Conference Presentation, Lectures, Fireside Chat
Startup Investor School Day 2 Live Stream
- Immediate event provisions include hot coffee, a plan to correct prior live stream issues, and potential Q&A sessions if time permits, with unanswered questions addressed in a follow-up article.
- Future event improvements involve utilizing Slack for all communications, hosting a spreadsheet on the website for cap table modeling, and evaluating community feedback to facilitate better networking, though specific changes to the current event version remain uncertain.
- Financial resources for attendees include wine and beer availability for networking on Thursday, with a promise that session slides and the live stream will be posted on the website within 24 hours after the event concludes.
- Dalton Caldwell identifies key criteria for optimal investment decisions, including defining budgets and decision-making criteria in advance, staging investments over time, and avoiding "groupthink" or fair-weather language that damages founder relationships.
- Specific behavioral risks noted by Caldwell include severe reputational damage from changing a committed "yes," disappearing during the process, or delaying fund transfers, which can lock investors out of rounds.
- Paul Buchheit plans to replace haphazard decisions with a checklist of founder traits, anticipates identifying patterns of outcomes, and expects the majority of ICOs to fail or be scams while "too much money" serves as a liability for startups.
- Buchheit expects determination to be the most critical founder quality, plans to outsource thinking to superior founders to assess belief in the idea, and anticipates companies raising follow-on funding 6 to 12 months after Demo Day.
- Michael Seibel characterizes angel investing as largely charitable, notes that the most hyped Demo Day investments are often not the best, and expects investors must write larger checks and streamline document signing to be financially effective.
- Additional expectations include the presenter learning how to be a better investor, Dalton Caldwell believing a simple process is sufficient to start investing, and Jeff anticipating the display of previous day's session slides.