Skype: littweb
Ben Littauer can be an opinionated fellow. Here he shares some of those opinions for discussion.
There used to be a tech section on the site that has largely become obsolete. For history’s sake, it is preserved here.
Looking ahead to 2023
As we have entered the third quarter of 2022, I’m looking forward to what lies ahead for me as an angel investor. I joined TBD Angels last year, and am proud to be counted among more than 250 active investors nationwide. I’ve already made several investments through the platform, and I’ve been very impressed with the process and the quality of my colleagues there. …
Angel Investing 2021-22 Recap
For all the years I’ve been angel investing and talking about it (see Speaking Gigs), I’ve been saying that as an angel, I don’t have to have a “thesis.” My portfolio reflects this lack of focus, as one can easliy see.
For the past several years I have been concentrating my efforts on Revenue-Based Financing (RBF). …
A Long Story That Leads Back To Entrepreneurship
Bear with me, please, as I take you on a youtube journey…
I’m a sailing geek. I met my wife back these four decades ago when I was her sailing instructor, in a program co-sponsored by the Ithaca YMCA and Cornell Physics grad students (!). The classroom sessions, as you might imagine, involved vectors.
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Building Funding Tributaries
The Black Lives Matter movement has brought to the fore the inequities ingrained in our society. In my field of investment, it is a long term problem. While we’ve made some progress in funding more companies led by women, people of color, or other disenfranchised entrepreneurs, it has been slow, and it’s still an uphill battle. …
RBF 2020-bis + COVID-19
There seems to be momentum building around Revenue-Based Financing. Everywhere I turn there are more investors thinking about, or actually using, some RBF Structure. I will say more about RBF in a moment, but fist a couple of words about the current COVID-19 (Coronavirus) situation.
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RBF 2020
As I’ve written before, I’m very interested in revenue-based financing. I’m currently interested in two very different deals where RBF is on the table. There’s also been an uptick in interest in the model from several of may angel colleagues who have previously only invested on the classic Angel/VC equity model. …
Revenue-Based Financing
Back in April 2018 I went to the annual Angel Capital Association (ACA) Summit, where I met a fellow by the name of Luni Libes, who was presenting on the topic of revenue-based financing (RBF), which his accelerator/fund, Fledge, uses as its primary investment vehicle. …
Horses, Zebras, and Unicorns
When a doctor examines a patient and comes up with a diagnosis of a very rare condition, another doctor might look at the first and say: “you’re finding a zebra there, but it’s really just a horse.” The guiding principle there is that rare diseases are rare…
Early Money is not Easy Money
As a seed stage angel investor I’m constantly running into pre-money companies that need just a little capital to get over a perceived hump in order to raise a “real” round. This is actually very hard money to find.
You’ve got this great idea that you’re pursuing. …
Cheating to Reduce Risk
At a recent Q&A event the topic came up of how to get to the point of being fundable. Terms like traction were bandied about. But as a part of the discussion afterward I pointed out to one entrepreneur that they might be charting the wrong course for their company. …
A Tale of Four Exits
It’s been an interesting couple of months on the angel front. Having invested in many companies over the past nine years, some of them have aged to the point that things are happening. Some of them have rotted on the vine, others are ripe enough that they’re getting picked.
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Sal Daher's New Podcast Series
I received the following email recently from my Walnut Ventures colleague, Sal Daher, who had asked me for an interview for his upcoming podcast series. His email describes the series and has links to the pertinent places: his web site (where you can join his email list) and the iTunes store for the podcast itself.
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Equity Crowdfunding & Troupe
I’ve made my first Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF, also known as “equity crowdfunding”) investment in Troupe Jewelry. I’d like to encourage each and every one of you who was interested enough to read this post to follow me into this investment, and I’ll explain why below.
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Seed Stage Investing
I’m a pretty committed seed stage investor. Of my investments in 2016, Troupe, UltraCell, Blurr, and edivvy all qualify as seed since they were really early investments done as convertible notes. Nix86, while an equity investment led by two later stage groups, was the first money in, and the company was pre-revenue. …
Angel Thoughts, 8 Years In
I’ve just passed my 8 year anniversary as an angel investor earlier this spring, and I thought it might be worthwhile to note some of my thoughts.
I started out doing this because I wanted to re-engage with the entrepreneurial community after a living couple of years in upstate NY. …
KnipBio Shrimp Tasting
We went down to Roger WIlliams University in Bristol, RI, where Dr. Andy Rhyne and his students have been running some feed trials, first with clown fish, and more recently with shrimp. The shrimp trial has just completed, so Larry Feinberg invited a group of investors and other friends of the company to a tasting in Bristol on May 9, 2015.
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About Angel Investing
I was sent a survey recently by Vanessa Dunaway, a Babson MBA student, and I thought I’d answer her questions publicly. The answers are probably of some interest to more than a few entrepreneurs looking for funding.
1. Why are you an investor?
There are many reasons I got into this. …
Call Me Petty - Stupid EV Tricks
The other night we were driving off to dinner in Burlington in our Nissan LEAF electric vehicle (EV). At a red light we came alongside a bright yellow Audi with a lowered suspension and resonators on the exhaust, driven by a young man.
When the light changed, I took off as usual and quietly left the Audi behind. …
Old Tech For Entrepreneurs
I received a pointer to an interesting blog post in my email today.
http://davidafields.com/consultants/blog/more-clients-more-time/
While this particular post is aimed at sales people and consultants, it turns out that it is at least as applicable to entrepreneurs.
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Live Linking Photos With Mosaic
OK, this is pretty cool.
Portfolio company Mosaic Archive has just released the latest version of their Lightroom photo synch software. Still allowing viewing of photos and editing of stars & flags on IOS devices, it now uses Google Drive for infrastructure. …