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Q&A with PowerInbox CEO: What I Learned from AngelList, Startup Tips & Tricks


angellist

This summer AngelList took Boston startups by storm. We were constantly hearing success stories and questions on how to get on the site and more importantly how to raise money on it. For those that don’t know, AngelList is an online community of startups and investors [read: Facebook for deal makers]. The site has funded quite a few local startups and will continue to be a driving force for seed and series A rounds here in Boston.

However, as any startup CEO will tell you, raising money is not easy. There is no exact way to do it and every situation is different. AngelList is unique because it attempts to level the playing field for startups. But in talking with a few investors there are clear ways in which you can stand out on AngelList.

What are those clear ways?

We have teamed up with Atlas Venture to bring AngelList founder Babak Nivi to Boston to get the inside scoop on the site and find out how to make the most of AngelList. The event will take place on Friday October 21st at from 5:30pm – 7:30pm at Atlas Venture. Free beers and food will be provided to all guests. More information on the event can be found here.

Because we have had a huge interest in the event we are currently sold out. However, the best two comments below will win tickets to the event. If you cannot make the event, you can still have your questions answered by using the hashtag #ALunplugged or commenting on this piece. We will include all questions in the full event recap after the event.

In hopes of providing some awesome AngelList insight today, I have also spoken with Matt Thazhom CEO of PowerInbox who recently raised  money on AngelList. Check out what he had to say and some tips and tricks he used to raise money.

BI: How long did it take to raise your seed round?

MT: We got our first commitment within a week of posting on AngelList. It then took about 3 months to get to our first closing. We then focused on launching the product. After launch, we focused on the second close and that took about a month.

BI: How many folks participated in it?

MT: 27 (a few VCs and a number of angels, mostly from Boston)

BI: How did you generate interest on AngelList?

MT: Couple of ways:

  • A great referral to AL – Rob Scoble did a video on us at his home back in Feb (http://scobleizer.com/2011/02/26/first-look-powerinboxs-new-email-platform-ma... and right after recording the video he offered to refer us on AngelList. Thanks Rob!
  • If you have any activity on AL, they send out an update on your startup at the end of the week. We took advantage of that by continuously updating our profile every Thursday so that we would show up in the update emails
  • When an investor wired in the funds, we immediately added them to our AL profile. The reason is that AL sends out an email to all the followers of that investor. So that’s a way to get exposure in between the weekly update emails.

BI: Did you have a specific strategy for approaching investors on AngelList?

MT: For the first closing, our goal was to have the bulk of the funds from VCs. Here’s why:

  • It’s easier to get Angels to fill out the round if you have VCs already in the round.
  • If you have agreed on terms with your lead VC, then there is no back and forth on terms when an Angel comes on board.

So in terms of strategy, we worked with our VCs to get larger commitments with a shared goal of doing the first close as soon as possible so that we could get back to launching the product. Once the VCs were on board, they recommended us to angels in their network who filled out the rest of the first close.

For the second closing, our goal was to have as many Boston angels in the round as possible. The reason was that we had just moved to Boston and since we were new to town, we wanted to build as much local support as possible. So in terms of strategy, I used AngelList’s investor search (http://angel.co/people) to find the most active Boston based angels. Jon Pierce had another list that I also used (http://blog.jonpierce.com/post/520863618/bostons-best-angel-investors)

AngelList has a great profile page for each investor (http://angel.co/jfagnan) with links to Linkedin, Twitter etc. I used those services to figure out who in my fledgling Boston network knew the angels I wanted intros to. I then broke the list into manageable chunks and reached out to my network.

A word of thanks to some of the the folks who helped with the intros: Jeff Fagnan and Dustin Dolginow at Atlas Ventures, Jim Savage and Ahmad Jivraj at Longworth Ventures, Trevor Kienzle at Correlation Ventures, Chris Lynch, Joe Caruso, Jonah Lupton, Eric Groves and Alex Fries.

BI: What advice would you offer other entrepreneurs, tips, tricks?

MT: What worked for me is to find a problem that I had to fix because it bothered me everyday. Then don’t give up until it’s fixed. Startups fail because they give up or run out of money. These days it’s usually reason #1. But if you are building something that you want to use everyday, it makes it harder to give up.

When I quit to start PowerInbox, my wife was pregnant with our baby. I then spent 18 months without any income building the team and product before we got funding. What kept me going was:

1. How much I hated the email status quo. Apps in all email is something I want to use as a consumer.
2. The cool product we were building and using everyday. It felt like we were seeing a glimpse of the future.
3. A very supportive family (my wife and baby Alex, my parents, my brother and my uncle)

BI: If you had to go back what would you have done differently?

MT: I would get the MVP done as quickly as possible and then head straight to AngelList

BI: Do you plan on raising money again on AngelList?

MT: Yes, but not anytime soon.