Angel Invest Boston

In the Decade of Biotech when there will be myriad opportunities to invest in angel-scale biotech startups. After decades of angel investing, I am focusing on the life science side of my portfolio and invite other angels to do the same. Here's why: https://www.labcoatventures.com/why-we-are-focused-on-early-stage-biotech/ I’m Sal Daher, host of the Angel Invest Boston Podcast. After immigrating to Boston as a child and attending Belmont High School, I studied engineering at MIT and Stanford. Decades of work in international finance followed. During that time, I invested in a handful of ventures founded by friends and acquaintances. Now, I’m a member of Walnut Ventures and MIT Angels and spend most of my time as an angel investor. Startups in my portfolio include: SQZ Biotech, Gelesis, Akili Interactive, Vedanta Biosciences, FineTune Learning, Concrete Sensors, Squadle, doDoc, Pixability, Mavrck, Viral Gains, Streamroot, XMOS, Alice's Table and others. Exits include: Exos (Microsoft), Rifiniti (KKR) and PIKA Energy (Generac).

Sal Daher - Lessons Learned 12/29/2023

Sal Daher - Lessons Learned In the final episode of the podcast I, Sal Daher, review important lessons I learned in seven years of interviews and decades of investing. In my voice and in the voice of my guests, I recapitulate the discoveries most salient to me and invite listeners to find their own nuggets in the sound archive which will remain available on Apple Podcasts and other platforms. AngelInvestBoston.com will have 250 episode pages with sound, notes, and in most cases, annotated transcripts. I’ll be publishing new content at Substack.com focused on keeping fit as we age. You can find me there under Sal Daher or under Aging Fit. Startups will show up occasionally. Here’s a link to the Substack: Thanks for listening. Highlights: · Lesson 1: Company-Specific Risk – The Bad & The Good – Why It Matters in Startup Investing · Lesson 2A: “You know nothing, Jon Snow” – The Need for Tight Risk Control · Lesson 2B: “You Know Nothing, Jon Snow” – Whence a Real 400X Return · Lesson 3A: What to Look for in a Startup? What to Look for in a Founding Team? · Lesson 3B: The Most Significant Results from Ed Roberts’ Research · Lesson 4A: It’s Important Not to Keep Your Idea Secret but to Talk to Many People About It · Lesson 4B: The Google Problem – Why Founders Should Be Open About their Ideas · Lesson 3B Recapitulated: Robust Finding: Larger Teams Do Better; Startups Tend to Have Teams that Are Too Small · Lesson 5A: Focus, Focus, Focus · Lesson 5B: Focus, Focus, Focus · Lesson 6: Take the Money & Run · Lesson 7: It’s a Long Way from the Lab to the Clinic · Why I Am Ending the Podcast – Archive Available – See You at Substack.com Guest: Sal Daher Topics: angel investing strategies, co-founders, biotech, exits, pivots, partnerships with strategics /episode/index/show/angelinvestboston/id/29259568

Sal Daher - Lessons Learned - PODCAST LAUNCH DELAYED UNTIL 12/29/23 at 1:30 AM - Apologies!! 12/27/2023

Tom Weldon - A Fountain of Youth 12/20/2023

Tom Weldon - A Fountain of Youth Aging Fit Substack: Repeat life science entrepreneur Tom Weldon is now taking on aging. He is commercializing a compound to extend health span developed at a prominent institution. Composed of substances generally considered as safe by the FDA, the formula has shown impressive results in mice and, to date, in one human, Tom himself. Intriguing chat with a dynamic founder. Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson. Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Tom Weldon What Problem Rejuvant Addresses "... Then the first time the combination is not additive, take it out. That's a process that would probably take a year or two, but it ensures that you'll have an optimal result. Or, you can buy Rejuvant, because we did all that work already..." "... if you decide that you'd like to try Rejuvant and you go on subscription, we give you a free DNA methylation test at time zero and then we give you another one after six months, which is included in the cost ... They're different and they have different algorithms. All of them except two that I'm aware of, one of which is what we provide, requires your current chronologic age as an input..." "... It was actually discovered by Steve Horvath and he developed the first biologic clock ... Your DNA is damaged every second that you're alive. Prior to puberty, your body does an exceptional job of repairing all of that. However, after that, it starts to decline..." "... Is there any evidence that repair is actually at work? How do we know that it's not just removing the methyl molecule from the DNA, and you have damaged the DNA that's just not methylated?..." "... How long have you been on Rejuvant?..." How Tom Became an Entrepreneur "... This company had this trajectory and now it's just gone Chapter 7 recently. That is the tough side of these life science technology companies because the technology moves so fast..." "... very difficult space. What I have seen in the medical device space, these 510k pathway devices where there is an existing predicate device, and then you can design something which is, no worse and perhaps much better than the predicate device..." Advice to the Audience Topics: biotech, discovering entrepreneurship, founding story /episode/index/show/angelinvestboston/id/29146113

Paul Hartung - Fund a Biotech Startup in Hard Times 12/13/2023

Sal Daher - Startups in the IRA? Pros & Cons from Decades of Investing 12/13/2023

Raul Rosa - Art and Craft 12/13/2023

Katharine Woodman-Maynard - Talent and Wisdom 12/06/2023

Ethan Pierce - AI Helps Kids Read 11/29/2023

Brian Denenberg - Helping Startups Grow 11/22/2023

Brian Freeman, MD - Burn More Calories 11/15/2023

Andy Bartlett, PhD - The Fun in Angel Investing 11/08/2023

Andy Bartlett, PhD - The Fun in Angel Investing Angel Scale Biotech: My Walnut buddy Andy Bartlett, PhD brings great energy to the group and an expert’s perspective on computing. We talked about our favorite startups including Savran Technologies, evTS, and BioFeyn. He has interesting things to say about ChatGPT. We also had a great chat about his angel journey. Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson. Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Andy Bartlett Savran Technologies "... three of the things I really love to see in startups is a founder like Çağrı that will go through walls, that's so important. Defensibility that they have a moat, so the strong patent portfolio..." evTS BioFeyn "... We're talking about the University of Illinois Gies School of Business. I'm so impressed with the way the faculty is running that business school. They're running it like a disruptive business..." "... They've gone ahead and they've kept this very affordable. The full program, it's 18 classes plus three capstones costs about $23,000 total..." Andy's Entrepreneurial Background "... My mother's family had entrepreneurship. My great-grandfather, Alonzo Dodge, started a Dodge Moving and storage company. I always thought my grandfather had founded it, but actually, it was his father. They always ran that. That was the family business..." "... Eventually, I got my way into the electrical engineering department and I've embraced that for years and years..." "... At Chrysler, I could draw a block diagram to model some algorithm I wanted to use for onboard diagnostic testing of the Chrysler vehicles. I could model it. I could simulate it. I could pull down a menu and immediately generate code that would run on a computer in the backseat of a test car. I would drive around and I could do my experiments and collect my data..." Andy's Opinion on ChatGPT Topics: angel investing strategies, biotech, discovering entrepreneurship /episode/index/show/angelinvestboston/id/28543100

Kevin Majeres, MD - Joy at Work 11/01/2023

Kevin Majeres, MD - Joy at Work Angel Scale Biotech: Kevin Majeres, MD, teaches cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) at Harvard Medical School. CBT is the gold standard to treat mental health conditions without drugs. CBT can also help with workplace issues such as burnout or anxiety. Dr. Majeres (pronounced Majors) has built a digital platform, OptimalWork.com, to improve the quality of work life. I learned really useful things from this interview. Sponsored by Purdue University entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish and Richardson. Highlights: Sal Daher Introduces Dr. Kevin Majeres What OptimalWork is Solving "... what we are doing is bringing the insights of cognitive behavioral therapy out of the normal context, which is working with the cognitive behavioral therapist. We're bringing that to people in the setting of their work..." "... In fact, everything with regard to eating behaviors, there's abundant evidence that cognitive behavioral therapy works. At one level, you could see that the more someone was afraid of hunger, the more likely they would be to act on it..." "... This is why I think anxiety is the most central emotion to understand because anxiety is the urge to avoid challenge as challenge..." "... Cognitive behavioral therapy, I should say, it also tends to focus on what's happening right now. What are the emotions showing up right now? Where's the avoidance right now? Where does the reframing have to take place right now?" "... I think that we need more and more things like Endeavor OTC that are helping to identify what are the particular mental muscles that can be worked out, and whether these things are going to be universally applicable, or maybe there are certain subpopulations that that's exactly the workout that they need..." "... How would you compliment this Cybex machine for the mind with cognitive behavioral therapy?" "... That in a sense is like what we teach people at The Golden Hour, is how to just briefly strategize what you're about to do, lay out the steps in advance, think of how you want to be stretching yourself in these steps, calm your mind down for a moment, and then launch into it. Then you're going to have full traction, and then you get momentum. Flow is really just momentum in work..." Dr. Majeres' Psychiatry Journey "... anxiety is adrenaline waiting to be reframed..." Advice to the Audience Topics: discovering entrepreneurship, scholar /episode/index/show/angelinvestboston/id/28466684