Piloting your Life - Redefining Success at age 35 and diversifying Angel Investments with CEO of Delta Nutrassentials and Angel Investor, Amy Chang

Redefining Success at age 35 and diversifying Angel Investments with CEO of Delta Nutrassentials and Angel Investor, Amy Chang

05/08/18 • 41 min

Terri talks to Amy Chang about how at the age of 35 she had checked all life’s boxes but wasn’t completely fulfilled. She found religion to fill the void and was able to redefine success for herself. Amy talks about how this changed the way she operates in the world and how she wants to see more women angel investing.

Who is Amy Chang?

Amy C. Chang is the CEO of Delta Nutrassentials, a consumer health supplement company. Previously, she was VP of Strategy & Investor Relations for AMN Healthcare and prior to joining AMN, she held various leadership roles with other companies in operations, customer service and finance after beginning her career with KPMG. Amy is an advisor, board member, and investor of various start-ups in San Diego, as well as a board member of Hera Angels and member of the Keiretsu Forum, Wharton Angel Network, and SheEO. She served as a board member of the National Investor Relations Institute - San Diego Chapter and has been a member of the San Diego YMCA Overnight Camps Board of Advisors. She is Chair-Elect of the San Diego YMCA Board of Governors and has been involved in homeless ministries and has served as a foster youth mentor and foster parent.

Show Highlights

Amy talks about being the driver’s seat of your life (similar to Terri talking about being the pilot in your own life) and not just letting life happen.
Amy talks about being driven and the importance of checking the boxes to achieve ‘success’ in her life and still being unfulfilled. She realized that she might have had the wrong measure of success in her life.
Despite checking all of the boxes, she realized she wasn’t happy enough. She became a born-again Christian at the age of 35 which has made the biggest difference in her life and has changed the way she looks at her life and the rewards she wants to get out of life.
Her definition of success has changed, and she worries about far fewer things as a result. She thinks that people are happier when they are living something beyond themselves.
Amy talks about what she looks for as an angel investor and some of the startups she’s invested in.
Three years ago, Amy didn’t know that angel investing was an option but has since invested in quite a few companies directly. She joined the Keiretsu Forum, the Wharton Angel Network and she is now on the board of Hera Ventures.
Amy likes to invest directly into a startup to help them fuel their growth which helps to create innovation and helps the local economy. She does caution that angel investing is not for everyone.
Amy talks about the importance of diversifying your portfolio and how networking has contributed to her deal flow. She has learned the most from other angel investors.
Terri talks about her experience in Sand Hill Angels being a great training ground.
Amy and Terri would like to see more female angel investors, and both shared the importance of being supported by other female angel investors.
Based on what she wishes she knew when she started investing, Amy recommends that women start with small checks and get to know the founders as much as you can.
If Amy could wave a magic wand, she would encourage people to get to know each other on an individual basis.

Terri’s Key Takeaway

Founder integrity is critical when investing in a startup.

References in the Podcast

Venture Deals: https://www.feld.com/archives/2016/10/venture-deals-third-edition.html
JDoe: https://jdoe.io/
Delta Nutrassentials: https://www.deltanutra.com/
Keiretsu Forum: http://www.keiretsuforum.com/
Wharton Angel Network: http://www.whartonangelnetwork.co/
Hera Angels: https://www.heraangels.com/
Tech Coast Angels: https://www.techcoastangels.com/

Contact

Amy can be reached via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amychang8/ or her company’s website, www.deltanutra.com.

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.

Feel free to email Terri at [email protected].

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.

Who is Amy Chang?

Show Highlights

Amy talks about being the driver’s seat of your life (similar to Terri talking about being the pilot in your own life) and not just letting life happen.
Amy talks about being driven and the importance of checking the boxes to achieve ‘success’ in her life and still being unfulfilled. She realized that she might have had the wrong measure of success in her life.
Despite checking all of the boxes, she realized she wasn’t happy enough. She became a born-again Christian at the age of 35 which has made the biggest difference in her life and has changed the way she looks at her life and the rewards she wants to get out of life.
Her definition of success has changed, and she worries about far fewer things as a result. She thinks that people are happier when they are living something beyond themselves.
Amy talks about what she looks for as an angel investor and some of the startups she’s invested in.
Three years ago, Amy didn’t know that angel investing was an option but has since invested in quite a few companies directly. She joined the Keiretsu Forum, the Wharton Angel Network and she is now on the board of Hera Ventures.
Amy likes to invest directly into a startup to help them fuel their growth which helps to create innovation and helps the local economy. She does caution that angel investing is not for everyone.
Amy talks about the importance of diversifying your portfolio and how networking has contributed to her deal flow. She has learned the most from other angel investors.
Terri talks about her experience in Sand Hill Angels being a great training ground.
Amy and Terri would like to see more female angel investors, and both shared the importance of being supported by other female angel investors.
Based on what she wishes she knew when she started investing, Amy recommends that women start with small checks and get to know the founders as much as you can.
If Amy could wave a magic wand, she would encourage people to get to know each other on an individual basis.

Terri’s Key Takeaway

Founder integrity is critical when investing in a startup.

References in the Podcast

Venture Deals: https://www.feld.com/archives/2016/10/venture-deals-third-edition.html
JDoe: https://jdoe.io/
Delta Nutrassentials: https://www.deltanutra.com/
Keiretsu Forum: http://www.keiretsuforum.com/
Wharton Angel Network: http://www.whartonangelnetwork.co/
Hera Angels: https://www.heraangels.com/
Tech Coast Angels: https://www.techcoastangels.com/

Contact

Amy can be reached via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amychang8/ or her company’s website, www.deltanutra.com.

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.

Feel free to email Terri at [email protected].

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.

Previous Episode

Giving people, especially women, the means to control their own healthcare with Tracy Warren of Astarte Ventures

Who is Tracy Warren?

Tracy is general partner of Astarte Ventures, an early stage investment firm focused exclusively on women’s and children’s health and wellbeing. The firm has made investments in eight companies with technologies focused on women and children, including Maven, Prima-Temp, Naya Health and Madorra. Through Astarte Ventures, Tracy and her co-founders came together to form Astarte Medical to dramatically impact the lives of preterm infants. As founding CEO, she leverages her experience of serial entrepreneurship and over 15 years as a venture capitalist and early stage investor to lead strategy and fundraising.

Prior to Astarte Ventures, Tracy served as general partner at Battelle Ventures and focused on investments in health & life sciences, as well as emerging energy technologies, with an emphasis on institutional-based transactions.

Show Highlights

Tracy shares her background starting as an investment banker, moving into venture capital, and then into investing in women and infant health.
Terri provides an explanation of FemTech and PediaTech. FemTech is not supporting female founders but is focused on women’s health. PediaTech is focused on children’s health.
Only recently have women been recognized as the focal point for decision making in healthcare.
80-85% of all household healthcare decisions are made by women.
Digital health / convenience technologies start to change the conversation around women’s health.
Healthcare must change to meet the needs of women and all of the things they juggle on a daily basis. Women can be early adopters of the tech to deliver the caliber of health women want and deserve.
Tracy and Terri are not seeing the momentum in the FemTech space. They are seeing a lot of good companies, but these companies are struggling due to lack of funding and there’s no obvious avenue to getting better access to the funding to truly grow and scale the companies to have the impact. It’s a catch-22.
Many people still see FemTch as evangelistic.
Terri commented on how VCs traditionally took greater risk investing but aren’t doing so now and she challenged the VCs to return to taking risks in this space where there is unmet need and demand and great opportunity.
Terri is seeing movement in the employer space to provide more female and family friendly benefits. Tracy agrees that employers are focused on employee retention and will be the first to put some stakes in the ground in this space.
Tracy says the challenge is greater culturally. Women’s issues have been largely attributed to just being a woman and not seen as treatable and real health issues. Examples include menopause and post-partum related issues.
Terri talks about how women are not heard when they visit healthcare providers. There’s no empathy, only pity. This is a healthcare provider training issue and women need to better advocate for themselves and not rely on the ‘doctor knows best’ myth.
Tracy talks about how women are now able to talk about things that our mothers didn’t talk about like periods, sex-related issues, and other female health topics. As the walls start coming down between women and culturally (like on TV) the solutions will become more mainstream and possible.
Terri asked Tracy if the openness that we have in California the same across the country and Tracy said no, not yet. The shift will occur with each generation. Education is a powerful thing.
Tracy shares how her daughter is a shrewd shopper about her health and the apps. There is self-advocacy now that didn’t exist even 15 years ago.
Tracy talks about some of her early stage investing in the FemTech and PediaTech space including Maven Clinic, PrimaTemp (infertility/fertility), Astarte Medical (improving pre-term birth outcomes), and Madorra (vaginal dryness).
If Tracy could wave a magic wand, she would find a way for people to be able to control their own healthcare. The US system was designed to cover everyone regardless of the choices they have made. Now that we move into preventive health, we need to rethink the model and blow it up and start it all over again. This would put women in charge.
Terri expands on the importance of getting childhood diseases under control to reduce the longer-term quality of life issues and the increase in cost of chronic disease treatment and management.
Tracy talks about the perverse incentives of the pharma companies to develop and sell the billion-dollar drugs to treat sickness rather than having investors invest in companies that are focused on preventive measures.
Tracy talks about...

Next Episode

undefined - The path from being an Air Force Flight nurse into High tech and ultimately venture capital and investing in startups with Amanda Lettman

The path from being an Air Force Flight nurse into High tech and ultimately venture capital and investing in startups with Amanda Lettman

Who is Amanda Lettmann?

Amanda Lettmann, a US Air Force Veteran, is an executive and serial entrepreneur with 20 years of global Business Operations and Transformation expertise for startups and Fortune 500 companies in the HiTech, InsurTech and FinTech industries. She has an extensive M&A background with $4B in acquisition execution in the past 10 years. As the Founder and CEO of Kardia Ventures, Amanda is an advisor, consultant and Angel Investor for tech startups. She is also the Co-Founder and COO of SimpleDisability Inc, a data analytics InsurTech startup in Silicon Valley. Amanda holds an MBA in Technology Management, she is a Business Advisor at The Founder Institute and EvoNexus, and Board Advisor at Girls in Tech San Diego and SmartMoney Veterans.

Show Highlights

Amanda was active duty Air Force and separated in 2000. She realized she didn’t want to be a flight nurse for the rest of her career
Amanda was recruited by someone in semi-conductor in 1999 by an esteemed colleague and was a business operations manager and then pursued her master’s degree in technology in 2000
She consulted at the Pentagon which led to consulting with other parts of the government. Her company was acquired by EMC so she went from a small firm to a massive firm.
At EMC, she proposed a new business plan that was ultimately accepted and moved her to Orange County to lead the West Coast consulting practice.
She then got recruited by Adobe and moved up to San Jose.
Terri comments on how Amanda takes advantage of and creates opportunities for herself.
11 years ago, Amanda was an athlete in good health and started getting ill. After collapsing she found out that a virus had attacked her blood and ultimately led to her organs shutting down. She was in the hospital for 6-9 months.
She later learned that her heart valves were damaged by the virus and that they were failing which lead to open heart surgery
Amanda was a medical anomaly because of the virus and the treatment, and she had many people studying and following her.
Amanda shares who was there to support her during her illness and recovery. She had to embrace vulnerability.
Amanda remembers her life before the illness. Her essence didn’t change but she found herself seeking high quality, deep substance people with heart. Her life before was all about competency. Her life after became more about heart and not just skill, which ended up changing her life.
She became more recognized because of her personal story which she uses to inspire others. People now get to know her for more than her skills.
Amanda is working with ESPN BisTalk Radio. She wants to do an inspirational series for women to share their stories.
She is creating a speaker series on ‘Women of Impact’. She finds that women talk about taking action to inspire others, to be proactive, to turn their potential into action. She thinks others are looking for this deep, inspiration.
Terri talks about why she started her podcast, Piloting Your Life, to give a platform for these voices and stories and inspire these same people.
Amanda has a consulting company called Kardia which means heart in Greek. She advises and consults enterprises, entrepreneurs, and does angel investing.
Amanda invests in seed stage, technology startups and looks to co-invest in SaaS companies looking to disrupt the market using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), ALP, big data, and predictive analytics. She looks for female founders and veteran founders.
She is now a mentor with a new program called SmartMoney Veterans sponsored by UCSD and SmartMoney Startups. The experience for veterans is different as they need to relearn skills after getting out of the military.
Terri has seen a few startups that are helping veterans bridge the gap between military and civilian work. Companies like Skillmil and Shift are helping with this.
Terri comments on how impressed she is with UCSD and its support of the startup ecosystem. Amanda said that UCSD also supports veterans. There is a significant number of veterans in the San Diego area.
Amanda is an advisor for EvoNexus (an incubator/accelerator) and the Founder Institute in San Diego.
Transformation is an important concept for Amanda. She has been through several transformations and which led to coaching others on transforming. She loves seeing both enterprise transformation (through M&A) and individuals transform.
If Amanda could wave a magic wand, she would create a future where entrepreneurs and businesses come in all varieties and embrace their responsibility to co-create for equality and social good.
Terri asks how we can help with this wish. Amanda said that companies should be filling out the diversity of their teams. As in...