Arjun Dev Arora

CEO, ReTargeter

San Francisco

About Me

I am an angel investor and advisor to multiple Silicon Valley startups. I am the founder and CEO of ReTargeter. Prior to ReTargeter, I was the Head of Business Development at Yahoo! Real Estate, and an investment banker specializing in the technology sector at Jefferies Broadview. I also serve as a member of the Young Entrepreneur Council and an LP at 500Startups.

Investment Strategy

I focus primarily on investing in entrepreneurs that I know or that are friends of friends. I look for high-growth technology companies that can have a large impact.

Portfolio Companies

Some of the companies I have invested in include: Cloudability (making managing cloud services costs easy) and 15five (making internal communication between managers easy). I have invested in these companies because they have amazing founders and founding teams and they are working on big problems.

My Criteria for Investing in Startups

I look primarily for the team. My only concern is the caliber of the entrepreneur and their commitment to learning, growth, fostering a great culture and generally being well respected.

Attributes I Look for in an Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur has a large vision, is willing to do whatever it takes to realize that vision and does so with extreme creativity (which is usually due to having little to no resources). Their creativity manifests itself through strategic thinking, relationship building, and leveraging deep insights.

Common Mistakes Startups Make

What startups typically do wrong:

undercapitalize
under appreciate the value of people, values and culture to a team

Other mistakes folks make include: being too short term focused OR being too long term focused. They need to be aware of these issues and then making them a priority.

Most Popular Types of Businesses in India at the Moment

I think businesses that make certain non-traditional tasks / business problems easier by leveraging technology and a great team with amazing values is interesting to me. In India, folks should be focused on leveraging the mobile and web connectivity that now exists to actually make peoples lives better and easier.

Thoughts on First Angel, Follow-on Investments and Offerings to an Angel Investor

I am usually not the first angel (although I have been a couple times). I do not save money for follow-on. I prefer to invest in the early stage (which is a personal preference). I think that startups should offer a minimal percentage to the early folks and most likely not offer a board seat.