If you extrapolate from David S. Rose's numbers Angelsoft pulls in something like ten to thirty thousand dollars per day. Amazingly, the fee you pay won't guarantee a meeting with anybody.
No one who has the clout to get a deal out of this system needs to use it in the first place. If your company is good enough to get a deal under these conditions you could cold call just about any investor and receive funding. Angelsoft makes all of its money off entrepreneurs who they know have no chance of getting funding. What David S. Rose does should be illegal.
Here's how it works: 100 people walk in the door with $150, thinking they're going to get money for their business. David takes the $150 from 88 of them and immediately ushers them to the exit. The remaining 12 are invited to present in front of someone. But oh, their businesses just aren't right. So 11 more people fork over their $150 and leave. The remaining person (still forking over his $150), then forks over a substantial piece of his company at a low valuation. The only reason this ridiculous scheme works is because people believe they are going to get something back. They aren't. This is known as a "confidence scam."
I may not be as pessimistic about the idea of Angelsoft, but I won't use it for my start-up. There is some value to those new to raising capital. It does seem like they take advantage of the inexperienced in some respect (is the middle man neccessary?).
It will act as a good directory of local Angels which, for me, was hard to find in Toronto.
I don't know that it's intended to be advertising, per se. If anything, maybe a web-design tip. That said, it's cool, but it's not uber-cool. The main idea seems to be that the live map is really awesome, but to me, it just looks like a fun gimmick.
The part he seems to like is the map, which looks like a big fat guitar solo to me.
(it currently looks dead to me-- no "live" activity)
A home page should convey what problem the software solves, a clear path to signup, and should have some information that shows that it's a "safe" path-- press mentions, user accolades, adoption #s, etc. Presumably the map is trying to serve this last bit... It could probably do a better job if the designer was more interested in conveying information and less interested in eye candy and JavaScript.
No one who has the clout to get a deal out of this system needs to use it in the first place. If your company is good enough to get a deal under these conditions you could cold call just about any investor and receive funding. Angelsoft makes all of its money off entrepreneurs who they know have no chance of getting funding. What David S. Rose does should be illegal.
Here's how it works: 100 people walk in the door with $150, thinking they're going to get money for their business. David takes the $150 from 88 of them and immediately ushers them to the exit. The remaining 12 are invited to present in front of someone. But oh, their businesses just aren't right. So 11 more people fork over their $150 and leave. The remaining person (still forking over his $150), then forks over a substantial piece of his company at a low valuation. The only reason this ridiculous scheme works is because people believe they are going to get something back. They aren't. This is known as a "confidence scam."