Brian Cohen > Quotes

“According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Babson College and the London Business School), friends and family investing annually accounts for $50 to $75 billion in early stage capital in the United States. This is two to three times the amount of money invested annually by either angel investors or venture capitalists.”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“Example output:     Challenge Question 25: Top Territories Difficulty: Intermediate”
― Brian Cohen, Real SQL Queries: 50 Challenges

“The problem is, when are we ever satisfied?”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“Passion is an excellent guide for choosing hobbies but less so for choosing a business.”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“firstrate team with a second-rate idea will always outperform a second-rate team with a first-rate idea.”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“Seventy-five percent of success is predicted by your optimism level, your social support, and (perhaps most of all for entrepreneurs) your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat, according to Shawn Achor in a fabulous TED talk called “The Happy Secret to Better Work.”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“Burning bridges with one investor can cut off multiple sources because of their extensive networks.”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“Startups often make a fatal assumption when they attend presentations, business plan competitions, or demo days. They assume they are basically invisible until they take their place on the stage. Big mistake. The truth is, investors are observing you. We learn as much from watching your off-stage behavior as your canned presentation. Here’s a good way to go. Resolve that your formal presentation starts the moment team members leave their homes or offices and ends only when the last team member returns. At all other times, you are “on.” Assume the microphones are always on and someone has a camera phone on you at all times. Act like a disciplined team at all times. Watch what you say in the elevator or in the bathroom. You can’t believe the damaging stuff I’ve heard in bathrooms. Wait to debrief until you get back to the privacy of your office.”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“Depending on the circumstances, they will invest either in the form of a Convertible Note (but with a cap on valuation),”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“While some groups charge a fee for founders to make pitches, I don’t think entrepreneurs should be asked to pay anything. The angel investors are certainly rich enough and smart enough to get sponsors to offset any administrative costs.”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“Loans are easier than equity. I generally think that offering debt is better than offering equity. When you offer F&F members equity, they are legally your business partners. Do you really want Uncle Freddy as a business partner? It’s better to treat such investments as loans. But if your F&F members insist on equity, try to make it nonvoting stock, so they can’t insist on being consulted on every management decision.”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea

“We are now seeing angels outsourcing due diligence to entities they assume will do it better. In one case, the entity is Y Combinator, the elite accelerator. Yuri Milner’s DST Fund and Ron Conway’s SV Angel fund recently announced that they will invest in every single startup coming out of Y Combinator. The seed rounds will provide $150,000 to every single one of the 40 startups that wants it, without any due diligence on their own part whatsoever. The capital is in the form of convertible debt with no cap and no discount. The loan will convert when and if the startup raises a proper angel or VC capital round at the same valuation that’s set in the round. Most convertible debt has a valuation ceiling and also gets a discount on conversion. The angels are banking on the premise that Y Combinator, in vetting the startups it stewards, has performed satisfactory due diligence. Milner has effectively shut out any other angel investors by offering such attractive terms. It’s almost free money. I’d be surprised if any of the 40 startups in each Y Combinator class decline such an offer.”
― Brian Cohen, What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know (PB): An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion-Dollar Idea