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
• ·      Lesson 3A: What to Look for in a Startup? What to Look for in a Founding Team?
• ·      Lesson 3B: The Most Significant Results from Ed Roberts’ Research
• ·      Lesson 4A: It’s Important Not to Keep Your Idea Secret but to Talk to Many People About It
• ·      Lesson 4B: The Google Problem – Why Founders Should Be Open About their Ideas
• ·      Lesson 3B Recapitulated: Robust Finding: Larger Teams Do Better; Startups Tend to Have Teams that Are Too Small
• ·      Lesson 5A: Focus, Focus, Focus
• ·      Lesson 5B: Focus, Focus, Focus
• ·      Lesson 6: Take the Money & Run
• ·      Lesson 7:  It’s a Long Way from the Lab to the Clinic
• ·      Why I Am Ending the Podcast – Archive Available – See You at Substack.com

    Guest: Sal Daher 

    Topics: angel investing strategies, co-founders, biotech, exits, pivots, partnerships with strategics

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 the cost ... They're different and they have different algorithms. All of them except two that I'm aware of, one of which is what we provide, requires your current chronologic age as an input..."
• "... It was actually discovered by Steve Horvath and he developed the first biologic clock ... Your DNA is damaged every second that you're alive. Prior to puberty, your body does an exceptional job of repairing all of that. However, after that, it starts to decline..."
• "... Is there any evidence that repair is actually at work? How do we know that it's not just removing the methyl molecule from the DNA, and you have damaged the DNA that's just not methylated?..."
• "... How long have you been on Rejuvant?..."
• How Tom Became an Entrepreneur
• "... This company had this trajectory and now it's just gone Chapter 7 recently. That is the tough side of these life science technology companies because the technology moves so fast..."
• "... very difficult space. What I have seen in the medical device space, these 510k pathway devices where there is an existing predicate device, and then you can design something which is, no worse and perhaps much better than the predicate device..."
• Advice to the Audience

Topics: biotech, discovering entrepreneurship, founding story

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 Strategic Investors

Topics: biotech, fundraising, raising money

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

Topics: angel investing strategies

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

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 off on our own, we go batty..."
• Katharine's Professional Artistic Journey
• Sticking to a Schedule
• "... Once you can learn self-compassion for yourself and realize you're human and you make mistakes and not waste so much energy on being negative and hard, I think you're a lot freer to, advance in your career because you're not so hard on yourself..."
• Advice to the Audience

Topics: discovering entrepreneurship, ed tech, platform

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 these experts. I think talking to these teachers, the biggest challenge that they face is just getting kids to read at all..."
• Ethan's Entrepreneurial Journey
• Palette
• How Adaptive Reader Came About
• How Can Listener's Participate in Adaptive Reader

Topics: discovering entrepreneurship, product, robotics/AI

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 the flexibility to work in different ways. The best way to think of it is like an accelerator. It's really bespoke. We take three to four companies at a time. We're not looking to doing big cohorts..."
• Cedience
• CIRT
• Qase
• Brian's Background
• How Brian Got into Startups
• Advice to the Audience

Topics: angel investing strategies, biotech, discovering entrepreneurship

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 it harder and harder to lose weight as your weight goes down, and it makes it very difficult to keep that weight off..."
• Further Thoughts on Energesis
• Brian's Entrepreneurial Journey
• "... What if you could magically make everybody in America lean overnight, think of what that would do to healthcare costs. It would be reduced by at least two-thirds..."

Topics: biotech, discovering entrepreneurship, product, founding story

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 plus three capstones costs about $23,000 total..."
• Andy's Entrepreneurial Background
• "... My mother's family had entrepreneurship. My great-grandfather, Alonzo Dodge, started a Dodge Moving and storage company. I always thought my grandfather had founded it, but actually, it was his father. They always ran that. That was the family business..."
• "... Eventually, I got my way into the electrical engineering department and I've embraced that for years and years..."
• "... At Chrysler, I could draw a block diagram to model some algorithm I wanted to use for onboard diagnostic testing of the Chrysler vehicles. I could model it. I could simulate it. I could pull down a menu and immediately generate code that would run on a computer in the backseat of a test car. I would drive around and I could do my experiments and collect my data..."
• Andy's Opinion on ChatGPT

Topics: angel investing strategies, biotech, discovering entrepreneurship

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 someone was afraid of hunger, the more likely they would be to act on it..."
• "... This is why I think anxiety is the most central emotion to understand because anxiety is the urge to avoid challenge as challenge..."
• "... Cognitive behavioral therapy, I should say, it also tends to focus on what's happening right now. What are the emotions showing up right now? Where's the avoidance right now? Where does the reframing have to take place right now?"
• "... I think that we need more and more things like Endeavor OTC that are helping to identify what are the particular mental muscles that can be worked out, and whether these things are going to be universally applicable, or maybe there are certain subpopulations that that's exactly the workout that they need..."
• "... How would you compliment this Cybex machine for the mind with cognitive behavioral therapy?"
• "... That in a sense is like what we teach people at The Golden Hour, is how to just briefly strategize what you're about to do, lay out the steps in advance, think of how you want to be stretching yourself in these steps, calm your mind down for a moment, and then launch into it. Then you're going to have full traction, and then you get momentum. Flow is really just momentum in work..."
• Dr. Majeres' Psychiatry Journey
• "... anxiety is adrenaline waiting to be reframed..."
• Advice to the Audience

Topics: discovering entrepreneurship, scholar

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 the time having a password on a site and detecting the IP address of who's using it and greeting them, that sort of stuff was absolute magic to do..."

●      "... which came first? Angel investing or starting a company?"

●      "... Was it a personal relationship, the first investment that you made as an angel?"

●      Advice to the Audience

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 of frail people who fall over easily..."
• Why Milena Chose Biology
• Advice to the Audience

Topics: biotech, discovering entrepreneurship, founding story

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 become like the McDonald's of adventurous eating..."

●      "... we already have more than 10 drivers that consistently, every Tuesday, they choose to work for Khipi as opposed to working for any other food delivery company..."

●      "... I understand you have 400 customers ordering right now. 90 of those are super dedicated and they order every week. They give you 80% of your business..."

Topics: co-founders, culture, discovering entrepreneurship, robotics/AI

Title: AI for Discovery Dining

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 domain..."
• "... We made a pivot at that point saying, 'Well, what if we just go back to the portion of the antibody that interacts with the immune system and make ourselves a vaccine against COVID-19 using the same exact technology?'..."
• "... you're going to continue involved in manufacturing, or are you just going to buckle down in the veterinary space and spin off these other technologies to other players?..."
• "... if you're not pivoting at least once in your development, you're probably doing something wrong..."
• Todd's Funding History
• "... what goes on in a bioreactor, which is the heart of what you're doing? Geek out a little bit of bioreactors..."
• "... there are these companies that do nothing but transfect CHO cells to produce particular types of protein..."
• Energesis

Topics: biotech, COVID, discovering entrepreneurship

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 25 minutes period..."

• Eddie's Entrepreneurial Journey

• Advice to the Audience

Topics: discovering entrepreneurship, founding story, product

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 is one of our really important metrics that we want to make it really easy for them..."
• "... How can our listeners be helpful to Piction Health?"
• Thoughts to the Audience

Topics: biotech, discovering entrepreneurship, robotics/AI

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 revenue stream..."
• "... It's like a very fine-tooth comb picks up all the nits. The specificity relates to how many of those things that you pick up are actually what you're looking for and not false positives..."
• Exit Possibilities
• "... his definition of a startup is an enterprise that uses resources that it does not yet command..."
• Richard’s Entrepreneurial Journey
• "... You had this experience of joining a startup, then creating your own startup which was using machine learning..."
• Advice to the Audience

Topics: biotech, discovering entrepreneurship, robotics/AI, founding story