David was kind enough to answer a few questions by e-mail for us.  He is already a veteran of nextNY events, participating in our Community Conversation on “Startup 101” and PitchCamp.  Yet, still, he probably remains one of the most under the radar angel investors out there.  We’re glad that he has given our members several opportunities to get to know him better.

1) I’ve heard the 10 minute version of a brief 2 minute description of yourself and your background in person… but here I can hold you to a word count. Think you can tell us who you are in 100 words or less?

A serial entrepreneur turned serial angel investor, David S. Rose is passionately convinced that entrepreneurship is the core of a successful society. Having started half a dozen businesses and making it to the Inc. 500, he founded New York Angels and has been described by Crain’s as the “father of angel investing in New York”. His current portfolio includes over three dozen cool startups of which he’s Chairman of three, and as an entrepreneur himself he’s CEO of Angelsoft, which currently back-ends over 90 angel groups on three continents. He also runs the #1 Google-ranked web site on letterpress printing.

2) If there were two or three key problems that you would like to see every single startup out there that thought they had a solution for, what would those problems be?

Effective spam filtering, usable universal remote control for consumer electronics, web-based personal assistant service

3) If you had to invest every penny that you had in a company based on their answers to just three questions, what questions would you ask?

Would the last three people you fired work for you again?
What do you see as the role of an angel investor in your company?
Are you prepared to invest every penny that YOU have in your own company?

4) What are the best and worst things about trying to build a startup in New York?

Best: unbelievable talent pool, lots of synergistic companies, great energy and dynamism
Worst: high cost of talent, easy to get lost in the shuffle, not as many VCs as the West Coast

5) Who are the three wisest people in the NYC technology scene that you know?

Really, really tough call! There are many wise ones, but I’ll give you six, in no particular order:

Howard Morgan
Scott Kurnit
Esther Dyson
Stuart Ellman
Jon Whelan
Henry Kressel

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Charlie O’Donnell is the Director of Consumer Products at Oddcast, a New York City venture backed startup whose avatar platform is used for interactive advertising and personal expression. He was formerly an Analyst at Union Square Ventures.

Contact Charlie at charlie.odonnell@gmail.com or view more articles at
www.thisisgoingtobebig.com