I recently heard a pitch from a startup with remarkable technology – a genetically modified seed that signaled when it’s under stress. Instead of waiting for crops to wilt, farmers could respond early, boosting yields. The data was strong. The science worked. But despite all that, I walked away unconvinced that the company was investable.…

We looked at a company who had been more or less steady-state for several years but wanted an infusion of cash. They were operating in two smaller markets without fully capturing either of the two smaller, midwest cities, but were coming to investors asking for additional funds. The business was a local service company, where…

How incompetent patent attorneys hide their work product from public view. Occasionally, I run into patents where the patent attorney talks the client into a non-publication request. This is always a bad thing. Non-publication requests keep your patent secret until the patent has been examined. The patent is confidential throughout the examination process, and only…

Due diligence is supposed to help investors and the entrepreneurs, but many times it is a charade. I am a member of several angel investor groups, and I am intimately familiar with many more. In general, angel investor groups can be a positive force for good: they teach entrepreneurs and angels how the investing system…

Last time, we discussed the provisional patent application hoax perpetuated by patent attorneys. In this post, we look at the scam from the inventor/entrepreneur side. Many so-called inventors/entrepreneurs like to file their own provisional patent applications, then shop these to gullible angel investors, hoping that the angel investors will bite. The “inventor” is hoping that…

One of the greatest hoaxes in our industry is the notion that provisional patent applications are a good thing. They are not. I am always amazed how some hoaxes are told over and over to the point where people actually believe them. When they find out that the hoax was not true, their confidence is…

Riding on the back of the entrepreneur. Ever drive by a construction site and see dozens of “supervisors” standing around, while one guy with a shovel is actually working? This is the perfect metaphor for the angel investment community, with the energetic, hard-working entrepreneur is deep down in the hole furiously shoveling, and everyone else…

Serving two masters, and the enablement of investors. Some startups are the Endless Science Project. They start from a “cool” technological idea and work on endless science projects. They run one science project for a while, get tired of it, and move on to another one. Investors enable this to happen, and we, as investors,…