Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Eric Pozzo, Fund Manager, Oregon Angel Fund (Part 12)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What is your advice to entrepreneurs? What could they do better?

Eric: If you’re out there [working for a big company] and you know your customers well, they’re going to ask for things that the company you work for does not want to provide for some reason or another. It may be too small a niche. They may not see the profit in it. It may not fit into their sales channel.

But if you get enough customers to ask for something and say, “You know I could do that. I understand why my company doesn’t want to do it. Jeez, maybe I should get a couple guys out there together and solve this customer problem.”

So, I guess my advice to entrepreneurs is really get out there and know your market. Sometimes there’s no better way to know your market than to be an applications engineer at a company, or to be a software developer or contractor working for other companies or a salesperson who’s out calling on customers day in, day out. Boy, do you learn a lot from a sales position.

I spent my first three years out of college in sales. And I saw just so many business opportunities, so many great investment opportunities if you wanted to invest in a public markets, too.

You’re a salesperson and you’re talking to engineering groups, and they tell you whether their companies are hot or not. When the engineers think their company’s hot . . .  I wish I’d had more of money to invest right out of college because chances are, that stock would double or triple over the next year.

Irina: Thank you, Eric. Fantastic insights.

This segment is part 12 in the series : Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Eric Pozzo, Fund Manager, Oregon Angel Fund
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