In Silicon Valley what is different is the culture. How much risk do you take are yopu willing to take? It does not mean that Americans are suicidal, but they are more eager to taking risks and that their venture will probably fail. So that is the attitude you need to undertake something different, something potentially big.
In any case the great thing is that even, if your thing fails you are meeting many people and making many friends while trying to make your venture work.
What Angels like
A wealthy freind of mine recently told me that Angels typically invest
in Products they like to use
in People they like to hang out with
at Valuations they can swallow
So the role is very close to mentoring and Angels tend to be happy to provide start ups with their contacts in the industry.
For Venture Capitalists it is a similar thing but they are more institutionalized, they have people working for them and their job is to make sure that there is an adequate return on their investments and that investment policies are respected.
The Managment Team
Two seems to be the magic number, four is a crowd, three might work too. That’s what Fred Destin, a US based VC says. I think 4 only is a crowd, if you are not on top. If you take the analogy of a sail boat, it is fine to have one skipper and a couple of crew members that may even have complementary skill sets. So I would recommend to reserve some minority stakes for them.
Single founder companies are hard to back, so you need to find a co-founder at least. You need the Co-founder to keep you going and chase things from you, to have somebody to speak to, to use him as a sounding board to complete the skill set of your company, etc.