Four members of our team attended the first ever Launch event orchestrated by Jason Calacanis February 23-24 in San Francisco. Special thanks to Airbnb for reasonably priced accommodations on Fillmore Street with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. We were there wearing our TechDrawl hats and also introducing our O2O product Flipcha to potential investors.

Allen Nance and Charlie Paparelli were fellow Atlantans at the conference, and we enjoyed comparing notes with them. Allen in particular challenged my earlier writings about the relative youth of the entrepreneurs in that area, and, in truth, many of the Launch presenters were mature (>35) and into their second or third gigs. But, this crop of companies was required to be in market at least with Beta products, and my observations pertained more to the incubator crowd of 20-somethings.

You can get a full listing of the presenters, their URLs, and considerable video on the Launch site, so I’m going to make a few overarching conclusions and then just give you my raw notes on the companies along with my opinions on some. You can look up all their URLs if you wish, but I thought giving you a quick overview of each might best give you the flavor of the event.

On now with the general observations:

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We’ll let the videos here of organizer Sanjay Parekh and an array of movers and shakers give you the flavor of this year’s Startup Riot. The Tabernacle proved to be an excellent venue for this parade of 50 startups with 3 minutes and 4 slides each. Keith McGreggor’s newly revised BackNoise was evident on many of the open screens in the room, and the fact that the comments there rolled on by quickly, never to be seen again, seemed to reduce the “snarkiness” factor.

Congratulations to the winner by popular vote TripLingo, a newly minted product of Start Atlanta, and to tied second place finishers Telineage and Nexpense. All got a package of services including face time with potential investors.

The format of Startup Riot gives a wide variety of companies the opportunity to make a great first impression on an audience of investors and other entrepreneurs. The overall quality to me seemed to be a step up from previous years, a sign of Sanjay’s progress with the event and perhaps of some revitalization of our startup community. Coupling this event with a job fair the preceding day was a brilliant addition to the package.

With that, thanks to the efforts of our Executive Producer Celia Dyer, please take a few minutes and enjoy the video coverage:

I attended a portion of Start Atlanta as a mentor and enjoyed the energy and enthusiasm of the three teams I met. I will admit to being taken aback at the elementary nature of many of the questions I got, but the only bad question is one not asked. I think through the ATDC and other local resources we can provide the educational power to help these teams succeed. My most interesting visit was with a company that had maybe a dozen people packed into a room. The vast majority of these were coders. When I was introduced to the group and pointed out that coding is not my expertise, 9 heads dipped straight back down to their screens without further ado. I did, however, have an engaging brainstorming session with non-coders in another room.

Next week we can anticipate a great program at Startup Riot and get the chance to see another parade of interesting companies. The winners there will get some face time with potential investors. And, next week also brings the deadline for applications to the GRA/TAG Business Launch competition, which has a $200,000 prize package for its winner.

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Charlie Paparelli always presents an interesting program for the monthly Angel Lounge gathering. This is a group of individuals who generally either have made or are planning to make technology angel investments and who are seeking to hone their skills in this art. It is not what I call a “venture séance” where deals are presented to the attendees in hopes of matchmaking entrepreneurs with money. Its mission is to provide education and mutual support for a group that collectively could deploy something in excess of $10M this year.

Today’s topic was investing criteria, with roundtable discussions followed by Charlie himself as the guest speaker. I thought it might be helpful to synthesize what I heard today and add a few thoughts of my own. Recall my recent post on valuation math and Dave’s post on the new Conway/Milner invest-in-everything fund. This post is more on the nitty-gritty of “pulling the trigger” on an angel deal.

The attendees ranged from one gentleman with a very set 15-point checklist to another who said: “I’m loaded from a recent exit. Bring me some deals.” (I paraphrased a bit there, and please don’t ask me his name.) In general, the criteria included such factors as these.

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