Co-Founder of Park City Angel Investment Network & Managing Director of PandoLabs

Utah is well known for hosting the 2001 Olympics, its annual Sundance Festival, and great seasonal skiing. However, its more valuable asset may be its reputation as a startup hotspot. Utah’s investment per-deal averages gives California and New York a run for their money. Savvy businessmen are drawn to the active lifestyle of the slopes as well as the active role they can play in providing emerging companies with a seed to succeed. I was able to sit down and learn from Ted McAleer, co-founder of one of the most active angel groups, Park City Angels Investment Network.

Ted has over 30 years of experience in both startup and mature corporations. He was chief operating officer for Teleoptic Digital Imaging, LLC as well as the Sr. Director of Implementation services at Campus Pipeline, Inc. During his time at Pipeline he helped raise $80 million. Ted had multiple other corporate positions and was in the US Army. His leadership skills acquired while at West Point have been evident in all of his business ventures. Most recently it is evidenced in the way he leads the Park City Angels investment Network and PandoLabs.

“Life is constantly changing and if you get too satisfied with your status quo someone is going to come in and replace you.” ~ Ted McAleer

Park City Angels partnered with PandoLabs, a new business incubator, to help startup companies accelerate their growth. With the angel investors’ assistance and deep network of partners, they can provide entrepreneurs with managerial guidance and investment money. Park City Angels invest in companies that offer exceptional prospects for high returns on investment. This usually implies companies with the potential to achieve high growth, strong market position, and sustainable advantages through earning at least $50 million in annual revenue within the five years. Park City Angels then provide new entrepreneurs with experienced mentors and startup-centric business coaching through PandoLabs.

Within PandoLabs, Ted developed a program called PandoLabs Institute. The mission of PandoLabs Institute is to empower young talent by teaching them coding and programming skills to optimize their career pathways. The Institute vision is to create IT professionals who leverage their skills into careers in growth-industry categories. Ted helps individuals, mainly young adults, understand the technology companies of tomorrow. He then lines people up with apprenticeships to align their skills with the industry of best-fit. Ted has interviewed over 400 managers, senior leaders, and executives in transition while developing this program. Through this he has helped individuals build purposeful careers around work most exciting to them.

While shadowing Ted I learned a great deal about passion, commitment, and leadership. Profound passion comes from continuous learning and from experimentation. By adding new talents to our cognitive toolkit we find ways to increase our Personal ROI (return on investment). The level of commitment needed in the present choices to make ideas into reality. To understand people, leaders must hold the ability to inspire confidence among people as well as call them to action. The most important lesson I learned is that it is impossible to get anywhere without the help of others: we must invest in others as others invest in us.

Elevator Pitch:

We solve the problem of __________ by providing the solution of ___________ which provides __________ (Customer or Stakeholder) the value of ____________.  We distribute our solution by _____________ and we make money by charging the (Customer or Stakeholder) an average of _____________ (unit of measure).  We have demonstrated our traction by ______________ (Attract Metric #1), ______________ (Interact Metric #2), ______________ (Transact Metric #3) which is growing by _____________ (Target of greater than 25%) month over month

*Angel investors are first and foremost businesspeople. Sell them on your business potential and the strength of your team.

Tips of the Trade:

“My fundamental philosophy is to pick a functional category you want to work in and pick an industry vertical to it that is growing and scaling. Then learn as much as you can about that industry.”~ Ted McAleer

“Think about your core values and operate around them. This will keep you from being led astray as incentives to take you off your path are put in front of you.” ~ Ted McAleer

“The key element is having mentors. Meet with your advisors and mentors on a regular basis.” ~ Ted McAleer

“Why is it that everybody needs to continue to educate themselves every day? Because life is changing at a rapid rate.” ~ Ted McAleer