Angel Invest Boston

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join Artist K. Woodman-Maynard discusses her gorgeous graphic novel interpretation of The Great Gatsby, the business of being a graphic artist and other engrossing matters. A delightfully different interview with a charming guest. Highlights include: Sal Introduces K. Woodman-Maynard, Creator of The Great Gatsby Graphic Novel “Color is gorgeous. The drawings are extremely expressive and interesting… the style of the period is displayed.” “…I think it's a good way to get people who might not otherwise read The Great Gatsby, the prose book, interested.” Cashflow from a Graphic Novel Is Inconsistent – Good to Have Steady Income from Graphic Design “…it was very painful for me to cut out specific lines, because I love those lines.” “I'm in complete agreement that you shouldn't dismiss somebody's whole life's work just based on certain philosophies. It's a balance.” “…it started by a very intense deep reading of the text…” “The whole book took about 1500 hours.

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join Founder and revenue consultant Nick Zeckets and I discussed his first startup and what he learned from it. Then we talked about the best ways for startups to build revenues. Instructive and inspiring. Highlights include: Sal Introduces Nick Zeckets, Founder & Revenue Consultant What Quadwrangle Does "What is already out there that I can make better? I don't want to replace it, at least not on day one." “…first and foremost, and I heard it 1,000 times and I never really got it, but it was to fall in love with the problem and not the solution.” “The sales process was there… the product wasn't ready.” “Oftentimes, it's just like any good advisor, it's just asking some really concrete questions.” “Because everything's a referral economy at this point.” “Her trick was that she was the most methodical person you could imagine… Bottom line was that she had a sales process.” “…the founder's out there doing the selling. The founder is the one picking up th

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join Kristen Overly works as management consultant and is a leader at MIT Life Science Angels. Kristen and I discussed various aspects of the funding of life science startups. She, like me, is intrigued by the opportunities in what Jeff Behrens called the scrappy biotechs in his doctoral thesis. Highlights include: Sal Daher Introduces Kristen Overly of MIT Life Science Angels & Back Bay Advisors “…MITLifeSciAngels.com. And we look for companies that have some sort of affiliation with MIT, whether that's a founder or a board member or maybe a scientific founder or maybe the technology came out of MIT.” “Who's invited to the [MIT Life Science Angels] meetings as potential investors?” “…. I remember it was kind of in the beginning times of Rubius Therapeutics because that was a similar-ish platform play to Remora.” “I suspect he had a hard time raising money, not having had a Ph.D. He's a brilliant guy, he could have done it but in the life sciences, it'

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join RockStep Solutions improves efficiency by 70% according to one client. This is why the startup is getting word of mouth traffic from clients running in vivo drug trials. Founders Chuck Donnelly and Julie Morrison tell their story and share valuable wisdom about this intersection of software and bio. Highlights include: Sal Daher Introduces Chuck Donnelly and Julie Morrison, the Founders of RockStep Solutions RockStep Provides a SaaS Solution for a Sector of the Drug Discovery Space That Is Poorly Served by Existing Vendors “The problem that we're solving is data chaos in drug discovery.” “…we have one of our customers that's projecting a 70% efficiency gain.” “We bring value to the pharmaceutical companies by speeding up that pipeline, reducing the number of errors that happen.” “While I was at Jackson Lab… We recognized that there was this gap, if you will, that we just talked about. The NIH actually funded us.” “One full day of my work week was desi

Join Sal's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join Launchpad, Boston’s leading angel group, has published a polished collection of stories that illustrate the success and failure of their portfolio companies over two decades. It is titled “The Entrepreneur’s Journey”. Listen to my interview of authors Ham Lord, Christopher Mirabile and Joe Mandato to learn more about this valuable resource for angels and founders. Highlights from the interview: Peter Fasse of Fish & Richardson Sponsors the Angel Invest Boston Podcast Boston’s Answer to The Three Tenors, The Three Super-Angels “…back in 2012, started working with some of the members within Launchpad to understand why some of our companies succeeded and why some of them failed.” “But there was something about that team that we just couldn't disengage.” “…it was one of these software purchases ... unlike a lot of enterprise software ... that immediately paid for itself.” “…if we had looked at Mobius and said, "No, hardware company, we're not investing," we

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join The collaboration of Ham Lord and Christopher Mirabile, two of Boston’s most consequential super angels, is widely admired. Its most visible fruit is the success of Launchpad Venture Group, which they manage together. In the relaunch of this revealing interview, they let us in on how this winning collaboration came to be and what keeps it productive as it approaches the end of its first decade. Christopher Mirabile and Ham Lord are already familiar to our listeners.  Each has been interviewed individually on earlier episodes of the Angel Invest Boston Podcast. In the current episode, the two different personalities interact and give us a glimpse into what drives their working relationship. Click here to read the full episode transcript. TOPICS COVERED INCLUDE: Christopher & Ham’s Remarkable Collaboration How They Connected Division of Labor Lucky to Have Jody Collier as Operations Manager Complementary Skills & Creative Tension What They Enjoy in W

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join Repeat biotech founder and angel investor Patrick Rivelli talks about his career and about how to approach the daunting challenge of investing in biotech as an angel.  Family considerations drove several of Patrick Rivelli’s career choices but did not prevent him from having brilliant triumphs. Success as a consultant was followed by success as an executive. This led him to found his first company and to fund another startup. The most eloquent evidence of his achievements was exiting two biotech startups in eleven years. If you are a seasoned biotech investor, I’m sure that grabbed your attention. Patrick was also instrumental in founding MIT Angels of the Bay Area and now leads the life science track at MIT Angels in Boston. I learned a lot from this fun chat with Patrick. I hope it will be entertaining and instructive for you as well. Note: When Sal talked about biotech booming circa 1996 he actually meant to say the internet. Biotech was still a backwa

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join Expert Dojo is the international accelerator based in Southern California. Founder Brian Mahon and team look for great founders with profitable businesses that can grow. Brian’s a delightfully articulate guest. Don’t miss this outstanding interview. Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Brian Mahon of Expert Dojo, the International Accelerator in Southern California “…we’ll invest as easily and as happily in Boston, as we will do in Bosnia…” “…we wanted to be able to give ordinary people the ability to be able to grow extraordinary companies…” “Actually, we have 70 investments in our companies now. Being part of that journey and watching them while they're at that stage is just absolutely beautiful…” “…I'm over in our location, which is 10,000 square-foot facility on top of the mall in Santa Monica…” “It cost me money. So, I'm not falling for it again.” “…we copy the people who I don't necessarily admire what they do, but I admire how they acquire users.” AdLau

Join Sal's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join Ed Belove is a very active angel investor. He's a successful founder in software and hardware. Just a very thoughtful person. Very, very smart, very observant, very committed. Founders would be very lucky to have Ed Belove in their corner. I really enjoyed this interview, which I recorded in the first season of the podcast. And it is a very, very meaty interview. Full of interesting stories. For example, helping build Lotus with Mitch Kapor and all sorts of other things. So, it's a little bit of history of the software industry. A lot of wisdom about building a company and an introduction to just a tremendous, tremendous angel investor and person. I highly recommend the conversation with Ed Belove. As an undergrad at Harvard, Ed Belove hung out with people at the campus radio station that liked to play with computers. This eventually led to a brilliant career that included building software products with the visionary Mitch Kapor at Lotus Development. Ed co-found

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join SQZ's successful IPO validates the vision laid out by Armon Sharei, PhD in this interview recorded two years ago. In accessible language, this genius founder explains the approach that has big strategic players excited. SQZ is the model I have in mind when I invest in biotech companies. Find out why.  Armon Sharei wants to train our immune system to fight cancer. We hear a lot of claims like this, however when a mega-pharmaceutical company like Roche inks a $500 million deal to work on it, we pay attention. At age 29, Armon convinced not only Roche but gimlet-eyed VCs to back him. How did he do this? How did he go from a boy living in Iran to being one of the stars of MIT’s storied Langer Lab? Part of Armon’s secret is the ability to explain thickly complex ideas in accessible language that does not over simplify. He is that rarest of creatures, a scientist of the first rank who speaks lucidly and acts practically. I am grateful that Armon took time ou

The disrupted life of refugees keeps them from having good medical records. Med student Senan Ebrahim decided to do something about it and succeeded. Listen to the story of Hikma Health and of its promising founder. Senan Ebrahim grew up in Silicon Valley but he experienced the Syrian refugee crisis via his grandmother. When he became interested in the problem of refugee health his initial solution was laughably unsuited to real life. Contact with health care workers serving the refugee population allowed Senan to zero in on a high-impact solution that is now serving 50,000 displaced people and is set to grow. 

There's no guest quite like Beth Marcus. She's founded a bunch of companies and has learned tons from it. I recommend this interview to founders and those who are thinking about becoming founders.  

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join Purdue wants to be Startup U. They are already the #3 university in the US for producing startups, right behind MIT and Columbia. One of my favorite companies, Savran Technologies, came out of Purdue.  I spoke with Wade Lange of Purdue Foundry, responsible for promoting startups at Purdue. Several interesting Purdue startups were discussed. Highlights: Sal Daher Welcomes Listeners and Introduces Wade Lange from Purdue Foundry Wade Lange Was Introduced by Çağrı Savran of “One Cell in a Billion” Fame On Savran Tech: “It's a promising technology. I mean, it's all about capturing really, really rare cells.” Purdue, being a Land Grant College Combines and Excellent School of Agriculture with a Top Engineering Program “…good news for Purdue. We were ranked number three in the country in the number of startup companies in the period of 2008 to 2018 behind your own MIT and Columbia…” “We called it Firestarter, it's a nine week-long program, pretty intense, but it

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join Jeff Behren's doctoral dissertation suggests that life science startups are not funded the way we all think. Listen to our discussion of his work and learn why he believes we have to revise what is taught to founders about raising money. Highlights: Sal Daher Welcomes Jeff Behrens Back on the Podcast to Discuss His Findings on Biotech Funding “We published papers. We had a world class SAB, and ultimately, we sold these drugs. So, during that, you'd think, "Well, we should be able to raise venture capital." We never could.” The Conventional Wisdom about How Life Science Startups Are Funded Casma Therapeutics as an Example of a Startup Born Inside a Venture Firm “There was no Lisa and Joe… There [was] no outside founders. This was born inside the venture firm.” Jeff’s Research Result: Only 8% of All Startups Follow Path of Angel Funding Then VC Funding Jeff’s Research Result: For Biotech Startups, 4.5% of those that Started with Angel Money Got VC Funding “S

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join Mortgage origination is a massive business deeply stuck in the past. Proof: in 2020 it still takes an average of 45 days to approve a mortgage. Israeli founder Eilon Shalev and his buddies from MIT Sloan School aim to change all that with their startup Elphi. Highlights: Sal Daher Welcomes Listeners & Introduces Eilon Shalev of Elphi What Elphi Does The Non-Linearity of Mortgage Applications Is a Huge Problem – Average Time to Approval: 45 Days “We have a paying customer and the software is live today with that lender. That lender is a non-depository mortgage lender, which means it is not a bank.” The Current State of the Mortgage Origination Business A Shout out to Sonal Singh of Spatio Metrics for Connecting Sal Daher and Eilon Shalev The Founding Story of Elphi Why University Tuition Is So Astronomically High How Eilon Shalev Shifted His Focus from Student Financing to Mortgages “I was obligated to just try to choose the most problematic problem I c

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join Tech VC Matt Fates of Ascent Venture Partners talks about his portfolio and his investing career and ponders becoming more active as an angel investor. A frank and informative conversation with a delightful guest. Highlights: Sal Daher Welcomes Listeners & Introduces Matt Fates, Venture Capitalist Matt Fate’s VC Portfolio: Connected2Fiber “The power of connectivity is becoming strategic again as most of your software applications reside outside of your four walls. The need for this intelligence, the need for this data has just become absolutely mission critical for that industry. So, they're growing rapidly.” Vee24 “I would say Vee24 is really that next level of very professional interaction…” Augmented Reality (AR) as a Tool for Online Engagement Matt Fates’ and Sal Daher’s Investment in Streamroot The VC Industry Is Focusing on Fewer & Bigger Deals – Leaving Many Interesting Companies Behind Finding the Holy Grail Sal Daher Makes a Pitch for His

Join Sal's Investment Syndicate: Click Here Unlike software startups that can scale with minimal resources, biotech startups need frequently to rely on collaborations with big strategic players to get to scale. This is an interview with one of the top attorneys in arranging such deals, David Glazer of Morgan Lewis. I learned much from David; I hope you will too. Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces David Glazer of Morgan Lewis, the Biotech Deal Wiz Why Collaborations with Strategic Partners Are So Necessary for Biotech Startups Sal Connected with David by Courtesy of Armon Sharei of SQZ Biotech; David Advised SQZ on the $1.3 Billion Roche Deal Collaborations May Last Ten or Twenty Year; Picking the Right Partner is Crucial A Strategic Partner Can Be Immensely Valuable with Dealing with the Complexities & Cost of Getting a Compound of Technology to Market Strategics Offer Clinical, Regulatory & Commercial Expertise Startups Lack “You got one partner signed up and then the dominoes start to fall, it provid

Join Sal's Investment Syndicate: Click Here As a venture capitalist Fred Bamber helped build such successful companies as Interleaf, Q1 Labs and Volt Server. Now working as an angel investor Fred is invested such exciting companies as SQZ Biotech, Pixability, ViralGains and Streamroot (exited). In his self-effacing and modest way, Fred reveals deep wisdom gained from 75 investments in his career as a VC.  Topics include: Fred Bamber Finds His Career Path  Avoiding the Military Draft Led Him to Work for His First Startup Fred Bamber & Friend Found a Venture Fund – Consulting vs. Venture Capital IPOs Then & Now Investment in Interleaf Makes His First Fund a Success! Two Ways of Connecting in the World of Venture Capital – Via Success & Via Failure Several Losing Investments in Companies Seeking to Exploit the Piezoelectric Effect Themes In Angel Investing – Investing in Brand New Fields i.e. White Spaces  ‘…Oracle has a huge go-to-market cost, and engineering is a tiny bit of it.’  Technology Causi