An entrepreneurial ecosystem is more than the serendipitous sum of its parts. For South Florida, having a good number of enterprising bright minds, low labor costs, strong universities and a privileged location is a good start. But somewhere between skepticism and hype, funding and educated investors remain essential in developing an entrepreneurial community — especially one focusing on disruptive technologies.

That education was the subject of the recently completed Angel Education Series, a cycle of six workshops focusing on training the South Florida investment community in the ins and outs of angel investing.  It addressed topics such as “Valuations,” “Portfolio Strategy,” “Post-investment Relationship,” “Legalities of Angel Investing” and “Picking Winners.”

The series was organized by Accelerated Growth Partners, a Miami-based angel investor network funded by Knight Foundation, Greenberg Traurig and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. According to the presenters, more than 400 people attended, 80 percent of whom were potential investors; the rest were entrepreneurs and service providers such as attorneys and accountants.

For the organizers, the series was the result of their own learning experiences.

“We started by listening,” said Nico Berardi, managing director of Accelerated Growth Partners. “Many entrepreneurs were complaining that South Florida-based investors didn’t understand [what investing in technology entails]; that they didn’t get it — and we were hearing similar complaints from the investor side. Some investors were self-critical and said, ‘I don’t understand it and I don’t know how to do this,’ and some were saying, ‘The entrepreneurs don’t know what they are doing.’ So we saw a gap in that relationship. And something that we are working on in general is to establish that the entrepreneur and the investor are on the same side. They both have the same interest, which is that the company does very, very well.”

The challenge is that while there is no lack of potential investors, or smart investors, in South Florida, “they haven’t had exposure to early-stage tech deals,” Berardi says. “What we are trying to do is provide the tools necessary to know how to play in the tech world and be successful at it.”

Laura I. Maydón, managing director of Endeavor Miami, the first U.S. affiliate of a global nonprofit that supports high-impact entrepreneurs, was a speaker at the series. She noted that while “there are many savvy investors who live [in South Florida], some of the people who have money have been investing in predictable asset classes: maybe real estate, maybe the public market. And for them, angel investing is new — and so is the difference between investing in brick-and-mortar and technology companies.”

Berardi concurs. Every investor hopes for the next Facebook, Twitter or Uber — but those are exceptions, not the norm. The keys to keep in mind are “time horizon and risk,” he says.

Those used to investing in real estate or in public securities, which are 100 percent liquid, need to understand that early-stage tech investing is “a long-term proposition,” says Berardi.

“Your best case scenario is a five-year deal, but it usually takes between seven and 10 years,” he says. “If you can’t stomach that, then you shouldn’t be angel investing.”

The second consideration to keep in mind, he says, is the failure rate. “You bought a condo at a certain price, it would be impossible for that property in a couple of years to be worth zero. Worst-case scenario, it would be worth a fraction. In this business, going from writing a $100,000 check to zero is very easy. You need to be ready psychologically, emotionally and financially to bury at least 80 percent of these companies. Most of these companies will give back zero. Not 80 cents on the dollar, not 50 cents on the dollar, but zero. If you are not comfortable with that probability, you shouldn’t be doing this.”

To improve the odds, savvy investors spread out their money, he says.”There is enough data, enough research already that tells you that you need to make at least 10 to 15 investments.”

But entrepreneurs also have to learn a few things, cautions Maydón, the managing director of Endeavor Miami, which Knight Foundation funded as part of its efforts to develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in South Florida.

“There’s a training process for entrepreneurs too. They need to be very clear when explaining their work and their plans, what’s the value for the investor to get in and what is the entrepreneur looking for in an investor, besides capital,” she says. “Endeavor provides the mentorship and the structure for entrepreneurs to practice their pitch.”

One of the attendees during the series, Dr. Clyde R. Goodheart, is the president and chief scientist at Celigenex, a Fort Lauderdale-based life science startup. Celigenex is not his first company, says Goodheart, but while he’s been involved with venture capitalists, “This is my first time dealing with angel investing, so I wanted to learn more about this side of things.”

Goodheart, who moved to South Florida from Chicago three and half years ago, says he’s found investors in South Florida “uneducated in the investing process.” But while places such as Boston, which has become a center for life science companies, would seem a more appealing choice, he remains bullish about South Florida.

“People haven’t recognized it yet, but I actually see this area as a very early-stage Silicon Valley for life science,” he says. “I do think it’s going to happen. I don’t know how soon, but I’ve seen the seeds in the ground and I see the little sprouts out.”

Berardi takes a more cautious line in his assessment.

“There is a lot of hype and hype can be dangerous — especially in the investment side,” he says. “A lot of investors will come in because of the hype, ‘There’s something happening here,’ ‘I don’t want to lose in the action,’ … but if you don’t know how to do it, you are going to lose money and if we have a lot of those mistakes, a lot of the money is going to walk away. So we are trying to build an investor community that makes sense for the entire, broader ecosystem. We need a quantity of capital but we also need quality.”

Fernando González is a Miami-based arts and culture writer. He can be reached via email at [email protected].