All serious entrepreneurs should apply for Open Angel Forum

It’s been a while with our heads down at Team AppWhirl, with no time for blogging as we got the product out the door.  But there couldn’t be a better time to get back to blogging the startup than when reflecting on Friday night’s Open Angel Forum Silicon Valley.

As a regular listener to This Week In Startups, and as supporters of Jason Calacanis’ drive against pay-to-pitch (some would say exploitative) investment forums we have followed the Open Angel Forum.  We applied to present to the OAF Silicon Valley.  After being shortlisted we interviewed with Tyler and were accepted in.  It was a very efficient process and respectful of Founders’ time.  We were thrilled.



I think it’d be easy to underestimate what an undertaking Jason, Tyler and the team are embarking upon on behalf of all entrepreneurs, at the same time as running a Sequoia backed company and also delivering the entertaining and informative TWIST.  But to give my fellow entrepreneurs an idea - Tyler was up calling and emailing entrants at 2am the day following the submissions deadline.

The event itself was very smoothly run.  We got emailed instructions and tips from Tyler.  It was hosted in the home of a Woodside based investor and the venue was intimate enough for discussion while not being cramped.  The startups were great - I’d run into one (Mighty Meeting) previously.  Some very good pitches.

The angels were real - they included names-you-know (I don’t know if OAF releases names, so I won’t).

I got to meet Jason Calacanis who is pretty much as you’d expect from his show - he’s professional, courteous and comes across as a genuinely nice guy.  Met Dave McClure who so many of us follow for his great startup advice.  Finally got to connect with Chris Yeh in person.

You know when you’ve done a great pitch.  AppWhirl did an okay pitch, not great.  We had a demofail.  When we demo’d the product the simulator didn’t pull the live feeds - which at first we thought was a network problem but actually we’d introduced a bug making last minute changes that probably weren’t necessary so close to the pitch.  Still, ours is a very simple story - we are to apps what Blogger.com was to blogs or Geocities was to web pages; we’ve seen a steep ramp in usage and a flood of signups; we have a working product.  The room clearly got the gist of that.

The questions were solid for all pitches.  The audience seemed engaged and interested.  Genuinely there with open minds.

One of the biggest complaints that I hear from fellow entrepreneurs, and which I have myself, is that so many angel groups are merely sewing circles, social gatherings for gossip and networking.  There are some that I have seen which appear to be a complete waste of time.  Open Angel Forum is the antithesis of that.  This is where serious startups pitch serious investors.  That’s the bottom line.

Thanks to @jason and @steepdecline for bringing this to the community.