Yesterday I attended and participated on the panel and judged the Tamil Entrepreneur Forum 2015 event. It was a gathering of about 200 folks from the Tamil community all over the US. This was the first time we had a pitch session and Lena Kanappan introduced the format as a way to support early stage entrepreneurs.

There were about 30-50 companies that applied and 8 of them were chosen to present at the forum. Here are their ideas. There were 3 winners, and I’d love your perspective on who you like.

1. ElVitae: A personal branding app and service that’s focused on being the next generation version of About.me. Their goal is to help individuals build their personal brand using the mobile phone alone and help them showcase their portfolio, successes and work beyond LinkedIn and Twitter. ElVitae was “Elevate your curriculum Vitae”

2. FixNix: Already successful in India, FixNix helps smaller businesses manage their Governance and Compliance during audits. Especially useful for regulated industries such as Banking, Healthcare, etc. which have compliance requirements, they have significant customers in large banks and Indian enterprises.

3. IandMyDoc: A ZocDoc clone for primary care physicians, I and My Doc helps you book appointments, schedule visitations, manage your vitals and keep track of your electronic medical records.

4. Indian Moms Connect: An online blog, eCommerce site, Subscription service and community for Indian moms in the US (and looking to expand in India). They problem they were trying to solve is that Indian moms have a lot of questions when they have their babies – and unlike in India where their mom or in-laws provide a lot of that advice, in the US they are unable to get that support. This was an online community to help them.

5. StoryTruck: NetFlix for Indian books and magazines. They want to go beyond just Indian books, but right now they primarily have licensed books and comics for Indian kids. They have over 1000’s of downloads and a working product with 2 book publishers on board. Their focus is on vernacular (native Indian language) content initially.

6. Sway: Mobile phone based budgeting for Millennials. This app is a new generation version of Mint, but with a lot more “fun” elements to help the millennial generation plan, manage and spend money wisely. Initial traction with several 100’s of users.

7. YumPlate: AirBbB for neighborhood food. If your neighbor is cooking something, they can post it on YumPlate and you could buy it from them. We had invested in a company called Imly before in India.

8. Zailoo: A price comparison app for car rides. The app helps you understand the cost of your Uber, Lyft or SideCar (and others) car ride from point A to B, before you get on the car. That way you can know and compare costs before your go on your ride. A month old and already featured on Product Hunt.

The founders were all pretty enthusiastic and had good early traction (most of them) to prove that their idea had merit.

Sway, Indian Moms Connect and FixNix were the 3 winners.

It has become quite fashionable to be an angel investor. The last 5 years has seen an increase in the number of registered angel investors on various platforms – from a mere 3000, we are at over 25K in the US alone. That begs the question – do we have more people who have become angel investors now, or are people richer, or did we always have them and we just found out about them now?

Many high net worth individuals would like to be angel investors, but just don’t have the inclination to do the heavy lifting that it requires to help entrepreneurs, source deals and find follow on investing. Most are also fairly conservative, especially if they have made money at a larger company and not been an entrepreneur before.

Here are key “leading indicator” questions that I ask before I try and syndicate deals with other angel investors, which might be useful for you to consider. YMMV.

1. Have they invested before in a startup? The best indicator of an investor is if they have invested before. The time to make the first investment for a newly minted rich individual is close to 21 months. So, if in your discussions with a potential investor, they have never invested before, it is highly unlikely they will. Angel list is a good source, but not comprehensive. I would simply ask them this question. Or ask them for their previous investments? What companies have they invested in before?
2. Do they come referred as an investor? The best network is still word-of-mouth. They best referrals for angel investors is typically not other investors, but entrepreneurs is what I have noticed. Even if an investor “passes” on an entrepreneur’s idea, I have found that if they have been respectful, consistent and fast in their communication, the entrepreneur will refer “relevant” deals to them.
3. Are they accredited? When an investor has over $1 Million in investment capital (exclude the capital in their primary residence), or if they can show they have over $250K in annual income, they can be accredited. I have found the best way to determine this is ask the investor for who their financial consultant or tax consultant is. People who have that much money have a person for both or either. If they don’t, the signal I get is they are rather unsophisticated in their approach to investing.
4. Are they involved and connected with the local startup ecosystem? Most interested angel investors are either mentors or advisers at local entrepreneur’s hot spots such as accelerators or co-working spaces. If they are not connected, it is likely they are not going to invest, since they don’t value the experience.
5. Do they understand key terms and nuances? An experienced or willing angel investor understand convertible notes, equity rounds, key milestones and other “insider” terms well enough to not have you explain it to them. If you are educating the investor about angel investing, you are better of looking for someone else to do that, while you focus on your company.

What other questions would you use to differentiate between a “real” and “wannabe” investor?

One of the most effective ways to get smart advice early is to get a trusted advisor. Most companies I know get up to 3 advisors on board with different competencies, skills and expertise. Typically you’d like one advisor who has entrepreneurial background for customer and investor introductions, one for go to market expertise and one for technology excellence.

Once you have selected and recruited your advisors, I’d highly recommend a scheduled cadence to meet and consult your advisors (early on, once a month is good). Typically, most startups will (if all goes according to plan, which it never does, but nonetheless) need a new set of advisors every 18-24 months. Most advisors are paid in equity. Your advisor’s main role is to give you confidence, but many help with their strategic thinking or insights as well.

In this post I am going to talk about market dynamics using an example to help share a concept that I think you need to get advice from an external person for.

Let’s say you are trying to build a mobile application that replaces Siri or Google Now. This has been attempted before by many folks, so it is not a new idea, but I am taking a crack at shaping and outlining the landscape for discussion.

This will be a “smart assistant” that allows consumers to get personalized recommendations for many of their daily questions based on observed patterns on their phone – including usage of other applications.

In this particular case, there are 5 major “interested parties” – the consumer, who wants personalized recommendations, and needs the service, the app developers who have the data, the app store and platform which control the experience, the phone manufacturer, who makes the phone and the mobile carrier who provides the service.

Even though the first pass suggests that you should build the consumer service, focus on acquiring users and then get the app developers on board, it turns out unless you have the data (either from the platform or from the 3^rd party app developers) you don’t have a valuable service.

Distribution might be easier for your product via the mobile carrier (if they choose to bundle it with the phones on their network) or even from the phone manufacturer, but unless you have many users, the carriers and the manufacturers don’t want to take a risk.

Consumers find that without their favorite applications (services) integrated into the platform, the assistant is of not much help.

So you realize it has to be the platform (Android, IoS, Windows phone, etc.) or the 3^rd party app provider.

Since most consumers are using their favorite apps – such as Yelp, Uber, etc. the data is proprietary to that 3^rd party app providers, who have little incentive to give you their “crown jewels”.

The best way to get the 3^rd party app developers is to find a way to give them value, so they get consumers more engaged with their app, or acquire new users or monetize better.

While you still have to get consumers after you get the 3^rd party app developers on board, that’s the “next problem” – the sequencing matters. Getting app developers quickly and the key (right ones, not anyone that will listen) ones is critical.

This is a good example of a market dynamic that typically you can get from an “insider”. Many of the seasoned investors will help you understand and navigate this landscape as well.

I would highly recommend you talk to potential advisors and help outline the problem statement so they can give you their perspective before you sign them up as an advisor. That way, you are able to gauge their expertise and understanding of strategy as well.

What do you think about this landscape? How would you analyze this better or differently?

Peter Sampras wrote a letter to his younger self. Great read.

“There will be times when you wake up in the middle of the night before a match craving crazy things like hamburgers and pizza. It’s because your body is missing something.”

“One day, everyone will be a nutrition freak. Be ahead of that curve.”

“Play hard, do it on your own terms and stay true to yourself. Do that, and you can’t go wrong.”

“It’s the people in your life — people like Tim — that will shape you. Appreciate them.”