Celebrating this Mother’s Day: Entrepreneur Edition
Nurturing, patient, generous, and all-round supportive — Mothers are akin to lifelong angel investors, or angels, as we know them. This one goes out to all mothers out there, we celebrate you — and not just on Mother’s Day, but everyday for all that you’ve done for your children.
Here at Pitchspot, we came to realise that mothers are a lot like angel investors. A mother carried you in her womb for a full nine months, fed you well, and taught you how to use a spoon — so don’t get mad when you’ve to teach Mom how to Facebook.
Here’s what we wanted to do: we wanted to go a little deeper to explain the parallels between mothers and angel investors — after all, aren’t all mothers angels?
What is an Angel Investor?
An angel investor (syndicate) is a high net worth group or individual who provides capital to help entrepreneurs and small businesses succeed, typically in exchange for ownership equity in the company. They are known as angels because they often invest in risky, unproven business ventures, and give support to start-ups at the (very) early phases of starting out, when most other investors are simply not prepared to back them. Much like venture capitalists who come in with funds at a later stage, it then becomes a commitment for angels to help steer and guide founders to their first customer or early adopters.
We have to learn how to walk, before we fly
The memory of my mother’s first lesson to me was that if I don’t watch where I go, I’ll tumble over and graze my knees. To think that all this time, I was just running into walls, crashing into trees. Angels tend to know much more than founders do, simply because of their long-standing experience in a particular industry or a respective field.
Mothers spend time to tend to your wounds, and point you in the right direction — in my case it was the direction where there wasn’t a tree in sight. Angels too, typically provide mentorship and resources that would have been helpful during the startup phase of a business. They will advise founders, not only because they’re personally vested, but because they are more concerned with — especially for early stage startups — the commitment and passion of the founders and the larger market opportunity that the founders have identified.
(Un)conditional love, always
A mother’s always there with you through thick and thin — your first heartbreak, that time you didn’t land the internship, or when your day just didn’t pan out the way you wanted it to. They pay for a large part of things like your living expenses, education, etc. Angels who see value created by your product/service invest in founders, and some of them invest through crowdfunding platforms online or build angel investor networks to pool capital together.
Within our alumni network, Shao-Ning and Teck Moh from AngelCentral are two prominent angels who’ve helped startups tide through tough times — thankfully we’ve got the entire community backing the startup ecosystem here in SEA and the world. Funds committed by angel investors may be a one-time investment to help founders get off the ground or an ongoing injection to support and sustain operations, and see through its challenges to drive success, and ultimately returns for angels.
Pride and joy
Finally, a mother wants the best for her children. She wants them to succeed, and ultimately be at peace and happy. That’s why Mom sent us for tuition, enrichment classes, and outdoor adventure camps. It’s the exposure she hopes you’ll gain out of these experiences. It’s obvious that angels want their startups to succeed and they often consider the potential of the startup and founders themselves, including factors such as:
- Experience or track record of founders
- Viability of the business plan
- Innovative or disruptive product or service
- Whether or not the business is scalable
- Existing and potential revenue models
These factors are essential in the future growth of the startup, where angels can propel them to the direction of success.
Mother’s Day
You can’t choose your mother, but founders can choose their angel investor(s), so choose wisely! In celebration of all mothers around the world, Pitchspot wishes all mothers a very warm Mother’s Day! While we celebrate mothers everywhere, let’s also take the opportunity to celebrate the ones who have played a special, mother-like role in our lives — a devoted aunt, Godmother, step-mom, or teacher, angels basically.
Pitchspot is your global launchpad for ideas — it is a collaborative hub of frameworks for business strategy and innovation. The open-access platform allows users to discover, share, and build ideas and insights through business strategy frameworks and templates. Learn more.
