Angel Insights Blog

By: Emily Angold, ACA Marketing Manager

What would it be like if start up success wasn’t so hard to predict? What if you could leverage a research-based, long-term study to help you assess a company’s potential? Even better, what if you had a turnkey, proven way to set early stage entrepreneurs up for success as they go beyond founding a business and start building their business? 

Wouldn’t that be a game-changer for angel investors?

Well, that’s exactly what Charles Fred will share with you during his keynote address at ACA 2020 – The Summit of Angel Investing.

Get to Know Charles:

In 2014, Charles Fred and his daughter Jamee co-founded TrueSpace, a firm that helps entrepreneurs move from the startup phase to the midsize stage. In February of this year, TrueSpace and Gallup Organization announced the release of a multi-year research effort detailing the operating conditions that must be present for a small business to consistently reach the middle market.

The study focused on 147 private companies that were more than three years old but currently stuck below the early middle market threshold of $10 million in annual revenue. By comparing the operations of these companies over five years, TrueSpace and Gallup were able to identify and validate five distinct operating conditions that must be present for businesses to scale up to the middle market segment. The researchers were able to validate that the creation of these operating conditions produced more consistent and higher levels of sales and employment. In fact, in a rigorous quantitative survey of 2,494 business owners, Gallup was able to confirm that these five operating conditions were “far more predictive of a second-stage business’s size and growth performance than its age or industry, or the demographic characteristics of its owner.”

As a result, Gallup created a high-performance benchmark for entrepreneurs to discover where their firm stands against the benchmark, known as the 5CA, or Five Conditions Assessment. If you’ve ever been frustrated or discouraged with post-startup or second-stage companies, this groundbreaking research can help you assess the potential of these businesses to reach the mid-market, regardless of industry – and Charles Fred will be leading a discussion of this game-changing research as part of a keynote address at ACA 2020 – The Summit of Angel Investing.

More About Charles Fred:

Charles Fred is a bestselling author and serial entrepreneur. His bestselling book, Breakaway, is credited with introducing a new framework for organizational learning. The 24-Hour Rule, his breakthrough book on leadership, is a highly regarded resource for business executives across industries. In 2000, Charles founded the Breakaway Group, one of the nation’s fastest growing companies, to improve how health-care providers learn and adopt new technologies. Xerox acquired the Breakaway Group in 2011, and in the process, he became president of their health-care group, providing technology and services worldwide. Today, he leads TrueSpace, a firm he co-founded with his daughter Jamee to focus on the leadership role of second-stage entrepreneurs and their ability to create sustainable enterprises. TrueSpace has committed to a goal of helping 10,000 entrepreneurs add 500,000 new jobs to our economy, and Jamee’s personal mission is to ensure that 5,000 of those entrepreneurs are women.

Don't miss Charles Fred's keynote presentation at ACA 2020 on Thursday, May 14!