Scott Shane Fool's Gold, The Truth Behind Angel Investing in America (2008)

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.It turns out that only a small por-tion of angel investors are retired 23.1 percent, according to the datafrom the Entrepreneurship in the United States Assessment.Moreover, angels are no more likely to be retired or out of the laborforce than other types of informal investors; the proportion of angelinvestors who are in different labor force categories is not statisticallydifferent from that of friends-and-family investors or even the rest ofthe adult population.According to data from the Entrepreneurship inthe United States Assessment, 63.7 percent of friends and family inves-tors are working full- or part-time compared to 65.4 percent of angelinvestors.6 Approximately 25.3 percent of friends-and-family investorsare retired compared to 23.1 percent of angel investors, while 11.1percent of friends and family investors are not in the labor force com-pared with 11.5 percent of angel investors.7And these patterns are not unique to the Entrepreneurship in theUnited States Assessment.Other surveys of representative samples ofthe adult population show similar patterns.For instance, data from theWho Are Angel Investors? 45Global Entrepreneurship Monitor indicate that in the United States,75 percent of friends and family investors and 71.4 percent of angelsare employed full- or part-time.GENDER DOESN T AFFECT THE ODDS OF BEINGA BUSINESS ANGELMany observers have noted that more than 80 percent of angels aremale,8 a point made to argue that gender affects the odds that a personwill become a business angel.While most angels are, in fact, male, this does not mean that beingmale increases the odds that a person will become a business angel fortwo reasons.First, gender might affect the odds that a person makesan informal investment but not the odds that the informal investmentis an angel investment rather than an investment in a business runby a friend or family member.Second, gender might not account forthe differences in the odds of making an angel investment.Rather,it might simply reflect the fact that men score higher than womenon some characteristic, such as the number of entrepreneurs that theyknow, which increases the odds of making an angel investment.Oncethis characteristic is taken into consideration, gender has no additionaleffect on the odds that a person will make an angel investment.It turns out, in fact, that both of these things are true.Gender, itself,has no effect on the odds that a person will make an angel investment.Analysis of the Entrepreneurship in the United States data shows thatonce the effect of other factors are taken into account, men are nomore likely than women to be business angels and that being femalehas no effect on the odds that a person is a business angel rather thananother type of informal investor.9BLACKS AREN T UNDERREPRESENTEDIN THE ANGEL COMMUNITYMany observers have inferred that Blacks are underrepresented in theangel community because almost all angel investors are White.10 How-ever, the fact that few angel investors in the United States are Blacksays nothing about whether Blacks are underrepresented among angelinvestors any more than the fact that few angel investors in West Africaare White says anything about whether Whites are underrepresented46 Fool s Gold?90.0%80.0%70.0%60.0%50.0%40.0%30.0%20.0%10.0%0.0%White Black HispanicInformal Investors Noninvestorsfigure 3.1.Black, White, and Hispanic Shares of Informal Investors andNoninvestors.Source: Created from data contained in Reynolds, P.2007.Entrepreneurship in the United States: The Future Is Now.New York: Springer.among angel investors in that region.To have a large portion of angelinvestors in the United States be Black would require Blacks to behighly overrepresented among angel investors since they account foronly 12.8 percent of the U.S.population [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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