Longtime Silicon Valley angel investor Hal Nissley says he has a foolproof test for deciding whether to invest in one of the thousands of startups that approach him each year: He asks his wife.

"My wife and I have lunch or dinner at least three or four times a month with an entrepreneur. She makes the final decision," Nissely told a gathering of entrepreneurs on Thursday night sponsored by Silicon Valley's VC Taskforce. "She sees things I wouldn't even think to look for."

Nissley, whose previous investments include Oracle Corp. [ORCL] and computer equipment maker Digital Dynamics Inc., said it was not his wife's business acumen he valued so much as her keen judgment of the founding team members' character, which he said is more critical than the underlying product in predicting a company's success.

Nissley, founding investor of the International Angel Investor Institute and  managing director of Boards-Early-Stage, made his remarks while explaining that elusive "killer apps" are not born but have to be nurtured. In a refreshingly candid description of how early-stage investors think, Nissley described his investing strategy this way: "To provide a minimal amount of money to get a minimally acceptable product into a customer's hands."

Nissley also challenged the notion that any quality company can complete an exit. whether an IPO or an M&A transaction, within 10 years, saying that some of his most successful investments had not even started to yield returns before the 10 year mark. He said that one company that he has held for 28 years has yielded 270 times his original investment. - Andrea Orr