Lesson #1 = if you intend to show investors how much your company could be worth by comparing it to other companies that have gone public, make sure you know how much revenue that company was making before going public!

How do you pitch an angel investor group?

I'll tell you...I don't know. I've done it several times now and it's hard to tell what works, but it's incredibly easy to tell what doesn't work. For those of you who don't know, angel investors are called angels because they invest in your company without taking everything you own, unlike the reputation of venture capital groups (or vulture groups, as some call them).

I have a pretty good idea of what doesn't work because of my experience with CondoCompare. In case you don't know, CondoCompare is an on-line real estate brokerage that lists for sale tens of thousands of residential condo projects. It's about a billion times better than other sites for condo buyers because it gives buyers access to the same "historical" information that real estate agents have. This means that users can look at a potential condo and see whether the units have appreciated and at what rate--seriously, it saves you from buying a stagnant piece of junk.

Okay, background over. So I'm the COO/Business Development guy, and have pitched or helped pitch our business to several groups. We recently pitched to an Angel Network. In one section, I was talking about exit strategies of selling to another group or having an IPO. I neglected to give (and didn't remember) the pre-offering valuation of the company, and one of the investors immediately asked. I had no recollection whatsoever. In some ways, my comparision of CondoCompare to Move.com, was like someone only telling me they sold a house for a million, but didn't tell me how much they bought and invested in it. The guy had a great point.

Next time, I won't forget that "little" detail.