Jeff Carter is a co-founder of Hyde Park Angels, one of the most active angel groups in the United States, and he is currently raising a VC fund, named West Loop Ventures. Before becoming an angel he was a trader for over 25 years and he continues to trade independently.
In This Episode You Will Learn:
- How Hyde Park Angels started?
- Why traders make for good angel investors?
- Why having pornographers and money launderers latching on to your product early is a great sign?
- Why it has been easier to find LPs for West Loop Ventures outside of Chicago?
- Why you have to be a great analyzer of people and not just ideas for seed investing?
- Why it's important to have a vision for the future as a seed investor?
- Why VCs can bet on ideas, but angels have to be on people?
- Why being coachable is so important for entrepreneurs?
- How an entrepreneur/investor relationship is like dating?
- Why he makes a point of blogging everyday?
- What we have to do to keep growing the Chicago tech scene?
Favorite Blogs:
- Streetwise Professor by Craig Pirrong
- AVC by Fred Wilson
- Feld's Thoughts by Brad Feld
- The Musings of The Big Red Car by Jeffrey Minch
Favorite Books:
- City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America by Donald Miller
- The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour by James D. Hornfischer
- Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal by James D. Hornfischer
- The Doolittle Raid: America's Daring First Strike Against Japan by Carroll V. Glines
- High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove
- Personnel Economics in Practice by Edward P. Lazear, Michael Gibbs
Selected Links From The Episode:
- Kenny Estes, VC at West Loop Ventures
- Vishal Verma, Co-Founder of Hyde Park Angels
- Steve Kaplan, Professor at University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- Kathleen Swan, startup attorney
- Raman Chadha, Co-Founder of Junto Institute
- Irish Angels, Notre Dame inspired angel group
- Jason Kunesh, CEO of Public Good
- Dan Ratner, COO at Public Good
- Marc Halpin, CEO of Kapow Events
- Daniel McCormick, COO of Kapow Events
- Sam Rosen, Founder of Deskpass
- Jay Swoboda, CEO of Dabble
- Robert Rosenberg, Professor at University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- Mark Tebbe, Professor at University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- PJ Media, conservative news site
- Rick Santelli, Editor at CNBC
- Sean Chou, Founder of Catalytic
- Amanda Lannert, CEO of Jellyvision
- Dick Costello, former CEO of Twitter
- "The Nature of the Firm" (1937), an influential article by Ronald Coase
- Merton Miller, deceased Professor from University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- Bryan Johnson, Founder of Braintree and OS Fund
- Matt Maloney, Founder of Grub Hub
Sponsored By:
- Bevy: a Chicago startup delivering everything you need, but don’t want to own, for amazing experiences. Own Less. Live More.