Why Pornographers & Criminals Make For Great Customers & Chicago Tech History - Jeff Carter / VC at Hyde Park Angels & West Loop Ventures

Tech In Chicago

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.

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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