News

7 Essential Entrepreneurial Resources to Build Your Startup

So much of succeeding in the entrepreneurial ecosystem is constantly learning from others who’ve been there before. At Hyde Park Angels, we spend as much time teaching as we do learning, and we encourage all entrepreneurs to seek out resources to help them grow. Here are seven essential resources we think every entrepreneur (and investor) […]

September 22, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff

Inno Approved: Tech Events to Check Out this Week

THURSDAY PowerPoint Karaoke WeWork Fulton Market: 220 N Green St. Chicago, IL 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. On Thursday at WeWork’s Fulton Market office, Chicago Inno is hosting PowerPoint Karaoke, an improv-style pitch meetup where challengers have 2 minutes to deliver a completely unprepared pitch. Competitors will pitch their made up startup, which will be accompanied by […]

September 21, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff

How to Read and Understand a Cap Table

Understanding all of the technicalities of investment — how you should calculate your valuation, what your term sheet actually says, and what a cap table is, let alone should demonstrate — can an often feel like the most difficult part of the process. Even more than pitching and finding the right investors, understanding the technicalities of investment requires learning and […]

September 15, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff

Build and Fund Your Startup through Corporate Partners

Join Hyde Park Angels at 1871 on September 24 for a dynamic event focused on teaching you how to leverage Chicago’s rich corporate landscape to grow your startup. Our experienced panel of entrepreneurs and corporate venturers will take you through landing corporate clients, building strategy partnership, and even attracting corporate investment. You’ll also have the […]

September 8, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff

Why You Don’t Need to Be a Unicorn

Understanding investors’ perspectives on risk will provide insights into how they make investments, build their portfolio, and even evaluate your business. Despite deep due diligence, and in most cases — especially among angels — a deep desire to provide the tools and resources necessary for a business to succeed, investors can’t always pick winners. Consequently, many aim to intelligently […]

September 1, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff

3 Key Terms in a Term Sheet to Understand

Receiving a term sheet from an investor can be an exciting time for you as a founder. But you shouldn’t let that excitement keep you from understanding and thinking critically about that term sheet. The better your grasp the terms presented, the more chance you’ll have of effectively starting your long-term investor relationship on the […]

August 25, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff

Unlock Metrics on Your Investors and Your Competitors

Investors care about metrics, especially your startup’s metrics –number of non-paying customers versus paying customers, customer’s lifetime value, growth rate, total revenue month over month, and the list goes on and on. A lot of times, they’re using data tools to evaluate these metrics even before you pitch them. For example, Mattermark allows investors to […]

August 18, 2015 By Marketing Hyde Park Angels

Moneyball for Startups

More and more, investors are using the “Moneyball” model — an evidence-based, algorithmic approach — to make investments. The idea is that they can use analytics and success metrics to predict the future, and as a result, make better investment considerations. So far, it seems like it’s working. Assuming you don’t already have close relationships with investors, which will […]

August 11, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff
Valuation

How to Measure Valuation

As an early-stage entrepreneur, one of the first things you learn is that the valuation of your company is important. Every Shark Tank episode focuses on the drama and negotiations around valuation. In fact, the beginning of every Shark Tank pitch starts off in the following way: Entrepreneur: “I am seeking a $## investment in […]

August 4, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff

TurboAppeal Acquires Realytics, Appoints New Chief Technology Officer

TurboAppeal continues its fast-paced growth trajectory since it raised $1.5M from investors @Properties, Hyde Park Angels, and Hyde Park Venture Partners earlier this year with two new strategic additions. Namely, the real estate technology company best known for its highly accurate, inexpensive, big data-powered property tax appeal solution has recently acquired another real estate tech […]

July 28, 2015 By Alida Miranda-Wolff