Apps That Matter, Angel Investing, and B2B Sales with Matt Wensing of Stormpulse

The stuff you guys went over at the end regarding Angels vs VCs and VC fund sizes vs target exit sizes was very concise. It took me a lot of reading to learn all that stuff over the past year or so, and there it is all in one go :)

Thanks again.

Thanks so much for putting this great podcast out with Patrick. I was just talking with my cofounders today and saying that, just like code, it's super helpful to have examples when trying to understand and make choices for your startup.

I'm an entrepreneur in Durham, NC. I've got a great team working hard on product and a growing list of gotta-have-it would-be users. We'll be raising seed capital soon and my question is about choosing your angels. I've met with a lot of investors who just don't get our business and I can confidently say we don't want their money. There are a few local angels who are really smart, though, love our idea and get that it is big. They've been advising us to stay away from "small fry" angels that they've seen kill other companies by trying to optimize fo the short term, safe vision. That said, I think there are enough smart ones for our round and definitely enough when we count silent ones.

So, questions:

- Tips on how to vet/chose angels? How did your sense of angels reflect their actual behavior?

- I'd really love to hear your advice on whether to try to pitch Valley (or elsewhere) angels even if we feel we can get the round done locally. I know it's so tied to who the investors are but it seems a time/money tradeoff with the possibility of getting talented smart investors from the Bay.

- Advice on terms, both on the gotta have em and definitely don't do this side? Seems like everyone has a story here and there seems to be a resurgence of advice to do a priced seed round over convertible notes.

I follow a few podcasts myself which do it week-in-and-week-out, and I'm jealous, but not jealous enough to make the podcast a higher priority than e.g. date night. Keith and I have been pretty busy since the podcast started. I got married, he and his wife had two children, etc. Our schedule is generally sort of at the mercy of "We both need availability" plus "We both need to have something fresh to talk about", and recently I find myself with very little to talk about that is both novel and appropriate for public consumption.

Basically, I want to know where producing a podcast ranks among the various ways to build a professional brand on the interwebs.

I know people who are pretty effective at having done it, but it isn't the primary reason people know who I am. (Blog, Internet commenting at places like HN, conference speeches, in my case.) I mostly do it because I enjoy doing it, and it gives me a built-in excuse to chat with smart people about interesting subjects while also teaching other folks, both of which are interesting to me.