“There is nothing better when it comes to learning ‘best practices’ than hearing from successful people in the trenches. Josh’s book captures the best of the best, as they reveal both what worked and what didn’t for them as angel investors and entrepreneurs. Required reading whatever side of the investing fence you’re on!”
Quotes from the book
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… if you can really work with them [entrepreneurs] side by side where they don’t see you as an investor, where they see you as a real business partner, you can learn so much more about the team and the company.
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Sometimes I feel like I'm creating community, I'm creating jobs, I'm creating success, I'm creating a new industry, and I like the feeling of that.
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Focus on quality. Then make sure the fit is good. If you try to wear a pair of shoes that don’t fit, then you’ve got blisters on your foot.
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Good jockeys continue to win races on different horses. To me, the unicorns are the entrepreneurs.
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Usually, people say that the team is most important. I say that’s bullshit because most people don’t know the team very well.
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If I look at all my investments, the ones that were successful, every single one of them had pretty darn close near-death experiences.
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We try to focus on companies using capital-efficient models. It's become cheaper to start a company but not necessarily cheaper to grow one.
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As you become involved in funding startup companies and tracking growth, you look at the bigger picture and say, “This really is having a dramatic effect on the economy.“
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We put money in and the company went public. Even though they had millions of customers and a successful IPO, we invested at a terrible valuation and so didn’t make a dime—a rookie mistake.
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One of the companies I invested in at Techstars only took around $600,000 and they’ve never taken another dime since and they don’t intend to. If you didn’t get in at seed, you were never going to get in.
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What's your unique advantage? If you don't have one, you’re literally in Vegas sitting at the table just hoping that you get dealt the royal flush.
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First and foremost I figure in this market you’re backing people. Invest in a world-class entrepreneur in the B market and they can still build a compelling company, but the opposite is not true.
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Somebody who’s interested in angel investing as an ongoing activity should understand that it is an ongoing activity and it's not investing in one company.
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It’s not just about if this is the right company. It’s also about whether we add value.