Joe Milam talks about Angelspan

Joe Milam talks about Angelspan

Where are you from originally?                    

Granite Bay, CA

What university did you go to?                     

CSU Chico

What brought you to Austin?                                    

My kids

What is your group’s mission?                    

To bridge the communication gap between angel investors and entrepreneurs.

What need does it fulfill?                            

The need for angels to have more transparency in the operations of the start up (so they can help more efficiently), and to facilitate financing for the start ups.

What exactly does it bring to startups?      

With little effort on their part the entrepreneur can have confidence in a tool and disciplined structure to communicate with their Stakeholders and Angels.  We provide professionally prepared Monthly Stakeholder/Investor Updates and robust Quarterly Reports.

What type of startup would benefit from your group?

Any start-up that is preparing for their initial financing, that already has investors, and especially those looking to raise another round from angels.

                                               

What was the most challenging aspect of starting up the initiative?

AngelSpan is co-founded by me and my colleague in CA.  She is the ‘creative genius’ of our group.  Working remotely and virtual as a lean start-up has its own benefits.  Most of our challenges relate to our structure.

What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?

Don’t overlook the importance of communication.  While well intended, very few entrepreneurs communicate consistently with their stakeholders.  It is not a natural skill for entrepreneurs, they are time constrained, often times fall behind, and find it difficult to re-start communication.

We are certain over the next couple of years, the financing would (angel groups, v.c., etc.) will require a service like ours prior to funding. 

What Austin-based resource have you found to be the most helpful and why?

Kyle Cox at ATI, Paul O’Brien and Andrew Tull have all been helpful in plugging me in to the entrepreneurial ecosystem - I’m relatively new to Austin.  I can’t overlook the encouragement from Isaac Barchas at ATI for encouraging me to re-start a similar company I had launched back in 2000.