Angel Insights Blog

By: Catherine Mott, ACA Board Member and BlueTree Allied Angels

Today ACA announces Angel to Angel Tips, a periodic ACA Blog highlighting ACA member expertise and insights on resources for angels.  The topics will vary and include ways ACA angels are making best use of their time – and often ACA benefits – to make smart investment decisions.  The first tip is how BlueTree Allied Angels build interactive member education around ACA Angel Insights webinars during in-person investor meetings.  Thank you Catherine Mott for sharing! 

We look forward to more member tips for angels.  When you have a resource to share with angels please contact Sarah Dickey, ACA Membership Director to learn more. 

As a founding ACA member and former Board Chair, I have been happy to see the value of ACA webinars as development content for our group. Our group has taken this online education to the next level by bringing  more to the webinar content than anyone could get by watching webinars independently, I thought it would be interesting to create special group training sessions during which we use the webinars as the foundation for interactive discussion.

• Our Approach: Select key ACA webinars for group viewing at specially scheduled group educational meetings
• Process:
  1. Prior to meeting: Select a topic of special interest to angel group members e.g. Basil Peters video series on exits was well received
  2. Meeting preparation: Invite members to a 1 ½-2-hour education ‘class’ and provide related printed materials e.g. PPT deck, discussion points, related resources
  3. During meeting: Show video and stop at key points so that members can share their thoughts, ask questions and relate their own experience
• Benefits:
  1. The learning experience is enriched because of the group interaction; we learn from the video and from each other
  2. It is wonderful for members to share their voice on diverse topics and spur new discussions on important topics
• Key Learnings:
  1. The exits topic was especially helpful because members are asked to be on Boards and startup Boards are very unique.
  2. We learned a lot from the videos and discussion and are talking about a new round of topics or adding professional development from webinars to the front-end of meetings—by just starting meetings a little earlier.