Dr. Earl R. Smith II

Cash, and lots of it. Starting a business revolves around this principle, so do your investors. They want to know how much cash you’re going to make, how soon you’ll make that cash, and how much cash they can pocket.

There’s lots of motion in the ocean in the early-stage investing world. TechCrunch has a write-up on the companies that presented at Y Combinator’s demo day yesterday. I had several of my own thoughts.

The Federal government’s goal is to award 23 percent of all Federal contracts to small businesses. That’s hundreds of billions of dollars.

Angel Investors come in various guises all across the world. They are as varied as there are different personalities. But underneath all that diversity lays a core that they all share. Knowing what makes them all tick, will give you a much greater advantage, as you can format your net to reach as broad a population as you can while still engaging them hard. There aren’t that many, but you will soon realize that they do go very deep.

There is a telltale sign of an inexperienced startup entrepreneur. They get premature merge elation. You know, they get so excited about doing deals all the time instead of doing the hard work of figuring out their businesses. I understand this. I was a premature merge elater once.

Catherine V. Mott, CEO and founder of Blue Tree Capital Group and Blue Tree Allied Angels, based in Pittsburgh, PA , has been elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Angel Capital Association (ACA), based in Kansas City, MO.

Many founders are eventually faced with a choice: is it better to finance their future business growth with help from business angels (BAs) or venture capitalists (VCs). The short answer, as so often, is that it depends on individual circumstance. Let’s explore the two options in greater detail.

In the latest issue of Mergers & Acquisitions, there was a good article by Erik Birkerts, a partner at Evergreen Growth Advisors, regarding five observations from the IPO process. In the article, Erik asks an important question: “How should company leadership objectively think about the strategy of going public?”

When you read the phrase sales culture, what does that mean to you? When I ask folks I get responses like ’having our salespeople focused on selling our products or services,’ or ’successfully fulfilling a want or need of a customer,’ or ’meeting our sales goals on a regular basis.’ So why do we limit this thinking to just the sales team? Why don’t companies adopt the idea of creating a sales culture…one that is about creating value, being problem solvers, being customer-centric…why isn’t that the corporate culture?

Venture capitalists invested $7.7 billion into U.S.-based companies during the second quarter, total of 744 deals, the highest quarterly total since the third quarter of 2008, according to new statistics released by Dow Jones VentureSource.