{"id":336,"date":"2011-04-27T11:36:11","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T11:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/2011\/04\/27\/ive_joined_launch_capital\/"},"modified":"2011-04-27T11:36:11","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T11:36:11","slug":"ive_joined_launch_capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/archives\/ive_joined_launch_capital.html","title":{"rendered":"I’ve Joined Launch Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"

To some of you, the news has been trickling out but now it’s time to do a real announcement: Yes, I’ve left the ranks of angel investing and joined Launch Capital<\/a>, a seed stage fund based out on the East Coast.
\nI met Launch Capital about 3 years ago when we both were invested in two Bay area startups. I got to know the managing director, Elon Boms, very well through the years. We found we had mutual agreement on investing philosophy and approach, and about a month ago, he offered me a job as West Coast Director of Operations, doing seed stage investing on the West coast where I am mostly based, but also covering internet-tech and mobile in NYC where I am often.
\nI am excited to see my career go in this direction. As an angel investor, I discovered that I loved working with startups and helping them and their products grow. Now, at Launch Capital, I could do more of the same but with more resources and under a prominent brand. While I enjoyed being an angel investor, I think that it is much more preferable investing in startups with the ability to bring more money, resources, and help to bear than just what I can bring individually.
\nIf there is anything I’ve learned from angel investing, it’s that angel investing is hard – easy to have fun, but hard to make money. As individuals, we can only bring so much to help except for those individuals with exceptional resources and backgrounds; the majority of us may have enough capital to invest but have limited capability to help beyond that capital. But now I can work with startups with the ability to bring more capital to bear than just my own quickly dwindling resources.
\nTo be totally open and frank, I hit that tough place being an angel investor: I’ve been actively investing for about 5 years now but the economic crash and lack of exits has made deployable cash harder to come by. I had contemplated potentially stopping angel investing for the time being until the opportunity at Launch Capital came along, for which I am eternally grateful so that I could continue to work with startups.
\nLikewise, I found angel investing to be sometimes a lonely place. I have worked with others in the past, but each of us, either angel or fund, had very individual reasons for investing (see my post Why I Hate Social Proof<\/a>). However, now, I am glad to be working with an experienced team of investors with a singular mission, all to invest smartly for Launch Capital. Over the last 4 weeks I have come to value their feedback and help on my deals, which has sharpened up my decision process greatly.
\nTo all you entrepreneurs: I look forward to working with you in my new capacity at Launch Capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To some of you, the news has been trickling out but now it’s time to do a real announcement: Yes, I’ve left the ranks of angel investing and joined Launch Capital, a seed stage fund based out on the East Coast. I met Launch Capital about 3 years ago when we both were invested in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-angel-investing-venture-funds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dshen.com\/blogs\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}