Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/54806
Spotlight Angels Among Us What do entrepreneurs need to know about angels? When it comes to angel investors, everything, says Ron Monark of the College of Wil- liam & Mary's Mason School of Business in Williamsburg, Virginia. That's why Monark takes several students to attend twice-monthly meetings of the New Dominion Angels, a group of investors in the Virginia and D.C. area. There, students see which presentations impress and which get passed over. Students can take an active part in the discussions and, if the investors decide to move on to due diligence, accompany them on a site visit to see how they evaluate the operation. The students are enrolled in Mason's eight-week Career Accel- eration Module (CAM) in Entre- preneurship and Small Business. In the CAM, all students identify busi- ness concepts, write business plans, and defend their plans to a panel of "investors" made up of execu- tive volunteers and actual investors. Guest speakers, including entrepre- neurs and angel investors, also visit their classes. Seeing how angels work is an important way to prepare students for the challenges of entrepreneur- ship, says Monark, who teaches in the program and is the managing director of the Miller Entrepreneur- ship Center at the Mason School. "When many of our students think of financing a business, they think of more traditional sources such as a loan from a bank or a family mem- ber," he says. "They don't really know what an 'angel investor' is." 72 BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2011 Guest speakers visit students in the Mason School's Career Acceleration Module in Entrepreneurship. Counter- clockwise from top right: Angel investor and startup mentor Edmund Pendleton, from Washington, D.C., speaks about the process of working with outside investors; Jody Wagner, owner of Jody's Popcorn in Virginia Beach, Virginia, discusses the process of starting a gourmet popcorn business; CAM students sample product from Jody's Popcorn. When students think of financing a business, they think of a loan from a bank or family member. They don't really know what an 'angel investor' is. —Ron Monark New Dominion Angels meetings can each accommodate only three student visitors, so Monark can take about 25 students during the academic year. He plans to contact more angel groups so that more CAM students can see how these investors operate. The CAM's immersive approach helps students avoid the "silly" mistakes that uninformed entre- preneurs often make, says Monark. "Students learn to prove there's a compelling reason for their idea," he says, "so that investors know how they're going to get their money back." ■ z