financial advisor, not don't listen to a podcast and make financial decisions. You could Google and go to your local and angel group and kind of find out more about it. There is, there are a couple of other places, if you want it to just learn and kind of really just dip your toe in the water with the crowdfunding that I talked about a couple of minutes ago, you could go to a place like Republic, a, an online VC that I like a lot is called our crowd.
Marcia Dawood: Ooh, our crowd. And then there's also funds out there. If you go to a fund called Portfolia, so it'd be like portfolio, but with an a, you can also learn, that's actually a learning platform where you can invest in a fund. You do have to be accredited, but you can invest in, you can also then be invited to a call as an investor every month where you get to see the different companies pitch, the fund could potentially invest in.
Kevin Horek: Interesting. No, that seems really cool. No, that's really good resources. I'm curious then to maybe dive deeper into some of the stats that you're seeing, you've mentioned some of this, and then I want to transition into, you've done a lot for women in tech and getting investments. Do you want to talk about that? People of color is, are things getting better or what do you see because you've been doing it for a number of years?
Marcia Dawood: Sure. So, I mean, the good news is that it is getting better. In some cases it's not getting worse, which I guess is a good thing. In a lot of cases, though, we are seeing it get better and I'll highlight a couple of things. First of all, there's a group called golden seeds. They have been investing in a women, led companies for probably close to 15 years now. They just put out a press release that they crossed over the $150 million mark of money that they've invested into women led companies. So that's a huge milestone. I think that's something to really be celebrated. As far as people of color, they have traditionally gotten less than 1% of all of the venture funding that's out there. The angel capital association does put out a report every year called the angel funders report. Our most recent report is going to be published at the end of this month, but just a little birdie told me that some of the data that is in there related to people of our founders of color getting funding has actually improved.
Marcia Dawood: That is something that is really great to see because what we're seeing out there is that there are great diverse teams that are doing things. There have been, there's been a lot of research in the past. On, I know, first round capital put out a report. I think it was about two years ago that had some really interesting statistics on how diverse teams really do create better results. They drive bigger revenues and they drive better profits. These are all great reasons to make sure that you have a lot of diversity in your team.
Kevin Horek: Nope. That makes a lot of sense. There something that like, people like myself can do? Like I'm been in tech for a number of years now, mostly on the design side, been in some startups, but is there anything that I could actually do or people listening could actually do to actually help?
Marcia Dawood: There's always things that can be done. I'm, when we talk about angel investing, it doesn't always have to be about money. I mean, most of the time that's what's happening or that's, that is what's being discussed because you think about, well, I'm not, if I'm an entrepreneur, I'm saying, Hey, I really need to get my business off the ground. I really need money, but you need other things too. You need advice, you need expertise, you need networks, you need somebody who can open a door for you. I just, here's a good example. I just had this happen the other day, there was a woman who I was explaining to her about this one particular company that one of my groups had invested in. She said, well, what, if they are interested in getting into target, I might have, an, a contact for them. At first I thought, well, I don't know that's the type of product that they would be looking to put in target.
Marcia Dawood: I was like, oh, well, let me ask the entrepreneur. Well, the entrepreneur was like, yes, I want this on tech. I mean, those types of things are really valuable, depending on the space and what kind of, product it is. If there's some level of expertise that's needed, like, I'll give you another example. I was asked several years ago to be on the board of a startup company. When I looked at what the start-up did, I thought to myself, I don't really know anything about that industry. I don't think I would be the best person. Went out and we looked for somebody who would fill that role. You're looking at boards and we could have a whole podcast just on that topic, but when you're looking at the board of Eddy startup company, their role is so critical because every step of the startup's life really goes to, Hey, what can we do as a board to make sure that this company is successful?
Marcia Dawood: Having the right balance of expertise is really important.
Kevin Horek: Interesting. No, I, I, a hundred percent agree. I think that makes a lot of sense. Do you have any advice for people that are actually looking to get some of that advice? Because sometimes it can be really scary to reach out to people, especially if you're new to being an entrepreneur and you want to start kind of cold reaching out to people.
Marcia Dawood: Absolutely. There's a saying out there that says, when you want advice, ask for money and when you want money, ask for advice. Okay. I get people who reach out to me on LinkedIn pretty regularly. I will tell you if they start the message with, Hey, I need $50,000. Can you give it to me? I have no idea who they are likely the answer is going to be no, cause I have no idea who you are. Most investors, especially early at the earliest of stages, they need to have a relationship or at least build a relationship with the entrepreneur. If you're an entrepreneur out there and you're thinking to yourself, wow, I have this great idea and something that I really want to work on, I would look for some advisors or just right off the bat that you could talk to, that you could kind of build of a relationship with leading up to when you would actually need to raise money.
Marcia Dawood: You want to be talking to investors way before you need money so that you can work on that relationship. And I'll give you an example. Mindshift capital where I'm a venture partner and we just invested in a company and the founder female, I got to know her in 2015 when I lived in New York city. I've stayed in touch with her all these years. Her company was pretty small at the beginning and it's grown. Now we are investors in her company, but I met her six years ago before we ever made an investment. I don't think that we would have necessarily made the investment if I hadn't had this long going relationship with her.
Kevin Horek: Part of is part of the reason, like obviously you guys stayed in touch, but is part of the reason you may be made that investment is because you watched her kind of grinded out those number of years or what made you actually put money into that as somebody that you've had a relationship with.
Marcia Dawood: Absolutely because we watched her grind it out. We watched her pivot in certain ways to make the company stronger, make it more scalable, really put the right team behind her, getting all the pieces in place. Sometimes when you're talking to an entrepreneur and the entrepreneur doesn't have all the pieces in place yet, and we totally get that and we understand. It's more a matter of how can we help you not just with money, but how can we help you to get the right people around you.
Kevin Horek: Makes sense. Do you have any advice for people that are looking to maybe go to angel at what stage or where should their company be at?
Marcia Dawood: So, as I said, I really think the earlier that you start conversations the better. For example, golden seeds that I mentioned before, they have this wonderful program called office hours, and you can just go onto their website@goldenseeds.com and click on their office hours and apply to see if you can get a slot. It doesn't cost anything. There's no obligation either way, but you can start to get some advice about your company and possibly meet angel or three that might, you might build a relationship with over time. In a lot of cases, because I was on the other side of that, I used to help with the office hours and talk to the entrepreneurs. I would be thinking, racking my brain, like what can I do to help this person? Or who can I introduce them to? Or what kind of guidance maybe do they not know about that I could give them so that they can really not waste a lot of time.
Marcia Dawood: I feel like, as an entrepreneur, your time is super precious because you're trying to build your company, which is like a 24 hour job. At the same time, you're trying to raise money, which is also a 24 hour jobs. It's really hard to do 2 24 hour jobs, but at this point you want to do something, so that you can start to really build your business. It really does mean saving time and getting to the people that you can really make a difference.
Kevin Horek: No, that makes a lot of sense. I'm curious then, is there anything that you've learned outside of being an investor or, the chair of the angel capital association that you actually have brought in back into your business life?
Marcia Dawood: Yes. I would say that anything that we can do to like duplicate ourselves, I guess, is the best way to put it. And here's what really jazzes me up. There's a group, angel group in Arizona that did some research of their own investing and they found, they figured out that over a 10-year period for every hundred thousand dollars that they invested, it produced 5.8 direct jobs, $450,000 in wages and 2.1 million in economic output. Imagine that imagine if there were more and more angels who were willing to put in time and money to some of these very early companies, imagine what kind of economic output that would do for really any type of area. I know. Often people think about investing or VC. The first thing that they think of is, oh, what, Silicon valley or New York, they don't think about the places like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, or Dallas, Texas, which is also kind of a bigger king, but how about Kansas city or even in Oklahoma?
Marcia Dawood: I mean, there are pods of, and pockets of tech and an amazing innovation that's happening in the medical space, all kinds of stuff. Imagine if people were investing in that level and pooling their resources, what kind of economic output that could mean for some of their small cities.
Kevin Horek: Interesting. Yeah. It seems to me well, and I'm curious to get your thoughts that actually getting a company off the ground these days has never been cheaper or easier. Is that fair to say? Or what are your thoughts around that?
Marcia Dawood: I would say that's true. I think it depends on the type of company angels tend to invest in tech, as we've mentioned in the other thing that they tend to invest in is like the life sciences or the healthcare space in that case, if you have a great idea, but it's a medical device or some type of a pharma that can be very capital intensive. Getting something like that started could be harder, but in some cases we see some amazing innovation happening in universities. If the ecosystem around that university, I'll use Pittsburgh as an example, they have Carnegie Mellon, incredible things are happening at the university. Because there's an ecosystem around them and some different angel groups, incubators, accelerators, and places that entrepreneurs can really start to put some structure around this innovation that they're creating, then they can, they could really do well. It could be easier than you think, even though it's never easy.
Kevin Horek: Sure. It sounds to me like geographic, where you live. I don't know. I think it used to matter a lot more. It doesn't seem to matter as much anymore. It sounds like you would agree that.
Marcia Dawood: Absolutely. COVID has completely moved it in that direction. Before COVID, you would have heard angel say things like if I can't drive there in the morning and be back home by dinner time, I don't want to invest in the company, but nowadays it's very different with everything being so remote and online and you can easily talk to people. Investments were still made in 2020 after COVID started. There were plenty of dollars invested without ever meeting the founder face-to-face and that before COVID was almost unheard of.
Kevin Horek: Interesting. It'll go back to how it was. Or do you think people will still do?
Marcia Dawood: I don't think it will ever go back to where it was. I mean, and that's just my humble opinion, but I don't think it will because people have realized just how much they can get done. I know I've talked to entrepreneurs who have said they had a, a more efficient, I shouldn't say an easier time because it's never easy to fundraise, but they had a more efficient fundraising strategy because they were able to talk to so many more people in a day than they could before when they had to have coffee meetings and they're having to travel and do all these things just to have investor meetings. Well now with zoom, they could just go back to back.
Kevin Horek: No, that makes a lot of sense. I'm curious to get other advice for entrepreneurs out there because you've obviously been on both sides. What advice do you give to people or what do you see people do all the time that you wish they didn't do?
Marcia Dawood: Well? I hate to see entrepreneurs waste time. We talked about that so I always encourage entrepreneurs to put together what it is that they want the investor to know, put it into a deck and then even like a two page document or a one-page document, but then also have a, like a frequently asked questions sheet because once you start to talk to investors or really anyone for that matter about your business, people are going to ask you questions. Usually they're asking you the same questions kind of over and over again. When it comes time to fundraise and you have to go into diligence and you're being asked a lot of due diligence questions, then you're really answering the same question over and over again. So save yourself some time, some energy. I always tell people too, and I don't see very many entrepreneurs doing this.
Marcia Dawood: So, please, any entrepreneur out there, take this idea and run with it if you'd like, but videotape yourself, explaining what your businesses don't make it like an hour, but we're talking like, seven, 10 minutes, whatever, five minutes, just about going over your deck, give your pitch. If you send out a five minute or even a three minute video to investors, I bet you they'd watch that before. They'd open the deck. Just some ideas, like little tips and tricks. Nowadays, everybody wants to devour content in like 90 seconds on a video. So give it to them that way. Maybe then you'll get their interest. And, and I, somebody sent me a video on LinkedIn and that maybe I'd watch that before they just say, give me 50 grand.
Kevin Horek: No, I think that's really good advice. There any books or courses or podcasts? I know you mentioned a few earlier, but is there any others that you'd recommend either to people that are looking to get into being an investor or entrepreneurs?
Marcia Dawood: Well, guy, Roz has a great podcast on how I built this and there's lots of learnings and every one of them about just building a business and things you should and shouldn't do. If you are seriously getting into fundraising for your company, Brad Feld wrote a book called venture deals. It is very dense with a lot of amazing information. I think the tagline under the title venture deals is everything your lawyer didn't tell you, but it is really helpful for an entrepreneur to know. I know it's very time consuming to have to learn it because this isn't something that entrepreneurs deal with usually every day, but knowing the terms and how they affect you, of what you're agreeing to when you do take in money from the outside is super important. Because if you start agreeing to terms and you don't really understand the implication, and let's say that your company is then quite successful, you could have given away a lot more of your company than you realize.
Kevin Horek: No, I think that's actually really good advice. You also recently started a podcast. What's the show called and who do you have as a guest?
Marcia Dawood: Yes. For the angel capital association, I started a podcast called the angel next door. We talk to people who became angels or how did they become angels and why did they become angels? It's little bit about demystifying, the whole idea of angel investing. There's of something for everyone, for investors and for entrepreneurs, because we give a lot of different tips and tricks on what kind of goes in or what kind of goes on in the mind of angel investor.
Kevin Horek: Very cool. Can you maybe share some of the things, if there's common things that you've heard from people that have become angel investors, maybe why they were hesitant at first and how they overcame it to actually become angel?
Marcia Dawood: Sure. Angels often tell me that they just don't know what they don't know. They get nervous. They say, oh, I just, I don't know if I should make that investment because it is just, it's too scary or I don't have all the information, but in a lot of cases, that's why we all band together like in groups. We do the things that we do when it comes to diligence, because we're trying to make sure that we do have a reason to invest. You can always find a reason not to invest. Always. You can always think of some reason why, what, I think this is kind of risky because guess what it is, but you want to find those reasons of why you are going to make an investment in company.
Kevin Horek: Interesting. Well, and that's basically what you guys are trying to do with the angel capital association, right? Like if I'm trying to invest in a company as angel and I need help, well, then I have a whole network of people across the country and beyond to potentially help me with that probably has maybe made investments in that space before, or maybe been in a similar situation. Is that fair to say,
Marcia Dawood: Absolutely. What, if somebody sent me a message and said, Hey, I'm a new angel investor and I'm looking at a deal. I don't know that I know everything I need to, can you help me? I would absolutely help them. I think all of the angels out there would do that. I mean, we want there to be more of us and so that we can help more companies. Cause it really does take a village. It's not, most angels can only make maybe one or two investments a year. They, you're not really, you can't use like all of your assets. Most angels only use maybe 5% of their net worth to invest in this asset class because it is risky. So, it's just a matter of finding the right investments that fit that particular angel.
Kevin Horek: Sure. There anything else that you've learned from interviewing a bunch of angels that you'd like to pass on to maybe demystify some of this stuff?
Marcia Dawood: I think the biggest thing that I've seen, especially at the beginning, this is actually kind of funny where, and almost every angel I've talked to says this, that when they first see companies and they've never really watched pitches or seen entrepreneurial companies before when the first couple that they see, they think everyone is fantastic. Like, oh my gosh, I have to write a check right now. They're so they're so fabulous because every entrepreneur out there is just so passionate and so incredible. It doesn't necessarily mean though that's the right, but that's the right investment for them, but it definitely is a place that you can go and be like, okay, I, this is really cool. I'm seeing a lot of innovation and I want to learn more. I always tell angels at the beginning, don't be writing checks for the first like couple months, like really take a look, get to know, see some more things, and then you can kind of dip your toe in the water.
Kevin Horek: Interesting. I think that's really good advice. There one thing or a few things that you see entrepreneurs do all the time when pitching, I know you said a couple of things, but there other things that you notice that you'd like to mention as well.
Marcia Dawood: Well, I think when it comes to pitching, it's important that entrepreneurs really get to the point of, and there's a couple key points that investors will want to look at, look for, but I've seen entrepreneurs take a whole lot of time explaining their solution. In some cases their solution might be in search of a bigger problem and it's not there. I always tell entrepreneurs, you really want to have a solution that is solving a big problem. You're going to get the interest of investors.
Kevin Horek: Interesting. Now I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm curious, is there certain, I know you kind of touched on it but is can basically people pitch angel when it's like a napkin idea or should they have a product built or, and I get, it's harder, especially if you're trying to build like a physical hardware device, but is there like a sweet spot or what are your thoughts around that?
Marcia Dawood: Well, I D I guess it depends on who you're pitching. I mean, if you're talking to somebody and you're trying to see if they will be an advisor or kind of help you to build your idea out, then you could be at the NEC napkin phase. If you're going in front of angel group, you have to have at least a pitch deck showing that you've thought through everything, you usually have to have some type of a prototype or working, whatever it is. You also should have done some very significant customer discovery to see who it is. That's actually going to buy your product because I've seen way too many times where an entrepreneur has a really great idea. Even the investors are like, that's a great idea, but if it isn't something that's sticky enough that will actually get people to buy it and pay money for it.
Marcia Dawood: Well then probably there, it's not going to do very well.
Kevin Horek: Yeah, Nope. That that's really good advice, but we're kind of coming to the end of the show. How about we close with mentioning where people can get more information about yourself, mind shift, the angel capital association, the podcast, then any other links you want to mention?
Marcia Dawood: You can find a lot of information, a lot on the angel capital associations website, which is simply angel capital association.org. There's a link on there to the podcast, the angel next door. You can find the podcast though at any of your regular podcasting places, apple, Spotify, Google, all those good places. I do have a website it's just Marsha dalewood.com. If you wanted to link up with me, you can look at that. Mindshift capital is just that mind shift capital.com. You can see all of the different companies and even apply for funding, especially if you are a female led company.
Kevin Horek: Perfect Marshall. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to be on the show. I look forward to keeping in touch with you and have a good rest of your day. Great. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Okay, bye.
Jon Larson: That was fantastic. That was great.
Gregg Oldring: No, it was really good. Actually. She was, it was a really interesting interview. I thought, because it was different. It was different than then the more focused on the big centers like silicone valley and she's more, she's taking a perspective of like, they're there, first of all, that there's 16 million angel investors out there. You never, you never hear it. You don't generally hear about that. Totally. Just know where hers focuses, there's good investments in Pittsburgh. There's good investments in Kansas city.
Kevin Horek: Well, the funny thing that I found interesting is Kansas city was the first area to get Google fiber or so they had a crazy boom of texting. I actually met the guy that ran the Kansas city startup, their whole like startup community. You were one of their major startup communities and it was all because Google fiber moved in there first. Right. So they had crazy internet speeds. Even where she lives in Charlotte and Durham, and that kind of whole area is like a huge tech hub that I had no idea about. Right. We all think about the valley or well Atlanta or New York or LA, but you're right. There's all these other places throughout that people may be rather live, right. Because either by choice or their friends and family lived there because, or they don't want to move to one of those big cities.
Kevin Horek: Right?
Gregg Oldring: Yeah. And, and in many ways it's better if there is investment there, because it helps develop those communities. Like not everybody can live in on the coast. So.
Kevin Horek: Totally.
Jon Larson: I loved how she focused on about time, how much that advice for people, which is, I think translates beyond just entrepreneurs, pitching things as well. I think it's just knowing when you're negotiating anything, I suppose just understanding the needs of the person that you're talking to and how much you can save time for both parties and how that helps move everything along. This is, that was fantastic. We particularly, of course, for startup entrepreneurs, that was really great. Yeah,
Kevin Horek: Totally. The thing I've found useful too, is even like finding inexpensive tools a month, that save you time. I always kind of thought years ago, I always sound like, I don't know if that's really worth it, but I think like as you become busier and you're managing, your family schedule and your, like your personal and business life kind of merged together, just having tools that even if they freeze you up like 30 minutes a day, you're like I'll pay $8 a month for that or 30 bucks a month for that or whatever the number is, right. If it's, if you can actually save you time,
Jon Larson: That time you can always make more money, you can't make more time. So that's a pretty valuable resource.
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