Angel Invest Boston

In the final episode of the podcast I, Sal Daher, review important lessons I learned in seven years of interviews and decades of investing. In my voice and in the voice of my guests, I recapitulate the discoveries most salient to me and invite listeners to find their own nuggets in the sound archive which will remain available on Apple Podcasts and other platforms. AngelInvestBoston.com will have 250 episode pages with sound, notes, and in most cases, annotated transcripts. I’ll be publishing new content at Substack.com focused on keeping fit as we age. You can find me there under Sal Daher or under Aging Fit. Startups will show up occasionally. Here’s a link to the Substack: Sal Daher's Substack - Aging Fit Thanks for listening. Highlights: ·      Lesson 1: Company-Specific Risk – The Bad & The Good – Why It Matters in Startup Investing ·      Lesson 2A: “You know nothing, Jon Snow” – The Need for Tight Risk Control ·      Lesson 2B: “You Know Nothing, Jon Snow” – Whence a Real 400X Return ·      Lesso

Lessons Learned is a compilation of hard-won lessons in angel investing. They come from my podcast interviews over these seven years as well as from my three decades of angel investing. Hints on how to build your portfolio, how to eliminate sure losers and other practical advice will be offered in the voice of my guests and in my own voice. Sorry that the release of the episode is delayed until Friday 12/29 due to personal matters and this year's Christmas calendar. Thanks for listening.

Aging Fit Substack: Learn More   Repeat life science entrepreneur Tom Weldon is now taking on aging. He is commercializing a compound to extend health span developed at a prominent institution. Composed of substances generally considered as safe by the FDA, the formula has shown impressive results in mice and, to date, in one human, Tom himself. Intriguing chat with a dynamic founder.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Tom Weldon What Problem Rejuvant Addresses "... Then the first time the combination is not additive, take it out. That's a process that would probably take a year or two, but it ensures that you'll have an optimal result. Or, you can buy Rejuvant, because we did all that work already..." "... if you decide that you'd like to try Rejuvant and you go on subscription, we give you a free DNA methylation test at time zero and then we give you another one after six months, which is included in

Aging Fit Substack: Learn More   Raul Rosa, artist, musician, and sound engineer, discusses his work with the Angel Invest Boston Podcast, some of his favorite interviews, and his own startup, Podspot.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Raul Rosa Raul's Favorite Interviews Fortified Bike Howard Stevenson PodSpot Wistia Piction Health Savran Technologies Advice to the Audience   Topics: discovering entrepreneurship, COVID, robotics/AI

Aging Fit Substack: Learn More   In my fourth decade of angel investing, I’m happy with my investments but regret having put them in my IRAs. Here are pros and cons of having illiquid, operationally complex and hard-to-value assets in IRAs.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Investing in Startups via an IRA Can Be Burdensome, Here’s Why How I came to Have so Much of my Net Worth in my IRAs Thank You Citibank for Encouraging a Young Banker to Save Thank You Bob Smith for Allowing Me to Fish When the Fish Were Running Why The Fish Are Not Running Any More “Some weeks I spend half my time dealing with IRA-related paperwork. I have many better things to do with my life.” The Initial Investment Is a Lot of Work for Everyone Involved Corporate Actions Guarantee Constant Attention to the IRA Is Required Then There Are the Required Annual Valuations It Gets Worse! The Upside of Investing in Startups from the IRAs Conclusion   Top

Aging Fit Substack: Learn More   Life science board member and advisor Paul Hartung is back with wise tips on how to fund your biotech startup in these had times. Listen or read below.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Paul Hartung, Experienced Biotech Board Member & Advisor Paul Hartung Closed a Financing in the Midst of the Last Recession Seek Out the Right Grant Funding, Watch Expenses Pitch Contests Don’t Provide Much Money but Can Spotlight Your Startup Peer-Reviewed Publications Can Raise Visibility of Life Science Startups Look Outside Your Area, Consider Syndication Across Angel Groups Watch Out for Funds That Can’t Make Good on Term Sheets – It Happens More than You Think Be Upfront About Your Future Funding Plans “The nature of the investors change. For each stage of financing what you want to do is make sure that you identify who the lead investor is. Very important.” Lead Investors Summation About Strategi

Aging Fit Substack: Learn More   Katharine Woodman-Maynard has for seven years created a gorgeous and enduring graphic manifestation of this podcast on the web. I am fortunate to have this gifted artist enhancing my work with her talent and wisdom. She returns to talk about her favorite interviews, to share her journey as a professional artist and to offer valuable advice for those starting out.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights:  Sal Daher Introduces Katharine Woodman-Maynard Katharine's Perspective of Startups "... I'm very grateful to you for having connected me with Drew Madson, who founded Readlee. Tell a little bit of the story. How did you connect with Drew?..." EndeavorOTC "... I found it fascinating in the interview that Eddie talked about how it was actually shown in trials to be more effective for adults than it was for children..." "... Human interaction resets us, brings us back to normalcy because if we're of

Aging Fit Substack: Learn More   Ethan Pierce’s startup Adaptive Reader makes great literature accessible to kids not reading at grade level. Harnessing generative AI with sophisticated prompts and quality control by humans creates compelling texts based on the classics. Ethan and his co-founder even have a promising business model. Great chat!   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Ethan Pierce Adaptive Reader and What it is Solving "... It's much better if they have this contact with the author, albeit in a structure that's simplified. After all, we're always reading Dante in the translation. We're reading Homer in the translation. It doesn't make it any less compelling..." Teachers' Opinions of Adaptive Reader "... That controversy, the conversation, the passion around helping these students read is really important and that's why we've been really grounded in research here and these conversations with t

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   Brian Denenberg is an angel investor, company advisor, and co-founder. Here, he discusses some of the companies he has been involved with, including Fairmarkit, Tive, and his work at Venture Lane Studio helping startups grow sales.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Brian Denenberg Fairmarkit How Fairmarkit Was Started Tive Inbound vs Outbound Marketing "... What Tive did, he innovated a tracker that goes on shipments, and it could go anywhere in the world, and it could not just tell you where the shipment was. It could tell you the condition of the shipment..." "... Scientists don't know the huge difference that exists between the lab and the clinic and industry. There's a massive gap and they think that something that works in the lab will work in a clinic or an industry very easily, but it mostly does not..." Venture Lane Studio "... We call it a studio. It gives us

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   Brian Freeman, MD, co-founded Energesis to help overweight people lose weight by growing their energy-burning brown fat. Experiments in mice have shown this approach works with GLP-1 drugs such as Wegovy in accentuating weight loss. Great chat with a compelling repeat founder.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Brian Freeman Energesis: The Problem it's Solving "... What we're doing is we're acting on those cells and basically nudging them to make more mature brown fat cells, so that the mass of the brown fat cells increases..." "... That's pretty much it. We're trying to recapitulate cold exposure in a pill. That's right..." "... one of the issues with weight loss due to, let's call it caloric restriction ... The body doesn't take it lightly because we've evolved not to starve, right? ... The normal physiologic response to that is to reduce metabolic rate. That makes i

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   My Walnut buddy Andy Bartlett, PhD brings great energy to the group and an expert’s perspective on computing. We talked about our favorite startups including Savran Technologies, evTS, and BioFeyn. He has interesting things to say about ChatGPT. We also had a great chat about his angel journey.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Andy Bartlett Savran Technologies "... three of the things I really love to see in startups is a founder like Çağrı that will go through walls, that's so important. Defensibility that they have a moat, so the strong patent portfolio..." evTS BioFeyn "... We're talking about the University of Illinois Gies School of Business. I'm so impressed with the way the faculty is running that business school. They're running it like a disruptive business..." "... They've gone ahead and they've kept this very affordable. The full program, it's 18 classes p

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   Kevin Majeres, MD, teaches cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) at Harvard Medical School. CBT is the gold standard to treat mental health conditions without drugs. CBT can also help with workplace issues such as burnout or anxiety. Dr. Majeres (pronounced Majors) has built a digital platform, OptimalWork.com, to improve the quality of work life. I learned really useful things from this interview.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Dr. Kevin Majeres What OptimalWork is Solving "... what we are doing is bringing the insights of cognitive behavioral therapy out of the normal context, which is working with the cognitive behavioral therapist. We're bringing that to people in the setting of their work..." "... In fact, everything with regard to eating behaviors, there's abundant evidence that cognitive behavioral therapy works. At one level, you could see that the more someon

Jason Burke wants a better way for angels to invest in startups. He founded All Stage, the platform for angel investing that powers TBD Angels which he also co-founded.  In this illuminating interview Jason discusses how All Stage helps the angel ecosystem. We also chatted about Moolah Kicks, and Folia Health. Here's how All Stage's deal looks like in the All Stage platform: All Stage deal within the All Stage product Highlights:  ●      Sal Daher Introduces Jason Burke ●      All Stage and the Problem it's Solving ●      "... Because unless you've done sales a lot, it's really hard to deal with rejection, especially for scientific founders..." ●      "... It's an example of some of the connective tissue between Showcase, the founder tool, and Community, the investor tool, to allow for that collaboration to happen..." ●      Moolah Kicks ●      Folia Health ●      Jason's Entrepreneurial Journey ●      "... I built the Tufts cross-country site, which today in 2023 doesn't seem groundbreaking, but at

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   Brazilian startup MirScience Therapeutics is working on reversing muscle loss. I had an illuminating chat with co-founder Milena Peregrino, PhD about the technology and the company’s progress.    Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Milena Peregrino MicroRNAs and What They Do MirScience Therapeutics "... Keeping in mind that we're talking about mouse models, it has not gone into human trials yet, but this is very promising..." "... We are going to need the non-rodent species. For now, we are planning to go with non-human primates, so monkeys..." How MirScience Was Founded Milena's Background "... Most people die from the results from falls. It's not necessarily immediately, it's within six months. If they have a severe fall, old people decline very fast and so this has huge implication for people to age better. The ability to have muscular old people going around instead o

Repeat founder Agustin Lopez Marquez, ex-nference, brings his AI savvy to food delivery with his new startup. Built on CloudKitchens’ infrastructure, Mowgli addresses pain points for diners, sous-chefs and drivers. Loved my chat with this brilliant and practical founder. Sample Mowgli’s homey meals from exotic places at https://khipi.com/. (delivers only to Boston & Cambridge for now)   Highlights:   ●      Sal Daher Introduces Agustin Lopez Marquez ●      "... my co-founder, who happens to be my wife, Brinda, she was the one that started the company and the first product about a couple of years back..." ●      "... The idea here is that these are meals for explorers, for people who like to venture out, travel. This is not pizza or your usual weekend fare for the kids, and so forth..." ●      "... it's an infrastructure play that has happened in the last three to five years. It's modular kitchens that are just the kitchens that are meant for delivery-only companies..." ●      "... You're going to bec

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   Repeat founder Todd Zion, PhD is back to update us on exciting developments at his second biotech startup, Akston Bio. We also geeked out a bit on how these magical proteins are concocted in the company’s bioreactors. Fun and instructive chat with a stellar founder.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Todd Zion Akston Bio's Founding Story "... The antigen in this case is the person's own insulin..." "... you're still taking advantage of that antibody portion, but you've neutered it so that it no longer alerts the immune system, but it retains one property that antibodies all have, which is the ability to recycle and last for very long periods of time in circulation..." "... We took the veterinary candidates and we partnered those with a company called Dechra Pharmaceuticals, PLC. They're one of the leaders in veterinary pharma development and this is all in the public d

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   Rather than purloin my kids' Ritalin, I play EndeavorOTC daily to improve my attention and be sharper. Eddie Martucci, PhD is the founder of Akili that developed the app which is backed by real science. In fact, the kid's version is FDA-cleared to treat ADHD in 8-12 year olds. Don't miss this great chat.    Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Eddie Martucci The Science Behind EndeavorOTC "... This is not IQ. This is attention. You can have extremely high IQ or low IQ and have a high attention score and low IQ or vice versa..." "... people with ADHD, it is not that they don't want to pay attention ... It's that that system of the brain that allows you to filter out what's irrelevant to your goal and focus in on what's relevant, that part of the brain, that interference filter is weakened..." "... You cannot become addicted to it because can't do it for more than 2

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   The third time is the charm for Piction Health. Super founder Susan Conover is back to talk about the third iteration of their business model which is showing promise of scaling profitably. Her AI has ingested a million diagnosed images of hair and skin conditions and is now making dermatologists 15X more productive. See for yourself at PictionHealth.com.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Susan Conover What Piction Health is Solving "... We solve the full problem for patients, end-to-end. If they have a rash or a mole they're worried about, or a case like that, they submit a case, we review that case within 24 hours with our board-certified dermatologist, we call in prescriptions..." A Typical Consultation at Piction Health "... How did you discover this? How is it that it dawned on you that this is the direction to go in?..." "... Dermatologists loving working with us

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   Rotator cuff tears are debilitating. What if you could take action to avoid them? Rabeeh Majidi, PhD founded OrthoKinetic Track to do just that through a wearable device and a predictive algorithm. Listen to our chat to learn more.    Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Rabeeh Majidi What OrthoKinetic Track is Solving "... What I would say is that orthopedic telemedicine lacks comprehensive physical exams..." "... How is it that your system solves a problem that is of real interest to the providers?..." "... it's not just about what you know, but also who you know..." How Rabeeh Became an Entrepreneur Parting Thoughts to the Audience   Topics: biotech, discovering entrepreneurship, founding story

Angel Scale Biotech: Learn More   Richard Vlasimsky is using AI to create a low-cost way of vastly expanding our ability to detect lung cancer early. His algorithm for detecting lung nodules in chest x-rays just got FDA clearance. Listen to this remarkable founder who’s done a lot with modest funding.   Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson.   Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Richard Vlasimsky What IMIDEX is Solving "... how much your studies cost to get your 510k.." "... We had multiple radiologists looking at the image, and then we had a final truther that adjudicated these independent reads that the radiologist did..." "... Payers care about catching it early so that they have better outcomes and the costs are much lower ... The providers, being the medical systems or the physicians, typically hospitals, they care about it because of liability issues and also because they could have the opportunity to treat something and they would get the