Angel Invest Boston

This is a teaser of the full, hour-long episode to be published on January 11, 2017. It contains the full narrative of the events that would propel Ralph to finding his true calling.

Ralph Wagner recalls his journey of self-discovery that led from failure in engineering to incandescent success in marketing and sales. The man who could not do calculus or write code excelled at identifying and exploiting opportunities created by computer technology. In this interview one sees that Ralph’s captivating personality is firmly ballasted by good sense and common decency. It is made evident how his interest in people was vital to the success of his many ventures.

Quotes from the podcast:

“Every startup investment is folly, but not every folly should be a startup investment...”

"How can I eliminate the real follies?"

“Banks are dominated by all these rules, and they're extremely risk averse. It's sort of like belt and suspenders, and yet, periodically, their pants fall down.”

“Someone who's selling is steeling herself for failure in every phone call...”

Sal Daher got a person who knows him really well, his brother in law Martin Aboitiz, to interview him in this 25th episode of the Angel Invest Boston podcast. The result is a wide-ranging and light-hearted conversation that tells a lot about how Sal sees the world of startups.

BTW, during the podcast Sal refers to the physicist Stephen Hawking as Christopher Hawking. This lapse was occasioned by Sal having spent time with Christopher Lydon (Christopher Lydon's Website) just days prior to recording. Sal's sure neither gentleman takes umbrage from the confusion.

The list of topics includes:

• Sal Daher Bio
• Switch from Engineering to International Finance
• How Sal Started Investing
• How Being a Banker and an Engineer Helped Develop Sal’s Investing Philosophy
• ”When I look at markets, I understand that markets are not knowable, and so I don't look to guess where markets are going. I don't look to think that I know more than anybody else, or that I know more than the market.”
• “Banks are dominated by all these rules, and they're extremely risk averse. It's sort of like belt and suspenders, and yet, periodically, their pants fall down.”
• “I've developed kind of an approach of skepticism, you know Popperian skepticism of how much I can know.”
• Sal Has Andrew Carnegie as a Model – Keep a Lot of Cash to be Able to Buy Bargains
• “I can tell you right now, anything we're buying, we're buying it very expensively.”
• Sal Thanks Listener GranTia for Leaving a Review
• How Sal Decides on Which Startup to Invest
• “Every startup investment is folly, but not every folly should be a startup investment...”
• "How can I eliminate the real follies?"
• “What I have to do is I have to play a defensive game, I have to avoid investing in losers.”
• “Martin, I discovered a really amazing thing, being really smart and really knowledgeable has zero correlation with the ability to sell, zero, okay?”
• “Someone who's selling is steeling herself for failure in every phone call...”
• Regrets?
• Anti-portfolio
• Sal’s Favorite Pivots – Pixability & SQZ Biotech – Personal Pivots
• “I'm a big fan of pivots, because a pivot is an expression of belief in the ability of human beings to fall down and get up again.”
• Networking in Boston vs. the Bay Area
• “There's no other place like it [Boston], and there's an unbelievable variety of things that go on. It is a little bit insular, it is hard to network here, but I can tell you that the angel investing environment, there's no angel investing environment that's as collaborative as the one here.”
• “Now, venture capitalists aren't interested in follies, they're interested in sure bets.”
• “How many companies can an angel investor successfully track and manage in his portfolio?”
• People from Whom Sal Learns the Most

This is a teaser of the full, hour-long episode which is still in production. The full episode will be published on January 11th, 2017.

Ben Littauer traveled an unlikely path from philosophy to communications technology. He brings to life the exciting turns in his careers as founder and angel investor. In his light-hearted style, Ben provides a thoughtful tour of Boston’s angel scene in this episode that ranges over many topics including equity crowdfunding. In particular, he explains what leads founders to make the worst fund-raising mistake of all. The philosopher’s clarity of thought and the engineer’s practicality are in evidence.

Super angel Michael Mark and marketing wiz Kathryn Roy take questions on the topic of angel investing. This was recorded before a live audience at gorgeous Babson College, a university dedicated to teaching entrepreneurship. Sal, as usual, finds it hard to keep his opinions to himself!

Topics covered include:

• Recorded on the Beautiful Campus of Babson College, Thanks to Margaret Jones & Nina Block
• Michael Mark Mini Bio
• Kathryn Roy Mini Bio
• Michael Mark on What Angel Investing Is Not – Not the Best Way to Make a Lot of Money
• Kathryn’s Thoughts on Making Money in Angel Investing
• Question from Mark T.: What’s the Minimum Number of Startup Investments to Get a Good ROI?
• Audience Question: What Are the Three or Four Things You Look for In a Startup?
• Startup Founder Davey Bakhshi Asks a Question - Fundraising Pointers
• Davey Bakhshi: Do you Invest in Founders from Other Countries?
• Have a Real Sales Funnel for your Fundraising – Willy Loman Beats Einstein
• Monthly Communication with Your Investors and Constituents
• Lisa’s Question: What Would You Do Differently Today as a Founder Given the Changes?
• Go to an Incubator
• What Has Not Changed in Fundraising
• Question from Listener Martin Aboitiz: What Startups Do You Regret Not Investing In?
• “Another Train Leaving Every 15 Minutes.” – Michael Mark
• Question from Kit, a Freshman at Babson: Can You Build Business without Raising Money?
• Audience Question from Alan, an MBA Student at Babson: Notes vs. Priced Rounds?
• Audience Question from Marcos, an MBA Student at Babson: How Long Does It Take to Build Trust?

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Epilogue to the Interview:

Martin Aboitiz asked me to add this to the notes:

"...I do have a regret though, that I did not mention four names during the interview:

In 2013, (I said 2003 in the podcast by mistake) my brother in law Martin Aboitiz sat in my dining room and sketched out this business he planned to start. I thought “majnun” which is Arabic for crazy! How would this guy who had built software companies in Argentina found a startup to help Americans have better access to their healthcare data? But I underestimated his resourcefulness and titanic tenacity. Four years later, Healthjump is at cashflow break even and has 7.5 million patients in its data warehouse. I’m glad because I have some real money riding on Martin’s company.

Listen to this lighthearted but informative interview. It was inspired, in part, by an excellent meal shared by the interlocutors the night before which included an outstanding paella (see photo) and some delightful wines. We talked healthcare, pivots, angel investing homeruns and flops and many other matters.

Topics covered include:

• Martin Aboitiz Bio
• Martin Aboitiz Gets Started in His Career
• Lessons from Working in a World Bank-funded Project in the Philippines
• Lessons from Doing Business in Argentina
• How Did Martin Discover He Wanted to Be an Entrepreneur?
• Martin Aboitiz’s Advice about Dealing with Failure – Really Good Stuff!
• Martin Aboitiz’ First Startup – Intermedia
• Martin Aboitiz Sets Up an Informal Incubator for Argentine Startups
• Martin Aboitiz Founds Healthjump in 2013 to Make Medical Records More Accessible to the Patient
• Problem: Healthcare Data is Sitting in Silos and People Don’t Have Access
• Healthjump’s Pivot
• Saber & Amadeus as Analogues
• “Now in healthcare it's different because what we're seeing right now is the equivalent of the Hyatt across the street buying the bed and breakfast. That did not happen in travel but it's happening in healthcare.”
• Lack of Healthcare Record Interoperability Is Pushing Consolidation to an Absurd Extreme
• Healthjump is Helping Make Electronic Health Records (EHR) Software More Interoperable
• Seven and a Half Million Patient Records Now Reside in Healthjump’s Data Warehouse
• As More Practices Use Healthjump to Understand Their Data the Number of Patients Who Can Use Healthjump to Access their Records Grows – Network Effect
• Healthjump is at Cashflow Breakeven
• Martin Aboitiz Starts Angel Investing – Three Homeruns in a Row – Thought Angel Investing Was Easy
• Martin’s Favorite Pivot Story - Twitter
• Argentina as a Place to Build a Startup – OLX & Mercado Libre