Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Mike Maples, Founder And Managing Partner, Floodgate (Part 14)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Do any of those have a particularly interesting story?

Mike: I guess a couple of them. This is why I like to joke about people who think they know everything. So, Twitter, I actually invested in the prior company, Odeo, which is a podcasting company. And Apple decided to give podcasting away on iTunes. So, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, we don’t have a business here.

About nine months later, Evan Williams, who was the founder of Odeo, said, We don’t have a business here. I’m going to give the investors their money back.

I said, Look, you don’t owe me any money. I took a risk and I know how this works.

And he said, No, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give everybody their money back.

I said, Well, what are you going to do after that?

And he said, I’m not really sure. I’ve got this side project over here called Twitter, and I haven’t decided if it’s a company yet or not, and I’m just going to fiddle with it some.

I said, I’d like to invest in Twitter.

And he said, I’m not really sure if it’s a company or not.

And I said, Whether it’s Twitter or whatever your next thing is, I’ll only take the money back if you let me invest in whatever your next thing is.

So, he said, Okay, that’s fine.

Then it came time to invest in Twitter and I was like, Okay, now explain what Twitter does again.

And he said, Well, you say what you’re doing in 140 characters or fewer.

And I said, Okay, well, then what does it do?

That’s all that it does.

And I said, Well, what’s the road map?

There is no road map.

And I was like, Huh? Okay, I’m an investor in Twitter.

I left that meeting thinking, Okay, well, now I’ve lost the money for sure. So, now whenever people say, Well, it was the vision to understand the following trends . . . and all this stuff, I’m thinking, You know, luck is so important.

Irina: What is important is to surround yourself with the right people. That’s what you said in the first place. It’s not luck.

Mike: That’s right. If there’s any insight we had, it was that, Odeo was a bad business but Evan Williams was still a great entrepreneur. You’re investing in the person and the opportunity. You win some, you lose some when it comes to the opportunity.

This segment is part 14 in the series : Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Mike Maples, Founder And Managing Partner, Floodgate
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