Angel Investment…for people like us!

According to Wikipedia, “Angel Investment” is:

An angel investor is an affluent individual who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for ownership equity. Unlike venture capitalists, angel investors typically do not manage the pooled money of others in a professionally-managed fund. However, angel investors often organize themselves into angel networks or angel groups to share research and pool their own investment capital.

The emergence of angel investment groups has meant that ordinary Joe’s like you and I, with average incomes and average lives, are able to invest a small amount every month (+-R800/month) into an investment fund that will be used to finance the launch of a suitably screened and thoroughly vetted business venture that has some very high growth potential. As a fairly seasoned entrepreneur myself, I’ve been through the throes of business plan development and the inevitable tight-rope walk to try to find investment in order that your ideas can see the light of day and I’ve always been very aware of angel investment as means to help me achieve my objectives. I was fortunate enough to have come across just such an investor and my company which spawned from private angel investment, with its radical, envelope pushing innovative ideas is now finally starting to make some serious inroads into the market.

Angel investment exists to fill that gap in the market where an entrepreneur with enough chutzpah (balls, tenacity, verve, energy) is given the opportunity to achieve success. Where an entrepreneur has difficulty getting investment from government funds; venture capitalists or just does not have enough collateral to raise the investment required at the bank, angel investment is normally the only other alternative. In South Africa, with our society as unequal as it is and the White community having significantly easier access to capital and resources than any other group, this is the reason we see so many more innovative ideas coming from this group than any other, because they simply have the financial means with which to make their dreams a reality. Angel investment groups have the ability to change this; empower entrepreneurs; empower communities; create employment and reverse the status quo.

I was recently reacquainted with angel investment and its potential to create enormous, practical, sustainable business opportunities through a Bruinou.com forum regular, Sean Achim (username = Tokoloshi). Sean Achim is a highly qualified and experienced man who spent many years lecturing Software Engineering at Honours level at a university in Cape Town. He then went to work in the private sector where he held many senior rolls in large corporate companies, including Eskom. Since then, he has gone on to use his incredible insight and understanding of the business world to produce an awe inspiring entrepreneur development program which is not only endorsed and used by the Small Enterprise Development Association (SEDA), but by the World Bank as well. His structured methodology and system of hand-holding budding entrepreneurs through his 12 week entrepreneur development program culminates in the production of a well researched, properly structured business plan that is then fed into his angel investment system. This ensures that 2 very important parts of the entrepreneur equation are met. Entrepreneurs benefit by being properly educated on what the business world is all about, without investing undue resources. The system helps to minimize the potential for an entrepreneur to fail by ensuring that all aspects of their business plan are thoroughly researched and considered. The angel investment community benefits by being given access to properly structured business plans and opportunities for them to invest in. It’s a win-win and one which holds enormous potential if we have to look at the enormous pool of social capital that resides within the Bruinou.com member base.

Sean Achim would like to speak to anybody and everybody that would be interested in attending a presentation on what exactly angel investment is and how we, the Bruinou.com member base, can derive value from his system by getting involved as angel investors. The opportunities are enormous and the possibilities infinite. If you would like to attend this once in a lifetime presentation, please could you email me and let me know of your interest in attending. There will be a cost of R100 for attending the presentation. This is to cover transport costs for Sean Achim to come to Johannesburg and also to secure a venue and snacks. We can arrange for Sean to do a presentation in your city, provided we have sufficient numbers to cover the costs. So, if you are interested in attending one of these life-changing presentations, then please email me charles@Bruinou.com and let me know which city would suit you. Once we have enough interest, we will finalise a date and venue.

There is a discussion raging on angel investment in the “Let’s Talk Business” forum on the Bruinou.com website. I encourage you to check it out.

I look forward to hearing from you.