What are the traits of these rare startups? Mike Maples likes to hunt Thunder Lizards, young startups that hatch into Godzillas, disrupt the status quo and stomp on the incumbents. So far, so good. Since moving out to the Valley five years ago, he’s put investments in the micro-blogging phenom Twitter, Chegg, an online college book rental company, and popular iPhone app maker Smule, to name a couple. He also invested in SolarWinds, a maker of network-monitoring software, which went public last year and remains above its IPO price. Mike runs Floodgate a "super angel" or "micro-cap VC" firm helping to fund companies seeking $200,000 to $500,000 on the low end to $1 million at the high end. He's currently fundraising for a new fund.  It's a low-probability ...   [ Read more ]