The event had any interesting topics discussed. The first of which was a panel, led by Bruce McCormack of the Bellingham Angels and Elaine Kong of the Washington Technology Center all about how to syndicate and share deals throughout the region. Since several of the people in the room were Angelsoft users, there was quite a bit of lively discussion around how to use Angelsoft to accelerate deal flow amongst the region.
David S. Rose then sat on a panel with several angels to discuss best practices for angel groups. There was great discussion on how to find and promote the best deals, on whether to charge application fees, on whether or not to coach the entrepreneurs, and also how to get members more involved. Ultimately, some great ideas were shared amongst all the members.
Over lunch, David S. Rose spoke to all attendees about the future of Angelsoft and how Angelsoft is transforming the world of early stage investment. He compared Angelsoft to great business network sites like LinkedIn. David discussed how Angelsoft, with its 350 organizations and growing, has created the premiere network of individuals and groups doing early stage investing, and like LinkedIn - now has the ability to elevate this network through optional premium services to help all the individuals in the network.
The response was very positive, and Angelsoft’s persistence in finding and signing up the best and biggest early stage investment groups over the past year, is really starting to pay off for both Angelsoft and all of the organizations on board!
A new angel group in Northen California, the San Joaquin Angels, has selected Angelsoft as its exclusive provider for deal flow software. We are very excited about this new addition. They had these kind words to say:
“San Joaquin Angels (SJA), a newly formed Angel group serving San Joaquin County and surrounding areas in Northern California had its official “kick-off” meeting February 20th at the new downtown Stockton Sheraton Hotel. Over 60 persons responded to the invitation to hear more about SJA and its opportunities Almost two years ago, county-wide San Joaquin Partnership researched area economic needs and updated its strategic plan.
Marianne Hudson with the Angel Capital Association recently e-mailed out a newsletter from the Angel Capital Education Foundation that contained several great articles that could help group managers get a better idea of how to successfully manage an Angel Network.
The emphasis here is on knowing your customer, and in this case it’s the individual Angel investor. To attract and retain investors, the group needs to know what the priorities are for these investors, and needs to have a strategy for meeting each of these priorities. The article discusses how investors are in it for the fun, for investing in good deals, and to have an impact on their business and entrepreneurial communities.
We’re proud to present Angelsoft 2.4. This release includes many great new features we think you’ll enjoy. We have 175 updates in total, including 111 bug fixes, 56 improvements, and 8 new features. For the complete release notes click here. We’ve made some big improvements to the entrepreneur application process. We encourage you to try and submit a new application to your group to see how much better it is!
VIDEO PITCHES
Ever wonder who was behind a new submission or wished you could see a live demonstration of the product? Well now you can! Entrepreneurs can now upload or record a short video pitch, up to 5 minutes in length, which you can watch directly on Angelsoft.
Upload or Record Video with Webcam
Entrepreneurs can upload a previously prepared video file in one of 14 popular formats, or record a new pitch using their webcam. Angelsoft allows them to preview the video, delete and record again, until they are ready to save and submit to the group.
Finding Deals with Videos
Deals with video have the gray [VIDEO] indicator following the deal name on the Deal List. They also have an indicator in all New Submissions notices, Deal Alert emails and Deal Event invitations concerning them. This way you can quickly identify which of your new submissions contain a video pitch.
Watching a Video
Group members can watch a video pitch directly from the Deal Dashboard or expand it to full-screen view.
ENTREPRENEUR FEATURES
Funding Application Manager
Entrepreneurs can now easily manage their applications in a single place if they apply to more than one group.
Additional Documents Manager
Entrepreneurs can now upload additional documents in addition to submitting them through e-mail, so they won’t overload deal members with e-mail messages.
Improved Upload Experience
Entrepreneur document uploading has been improved with these important functions: A progress bar for uploads, the ability to cancel uploads that are taking too long, and a warning when documents have been uploaded but not yet submitted to the group. Documents can also be easily deleted and replaced. This allows entrepreneur to take charge of their documents and make sure that the latest version is always available to the group.
GROUP FEATURES
Smart “New Submission” Sub-Folders
Where do new submissions come from? Three new smart sub-folders under New Submissions will tell you whether a deal was added by your administrators, through your website, or referred from another group.
Create New Deal from the Deal List Creating a new deal is a common operation for group managers. So we decided to put it right there on the Deal List, where group managers usually spend most of their time.
“Refer” and “Co-Invest” Recipient List
When you Refer or Co-Invest a deal to another group, you can now click to see a list of Group Administrators your message will go to. Did you promise Bill that you’ll refer a deal to his group? Now you can make sure that Bill is actually on the receiving end!
One-Line Pitch
There’s now one more required field on all entrepreneur applications: the one-line pitch. This one line description of the deal will go on the Deal List, instead of the truncated Business Summary, and should allow for better and quicker sorting.
BUGS AND IMPROVEMENTS
Group Administrators Are Now Always Deal Admins
Fixing a previous issue with Deal Admin privileges, all Group Administrators will now have implicit Deal Admin rights. The Deal Admin checkboxes for them will always be checked and disabled.
Improved Messaging Stability
We’ve sorted through multiple previous issues with messaging, including compatibility with different mail servers, and various errors involving Deal Messages. We believe that this new release will be much more stable when e-mailing through Angelsoft.
Application Errors Fixes
Using the information from the error tracking features that we’ve implemented in the previous release, we’ve located and resolved some of those hard to locate bugs that have been causing Errors to pop up for some users. We believe that this release will be even more stable.
Once again, we’d like to thank you all for your support, ongoing involvement, and enthusiasm: they keep us going.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts about this new release in the comments section on our blog.
Go to My Groups >> Admin >> Preferences >> New Submissions.
By default you have a row for Group Admins, and a row for Group Members. Also you will se a row for any of the subgroups you may have already created in the system. (for instructions on creating and managing Subgroups please Click Here).
In the first column, you choose which subgroups should have access to all New Submissions. In the second column you choose which subgroups should receive the New Submission Notifications.
1. Send an email invitation
2. Do not send an email invitation
Both options create the new user profile with the person’s unique username and password. The email invitation sends the new user their password info.
By not sending the email, Angelsoft generates the new user profile, username and password just as before, only we do not send the email to them, which you can send later at any time.
You may type your own personalized note in the email, and you may send yourself a test email to see what the new user will receive.
You can create as many new users as you require.
At the bottom of the page type the First Name, Last Name and Email Addresses of the members, and choose from a list of Types. Click Add more people.
Also, click Bulk Import From File to add a list of members from an excel spreadsheet. You’ll see instructions to format the spreadsheet and upload it.
When you Submit the member list appears again. To provide Admin permissions to any user, click the checkbox Group Admin in line with their name.
Each Deal Room has a unique Email Address. You’ll find the address on the Messages page of the Deal Room. We use a simple formula for each email address:
deal.name@yourgroupname.angelgroups.net
Documents sent to this address will get filed, along with the resulting message post, in the Messages page. They will also be deposited into a folder in the Documents page labeled “Attachments” from which you can move them later.
1. Admin - this “super user” controls the entire account. Admins have permanent access to all data. They set permissions of Members, and control preferences for the Group, Subgroups, and Deals. Admins monitor and control Member access to Deal Rooms, Sub Groups, and other aspects of the platform such as specific features, and pages. All permissions are located either in the Admin Page of the Group workspace, or the Admin page of Deal Rooms.
2. Member (or non-Admin) - this user can access the Group, and deals in the Deal List. Members can be given Admin rights for one or more Deal Rooms (aka: “Deal Admin”).
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A third user exists outside the Group:
3. Guest (or non-Members) - this user only has access to one or more Deal Room(s). Guests can not see the Group workspace, including the Deal List, Documents, Messages, Events, or Members.
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And yet a fourth user exists outside both the Group and all Deal Rooms:
4. Entrepreneur - this user can ONLY access their application page which allows them to upload and submit information. On this page, they can see when their information has been accessed by a Member or Admin.
Select the members using the checkboxes next to their names. Click Actions and select Re-Invite.
This is an email so you have to create a subject line such as “I am reissuing your password on Angelsoft” and optionally type a message. When you are done, click Reinvite Selected Members. This will generate an email with instructions to log on.