AngelSoft & Dinging Bells

Hank Williams wrote an interesting post today, talking how how cool the AngelSoft homepage is. He points out that seeing the activity on the site is not only interesting for visitors, but great for employees too. Hank goes on to recall the dinging bell Jeff Bezos put in the Amazon.com office to tell employees a sale had been made.

Hank is 100% right (I'm willing to say this once a year, so happy birthday, Hank). I love talking to the AngelSoft team about their product because they know so much about what goes on behind the scenes with angel investors. The CafeMom fellas are the same. It's not a black box to them... it's a living breathing application where real people are getting stuff done.

As Fred points out today, AngelSoft's transparency also brings light to an industry (not just employees or users). The 1% figure (as commonly known, and reinforced by AngelSoft with real data, 1% of deals end up with funding) caused a good discussion in the comments of Fred's post . It's information like this which helps rationalize an industry wrought with mystique, confusion, and heartbreak.

What other industries need more transparency?