Blake Jennelle has blog

Right now, I’m fighting a solo battle with the Angel Venture Fair (AVF) over their lame decision to use Eventbrite instead of TicketLeap. Until now, this disagreement has lived on the on the AVF’s Facebook page.

I’m really irritated.

The Angel Venture Fair is put on by the Private Investors Forum, which in turn has members who invested in TicketLeap (Robin Hood and the MAG Fund participated in a recent round). The AVF is dissing a local company for reasons that don’t make any sense to me. This is after a recent discussion among Philly Startup Leaders (PSL) members over what many entrepreneurs (and Jason Calacanis) think is ridiculous pricing — $1,000 to present at the fair and $250 just to apply.

It’s also amusing that the AVF says that they aren’t really looking for PSL stage companies. In a phone call with Valerie Gaydos, who runs the AVF, she said that they are looking for companies with around $500k in revenue.

This is amusing for two reasons:
1. PSL has a bunch of companies with $500k+ revenue
2. How lame is our angel community to be that far upstream?

I’ve literally had angels in Boston and DC laugh at me when I told them what kind of deals our “angels” look at. And this is on top of what the real Philly angels are saying, who don’t need the AVF to source deals and think this whole affair is downright silly.

I’m tired of sitting this one out. I hope some of you are too.

This is the third post in a five-part series on missioneurs, a new community of startup and social entrepreneurs.

The premise is that startup entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs need each other. Alone, too many of their great ideas are struggling and failing. Together, they can fill in each other’s blind spots, build stronger companies and make greater change.

A new post in this series will be published every day this week. Blog subscribers will receive them one day early by email or RSS.

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Yesterday, we discussed the startup entrepreneur’s obsession with execution at the expense of ideas and the crippling effect this has on their marketing, sales and HR.

Now let’s talk about social entrepreneurs, who have the opposite problem:

Social entrepreneurs are obsessed with mission at the expense of execution.

This is a blessing and a curse.

It’s a blessing because their mission can be a very faithful guide. It defines what services they provide, how they make decisions, how they communicate to donors and constituents and how they build their teams. Read more…

This is the first post in a five-part series on missioneurs, a new community of startup and social entrepreneurs.

The premise is that startup entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs need each other. Alone, too many of their great ideas are struggling and failing. Together, they can fill in each other’s blind spots, build stronger companies and make greater change.

A new post in this series will be published every day this week. Blog subscribers will receive them one day early by email or RSS.

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Great startups and non-profits are dying needlessly, and it’s time for those of us who care to do something about it.

The obituaries look so familiar that they start to run together.

Here lies Anthillz, a tech startup that failed for lack of traction, inability to attract investors and too much time and money spent building the right tech team.

Here lies Great Intentions, a (barely) fictitious non-profit that died the non-profit version of this same death. It lost its foundation funding, laid off most of its staff, sought help in vain from its indifferent board – most of whom missed that board meeting, just like the ones before it – and forced its founders to look for other work because they couldn’t afford to pay themselves a salary, not even the peanuts they were making before.

If you’re a startup or social entrepreneur, one of these two stories should sound familiar. You probably hear versions of them again and again. Read more…