The NZ Angel Association held its annual conference in Queenstown last week. It was a great chance to meet up with old friends, get the good goss on what’s going locally in other regions, and trade war stories hopefully learning to avoid painful mistakes others have made.
There were a few recurring themes from many of the talks:
- It’s all about people. When you invest in a company, you’re investing in a combination of ideas, resources, capacity to execute, and people. Of these, by far the most important is the people.
- Failure is a great teacher. We tend to underrate previous failure as an experience. No one starts a company with the intention of failing, but we should appreciate and seize the learning opportunities presenting by failure.
- The Kiwi Diaspora is ready and willing to help. Kiwis are everywhere, and most of the overseas speakers with Kiwi connections laboured the point that the Kiwi Expat Association (KEA), NZTE and others are generous with their connections and networks. You’re silly not to use them.
Stephen Tindall was presented with an Archangel Award, recognising his contributions to the angel space.
It was announced that Colin McKinnon has taken on the position of Executive Director of the Angel Association. Given that he spends the rest of his time as the Executive Director of the NZ Venture Capital and Private Equity association, hopefully he’ll be able to encourage follow-on investment for successful early stage companies.
Some choice quotes from the summit:
Alan McConnon (Upstart Angels)
The rule of Five: It always takes five times longer, five times as much money, and yields one-fifth of the expected rewards.
The five P’s of due diligence: People, Punters, Portion, Profitability, and Plan.
A good idea is only 20-30% of the value of a company.
Sir Eion Edgar (Sinclair Investments Limited)
Never do anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the papers.
My aim in life: To be sure that everyone owes me a favour
Jim Connor (Sand Hill Angels)
If you want a higher valuation, go get some customers
We love cheap penny-pinching entrepreneurs!
Don’t invest in R&D, only invest in execution.
Bridget Liddell (Fahrenheit Ventures)
NZ companies generally have surprisingly weak digital and internet marketing strategies
Large US companies have become incapable of growing, except by acquisition
All up, the summit was useful, although the ratio of angel investors to others was disappointingly low (my guess would be around the 50% mark); it would also be great to have more time to mingle in structured and unstructured settings. I might respectfully suggest that (for some people, anyway) lunchtime wine tastings are not the best way to get people to focus on key issues. That said, I’m glad I went and will be looking forward to next year’s summit.