1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Cameron Kramlich, General Partner of Angelneers (Part 1)

Cameron Kramlich, General Partner at Angelneers, offers a rare perspective in support of solo entrepreneurs.

Podcast:

Sramana Mitra: What is your background? I’m looking at Angelneers and I’m reading angels and engineers, which is what your intent is I’m sure.

Cameron Kramlich: I’ve had a series of startups. Some have done well and some have not. I’ve sold to big tech companies. I’ve sold to private equities. My first investment was almost 20 years ago. My investing focus is around identifying high-potential entrepreneurs and teams where we can uniquely create value as both operators and investors.

Sramana Mitra: How big is Angelneers?

Cameron Kramlich: I have no idea. I can tell you how much money we’ve raised and how much we’ve deployed. The way we view our fund size is on a deal-by-deal basis. We look at startups. We look at teams.

Sramana Mitra: You’re not operating out of a fund?

Cameron Kramlich: We have a fund. It’s not the right metric to use for us. The way we work is, we build teams and we put money in. We also put people in and they work for sweat equity. They earn some equity. We earn some equity. We use that as a catalyst so that when we deploy capital, we have high return and lower risk. It’s a different model.

Sramana Mitra: What check size do you write and what stage do you start engaging in?

Cameron Kramlich: We do everything from two people at a coffee shop with a napkin to being in a $20 million Series A. We feel that the unique value we add is by putting together teams and helping the teams be better. Oftentimes, we look at the team and they’ll have a brilliant MBA and a designer, but they really need a good CTO. Some have a brilliant CTO and they need to figure out a revenue model.

Tolstoy said, “All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family in its own way.” Startups are like that. We try to create happy families and happy startups by identifying their weaknesses and strengths and helping them go from idea to product-market fit.

Sramana Mitra: What do you need to see in the beginning, whether it’s that CTO that you want to build the business side around or a business founder that you want to build a technical team around?

Cameron Kramlich: We like to see a big problem that lots of people or enterprises have. So many times when entrepreneurs pitch us, they’d be like, “This is a trillion-dollar opportunity.” Maybe it is. Oftentimes, it’s not the trillion dollars that are the most exciting or the ones you can address first. It may be an aspect of that trillion-dollar industry where there’s a huge amount of pain.

We look at that problem, that solution, and the team. The team has to have the right skills to be able to build the solution to the problem. We look for problems, solutions, and teams. We like more Steph Curry teams than Lebron James teams. We want to build a team where people pass to each other and things are balanced, and are not relying on one rock star.

This segment is part 1 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Cameron Kramlich, General Partner of Angelneers
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