It was April 2009 and Schilling felt he had taken 38 Studios to the brink, extending himself and his family both financially and personally. ...He admitted [while considering the acquisition of another gaming company, Big Huge Games], "I have put the majority of the money I've earned in my life on the table. If I make another financial investment, I will have crossed the point of no return from a personal investment and company standpoint."

Angel investing groups from around the region will gather in Cambridge next Wednesday for their 14th annual meeting. It's organized by CommonAngels and Hub Angels, two Boston-based groups of wealthy individuals who can provide anywhere from a few hundred thousand to a few million dollars to start-ups they deem worthy.

I spoke with James Geshwiler, managing director of CommonAngels, yesterday morning to get a sense of what they'll be discussing.

"The #1 issue is sufficiency and availability of capital," Geshwiler said, adding that groups want to be sure they can keep funding start-ups as they grow, not just hand them initial seed money. "We're looking at a venture capital industry and a population of high-net-worth individuals that is contracting. So we're increasingly putting emphasis on collaboration between different angel groups."

I asked how angel groups in New England have weathered the recession. "Clearly, everyone has lost members, and we had higher attrition in 2009," he said. But CommonAngels has also added a few new members, and Geshwiler says that if you look at a longer time frame than just the past year, "we're probably ahead by a little bit."

Also encouraging was a training seminar held earlier this month in Waltham under the auspices of the Angel Capital Association, intended to familiarize new investors with the world of angel investing. "Forty or fifty people showed up," Geshwiler said. "Some were new to angel investing and haven't joined one of the groups, and others were relatively new members of a group."

When the New England angel groups began gathering, one goal was to "improve the syndication process," making it easier for them to collaborate on initial investments and follow-on rounds. "Among angel groups, I'd have given our syndication work a C- then," Geshwiler said. "We've moved up to a B or maybe B-plus, but you can always do better."

Can Rental Beast gnaw off a piece of Craigslist's apartment rental business?

It won't be easy, but the Somerville start-up is already profitable, and still plugging away six years after it was founded.

For people hunting for an apartment, Craigslist has become the go-to destination: most of the inventory in big- and medium-sized cities shows up there, and using it is entirely free for prospective tenants. (Posting to Craigslist is free for landlords, too, except in New York City, where apartment brokers pay a small fee.)

Rental Beast charges users a monthly fee to access what founder Ishay Grinberg says is a cleaner database of rentals, accompanied by better tools to let landlords evaluate potential tenants.

"When you search for 'Back Bay' on Craigslist, you get thousands of results, most of which aren't even in Boston," Grinberg says. "And people often post listings there without a phone number to call — just an anonymous Craigslist e-mail address." Listings sometimes don't get removed, either, once an apartment is rented, which makes it hard to tell what's really available and what's not, Grinberg adds.

Rental Beast makes it easy to sort through apartments that have been de-leaded, or come with off-street parking. Landlords, who post their vacancies for free, can conduct a credit check on potential tenants through the site for about $15. (Sites like Rent.com and Apartments.com are free for tenants, but charge landlords various fees.)

Grinberg saved up the money to start Rental Beast — about $20,000 — while working as an apartment broker in New York City. That seed capital was enough to allow the site to reach profitability. Grinberg says the company, which has six employees, had net profits of $100,000 by 2008. (He says the company was also profitable last year, but won't share numbers.)

Right now, Rental Beast only lists apartments in Massachusetts, but Grinberg is currently trying to raise some funding to expand its scope. "We want to go after the top three-to-five rental markets over the next three-to-five years," he says. "That includes cities like New York, Washington, D.C., Miami, and Chicago."

Late last year, the site dropped its entry-level membership fee from $89 to $29, which allows for one month of unlimited access to the site; higher membership levels offer more personalized service, like advice about neighborhoods, help setting up appointments, and guidance on lease negotiations.

Apartment vacancy rates are "as high as they've ever been," Grinberg says. That has encouraged landlords to try listing properties on less-established sites like Rental Beast — and has made renters less willing to pay a broker's fee.

But in a world where Craigslist has made filling or finding a vacant apartment fundamentally free, can Rental Beast build a significant business by trying to streamline the process? We'll see...

Andy Marcuvitz is heavyset. He wears badly fitting suits. He has no discernible personality, sense of humor, or compassion. All of which are ideal traits for a venture capitalist. During 18 months of extremely intense interaction, we never had a personal conversation, I never heard him make a joke, and he rarely smiled. Indeed, a smile from Marcuvitz is not a good sign. In arguments he's relentless: His voice remains even, he never loses his temper, and he can dig in for hours. If I had known when I started Vermeer that Marcuvitz was going to be one of the most important people in my life, I would have seriously reconsidered the whole thing. And yet, he was good for me, and, in a slightly twisted way, I respect him a great deal.

I enjoyed this "The Way I Work" piece from the February issue of Inc. Magazine, featuring Paul English, co-founder of the travel search site Kayak. In it, he talks about an old school red telephone he set up in Kayak's Concord office to take customer calls:

About a year ago, I bought a red telephone with a really loud ringer for the office. Whenever a customer calls the help number on our website, that phone rings. The engineers initially complained about it. They said, "That's so friggin' annoying!" And I'd say, "There's a really simple solution: Answer the friggin' phone and do whatever it takes to make that customer happy. Then hang up, unplug the phone, walk it down to the other end of the office, and plug it in down there."

It's like hot potato. Except I take it seriously. When the phone rings, I literally jump over the desks just so I can get to the phone before anyone else. I love talking to customers, even angry ones. I learn a lot from them about how to make the site easier to use. When the call's over, I'll say, "If you have any follow-up questions, my name is Paul English; I'm the co-founder of the company."

How's this for bouncing back?

I spent the past week collecting advice on how not to get hired: what qualified candidates sometimes do that nixes their chances of landing a gig.

And I got way too much good advice to cram into the column in today’s paper.

So I’m collecting ten of my favorite “bonus tips” here, as well as publishing two e-mails directly from the sources: one is from the executive recruiting firm BSG Team Ventures, and the other is from the vice president of human resources at Boston-based CSN Stores.

Ten more things you can do to lose out on that big opportunity:

1. Show up late for an interview, or exceedingly early. “Ten minutes before the interview is probably better than 20 minutes before it,” says Jim French of Hill Holiday. “People don’t have time to entertain you, and showing up too early can be just as aggravating as showing up late.”

2. Don’t look hard for someone in your network who can put in a good word for you. “Getting someone else to provide color commentary on your strengths and skills is extremely helpful, for us and for you,” says Brian Shin of Visible Measures. Using LinkedIn can supply connections you might not know about, says Kristina Shedd of Sapient. Participating in trade groups and professional organizations can help broaden your network, notes Michelle Gordon-Seemore of Children’s Hospital Boston.

3. Don’t admit to ever having encountered a challenge or problem in your work career. “If you can’t tell me about a situation where something went wrong, you usually don’t go further in the process,” says Pamela McNamara at Cambridge Consultants.

4. Make a chauvinistic or culturally insensitive remark. McNamara says it sometimes happens.

5. Accept an interview for one job, and try to negotiate yourself into something with a different title, more seniority, or a higher salary. “The impression you get is, ‘I don’t want this job, but I’d like to have that job,’” says Jeff Anderson of Quick Hit. Usually, you won’t get any job.

6. Stifle your personality. “Most managers want someone who’s innovative, excited, a team player,” says Maria Harris at Rockland Trust. “Your personality needs to come out, because they’re looking to see if you’ll be a good fit with their department.”

7. Conduct a phone interview while you’re distracted. “If you’re at the grocery store, or your children are screaming in the background, or you’re not prepared, ask if you can do the interview at another time,” Harris says. “You want to be in a quiet place. The recruiter will appreciate it, too.”

8. Repeat the same example of an accomplishment you’re proud of over and over. “Come to the interview with a whole bunch of different examples, from different jobs,” says Debbie Mitchell at Feeley & Driscoll. Otherwise, you'll sound like a one-trick pony.

9. Assume people know the companies you’ve worked for. “If you’ve worked for companies that aren’t household names, a little one-sentence explanation on your résumé of what the company does, or how big it is, is helpful to us,” says Christine Lahey at Liberty Mutual.