Angel Insights Blog

Monday, January 05, 2015 

Build Your Resource Library – Top Angel Reads in 2014

By: Marianne Hudson, ACA Executive Director

ACA is aimed at providing the best information and resources for our member angels and the startup community. As we begin what we hope is a fantastic year for investors and entrepreneurs alike, we share 32 of the best articles, blogs and books in our field from 2014 to help you build your own libraries.

Investing Trends

• A Disruptor Shakes Up Angel Investing (Fortune)
• Free Spending by Startups Stir Memories of Dot-Com Era Excesses (New York Times)
• How a high valuation could actually run your business into the ground – and examples of what you should be targeting instead (David Mandell, PivotDesk)
• Investor Trends 2003-2013: A Look at investors’ changing portfolios and attitudes today versus ten years ago (Rock the Post)
• Inside Sequoia Capital: Silicon Valley’s Innovation Factory (George Anders, Forbes.com)
• Startup Bubble?  Savvy Angels Help Entrepreneurs Avoid Burning Cash (Marianne Hudson, Forbes.com)
• The Periodic Table of Tech (CB Insights)

Being a Great Angel

• Angel Investing – The Gust Guide to Making Money & Having Fun Investing in Startups (David S. Rose)
• Creating Your Own Angel Investor Group: A Guide for Emerging and Frontier Markets (World Bank)
• Forming an Investment Hypothesis (Disruption VC)
• How Angel Investing Has Become Serious Finance (Christopher Mirabile, Inc.com)
• Primer for Building an Effective Board for Growing Startup Companies (Kauffman Foundation)
• Ranking Angel Investment Groups (CB Insights)
• The Joy of Angel Investing: 3 Reasons Why Accredited Investors Should Invest in Startups Today (Crowdfund Insider/ Flashstarts)
• Top 30 Traits of Successful Angel Investors – How Many Do You Have? (Marianne Hudson, Forbes.com)

Entrepreneurship and the Economy

• Declining Business Dynamism in the United States: A Look at States and Metros  (Brookings Institution)
• Guess Who Just Started the Next Great Company? (Doug Doan, ACA Blog)
• How early should you connect with a VC? Here’s some data (This is going to be Big blog)
• Invention & Reinvention: The Evolution of San Diego’s Innovation Economy (Mary Walshok and Abraham Schragge)
• Is Dead Equity Crippling Your Company? (Noam Wasserman)
• Pitch Deck Basics (Christopher Mirabile, Scratchpaper)
• Sources of Economic Hope: Women’s Entrepreneurship (Alicia Robb, Susan Coleman and Dane Stangler, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation)
• The Entrepreneur’s Shares: A Balanced Approach to Founder’s Equity (VC Experts)
• What Happens to a Founder of a Company Backed by Angel Investors, If It Fails? (Quora) 
• Why the Lean Start-up Changes Everything (Steve Blank in Harvard Business Review)
• Why the World Needs Entrepreneurs (Elizabeth Gore, Huffington Post)

Crowdfunding

• How the JOBS Act Creates Crowdfunding Problems (Inc)
• Kickstarter, but with Stock – SEC and Equity Crowdfunding – It’s a Disaster Waiting to Happen (Jim Saska, Moneybox)

Industry Sectors

• As the Web Turns 25, Its Creator Talks about Its Future (New York Times)
• White House Outlines Big Data Opportunities, Dangers in 85-Page Report (ZDNet)
• Who Really is Big Data? Analyzing 347 VC-Backed Companies Using Hadoop (CB Insights)

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