It’s a Good Thing You Waited Until Now to Found Your Start-up

Cloud computing and other tech developments have drastically cut the cost of founding a company, says Stanford University finance professor Ilya Strebulaev. The new technologies have reduced the expense of building high-tech start-ups by a factor of 10, a development that has opened up the start-up world to angel investors as never before. Angels, who tend to prefer small deals, are enjoying a growing competitive advantage over traditional venture-capital firms and now supply the overwhelming majority of high-growth start-ups with their first money (after the founders have tapped family and friends), Strebulaev says.