Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?
Do you have a spare $50,000 or so to begin investing in early stage ventures? If so, would you know how to get started when you’re neither a powerhouse baby boomer nor a techie wunderkind, the two groups who dominate this scene?
If you answered no to both questions,
I’d like to introduce Pipeline Angels, an organization founded by Natalia Oberti Noguera, that teaches people how to become angel investors in an effort to get more capital to women and non-binary femme social entrepreneurs.
Maggie Knoke is one local woman who has gotten involved. She, along with business partner Lisa Goldson Armstrong, started the Twin Cities chapter of Pipeline Angels this past spring. She explains that it helps younger, diverse investors learn the business and get into the game. And get this — people can buy in for just $5,000 (while joining the network of advisers).
“That’s incredible to me. That radically shifts the accessibility,”
said Knoke in a conversation this fall, after she made her first investment. “That buy-in fee is much more accessible than the typical $25,000 or $50,000.” Pipeline reports that since its launch in 2011, more than 200 members have graduated from its angel investing boot camp and have invested nearly $5 million in more than 40 companies.
She believes the need is great.
“I sure feel like there is a lot of room and a lot of need to continue to have early stage funders,” she says. “One of the things that’s important to note, because we have such an emphasis on women, non-binary femme, people of color — this is a founder population that doesn’t have that kind of generational wealth.”
Knoke, in her mid-40s, started her career with small, non-profit businesses, then got an MBA and turned to the corporate world, eventually landing at Target Corp. “I left that because I missed my people — smaller, scrappy organizations,” she says.
“I loved my time in the corporate world, but after a certain time I was making Powerpoints.
I feel it was a great time to apply to Pipeline Angels,” she says. “Again, I’m insanely curious about other people’s businesses, what brings them to life. So it was great fun to be able to immerse myself in so many entrepreneur applicants.”
She attended a Pipeline Angels boot camp last spring and was pleased to find herself in a very diverse crowd. “I am cis, a straight white woman,” she says. “Natalia had a great point in the boot camp. Cis, straight white women are the white men of general investing.”
After learning the ropes, she and Armstrong got busy looking at potential investments, eventually deciding on Pie for Providers out of Chicago.
The company exceeded their goal for this early stage round, raising $550,000 in a combination of convertible notes and grants. “They help really materially and fundamentally elevate and increase providers’ bottom line revenue,” Knoke says.
“There are subsidies, both local and national, as well as tax deductions available, that providers routinely leave on the table, and this can be 30 percent of their income.”
Pie for Providers automates and takes the complexities out of applying for the subsidies and gaining the available tax deductions. “This can make the difference between working for less than minimum wage and making a great living.”
Knoke, and I, invite you to check out pipelineangels.com. “This is a very welcoming education that will make you smarter, it will make you savvier. You’re going to find like-minded people,” she says. “It’s a great way to get started.”
