« How Startup Evaluates Potential Seed and Series A Investors - Joe Stump »

In Chapter 11 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, Internet entrepreneur and SimpleGeo CTO Joe Stump shares his approach to evaluating both Seed and Series A investors. In the early days, Stump looked for investors who had names and who understood the value proposition. He compares this to dating. Now, after two years, Stump looks for ex-entrepreneurs who invest their own money. He sets an investor cap at roughly $250,000, which at $50,000 per investor means about five angels. Stump is the co-founder and CTO at SimpleGeo (www.simplegeo.com), a San Francisco-based mobile location infrastructure services company. Previously Stump was Lead Architect at Digg. He programs in PHP, Python, Django and enjoys scaling websites. He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University.