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:

Sal Daher's Substack - Aging Fit

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

Lessons Learned is a compilation of hard-won lessons in angel investing. They come from my podcast interviews over these seven years as well as from my three decades of angel investing. Hints on how to build your portfolio, how to eliminate sure losers and other practical advice will be offered in the voice of my guests and in my own voice. Sorry that the release of the episode is delayed until Friday 12/29 due to personal matters and this year's Christmas calendar. Thanks for listening.

Aging Fit Substack: Learn More

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