The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and is recognized globally as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. He's a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and Linux Journal and frequently appears in other publications both online and in print. Additionally, Dave maintains four weblogs: The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, Ask Dave Taylor, Dave On Film, and GoFahterhood. Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, as well as active member of his community and busy single father to three children.

CWRU Professor seeks unaccredited angel investors

Have you directly invested in very early stage startup companies in the past? At the time, did you have a net worth of under a million dollars and earn less than $200,000 annually?

If so, Dr. Scott Shane, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University, is looking to interview you for a new book he's working on that aims to debunk many of the myths of angel investors and angel investing.

Here's an email message he sent me describing his project and what he seeks: If you'd like to contact him and possibly help with the book, you'll also find his email address below too.

Dr. Shane picks up the thread here...

By "unaccredited" I mean the SEC definition. That is, a person who earns less than $200,000 filing taxes as an individual or $300,000 filing taxes as a married couple AND who has a net worth of less than $1 million.

I'm writing a book on angel investing (to be published by Oxford University Press) that looks at the frequency of angel investing, the characteristics of angel investments, the activities of business angels etc...

There is, unfortunately, a lot of bad information out there about angel investing. For example, if you look at truly representative surveys of the population such as the Federal Reserve's survey of consumer finances or small business finances, the Kauffman New Firm Survey, or the Entrepreneurship in the United States Assessment, as well as administrative data (tax authority information from the various states on the usage of angel tax credits), you will see that approximately half of the people who make angel investments (personal investments in private companies that they do not own or operate and are not operated by a friend or family member). No one talks about these people. They just focus on accredited investors who are angels.

My goal is to interview about 15 of these people to add qualitative information to the chapter about unaccredited investors.

Because I did some focus groups with accredited angels for five of the Federal Reserve banks, I have the qualitative information that I need on the accredited angels.

Anything you can do to help would be much appreciated.

If you want to know more about what I research, see my web page.

http://wsomfaculty.cwru.edu/shane/

Regards,

Scott Shane
scott dot shane -at- case dot edu
A. Malachi Mixon III Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies
Department of Economics
Weatherhead School of Management
Case Western Reserve University

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