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Angel Investors' Blogs
Where are the Angel Investor Bloggers?
For a few years now, I have wondered why there aren’t more blogs written by angel investors. This is my answer to the question, and the first list of angel investors' blogs.
Angels are More Important than VCs
One of the reasons I’ve been perplexed by the scarcity of angel investor bloggers is because I believe angels are more important to entrepreneurs, and the economy, than traditional Venture Capital investors.
Angels invest about the same amount of capital each year as VCs, but angels invest in 27 times more startups. It’s because angel investors provide this critical early stage capital, and are involved in so many more young companies, that I believe they are more important to entrepreneurs, and the economy, than traditional VC funds.
The Search for Angel Bloggers
I am not the only one who has wondered why there aren’t more angel investor bloggers.
Jeff Clavier asked the question two years ago in Angel investor blogs: where are thou?
He was following up on two posts by David Beisel VCs and Angels, Where are the Angel Bloggers? and Continued Conversation about Angel Bloggers.
A couple of years ago, Don Jones from VentureDeal started a Feedburner network called ‘Angel Capital.’ I don’t think it ever grew beyond Don and me.
Three years ago, the Entrepreneurship Blog posted 65 VC & Angel Investor Blogs; but a review of that list did not seem to include any active angel investors' blogs.
VC Bloggers
Right from the beginning of the blogging phenomenon, there has been a large number of VC bloggers.
Just recently, Larry Cheng wrote a great post: Global VC Blog Directory – Ranked By # of Google Reader Subscribers. He ranked 115 VC blogs by their number of Google subscribers. I hadn’t seen that as a way to rank blogs before, but it makes sense to me. Cheng’s article provided me with the impetus to build the first list of angel bloggers below.
Why Aren’t There More Blogs by Angel Investors?
Venture Blog suggests some reasons there aren’t more Angel Investor Bloggers.
I think the reasons there are so few angel bloggers are pretty simple:
1. Angels eat what they kill - OK, I may be a little jealous here, but I remember what it was like when I ran a VC fund. I actually got a paycheck. Every month. No matter what. Angels only get paid when they sell an investment for a profit. So I think angels just have less time to blog.
2. Angels are a little older - Many angel investors are in their late 50s and sixties. Many are considerably older. They just never got caught up in the blogging ‘movement.’
3. Angel investing is not a primary activity - Most angels aren’t full time investors. Their other interests also mean they have less time to write about angel investing.
4. Angel investing is still quite new - The angel investment ‘industry’ today is at about the same stage of development as the venture capital industry was in the mid 1980s.
A Special Note About The Frank Peters Show
First, Frank and I are not related. The Frank Peters Show blog deserves a special mention in this list. Frank’s excellent blog on angel investing may be the most widely followed blog for angels.
His site is unique because it’s a podcast. Frank publishes ‘radio shows’ about angel investing once a week or so. He doesn’t publish an RSS feed, so I can’t compare his blog on my list. In an email to me, Frank said: "iTunes matters to me, 22% of my audience comes in from iTunes."
The First List of Angel Investors' Blogs
This is the first draft of the Angel Investor Blog List.
I’ve blended two rankings - the number of Google Reader subscribers (like the VC list) and the Alexa rank (smaller is better). Rankings are from June 17, 2009.
Please help me complete and update this list. If you know of an angel investor blog that should be included, submit a comment below or send me an email. Thanks for your help on this resource.
Rank |
Blog Title |
Google Reader Subscribers |
Alexa Rank |
1 |
350 |
434,632 |
|
2 |
N.A. |
1,686,963 |
|
3 |
69 |
1,958,903 |
|
| 4 | 22 |
1,164,435 |
|
| 5 | 18 |
716,549 |
|
6 |
17 |
Subdomain |
|
7 |
N.A. |
1,032,267 |
|
| 8 | N.A. |
1,018,871 |
|
9 |
14 |
1,912,818 |
|
10 |
10 |
2,992,498 |
|
11 |
10 |
1,228,545 |
|
| 12 | 10 |
5,128,753 |
|
| 13 | 9 |
7,150,228 |
|
| 14 | 7 |
5,862,893 |
|
15 |
6 |
4,922,224 |
|
| 16 | 3 |
3,654,593 |
|
| 17 | 3 |
N.A. |
|
18 |
Angel Investment Journal - Angel Investing and Entrepreneur Blog |
2 |
3,304,784 |
19 |
1 |
1,954,056 |
|
20 |
1 |
N.A. |
|
| 21 | N.A. |
N.A. |
Apologies in advance if I have left anyone out or transcribed any of this data incorrectly. Please post a comment below or email me your suggestions, updates and error corrections. Thanks very much.
This is a link to the Google bundle for the RSS feeds that are available.
