
How to Angel Invest, Part 2 - jger15
https://nav.al/angel-2
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keeptrying
Some anecdata: I know 8 people who angel invest (small sample yes) and 0 have
made money.

To heighten your chances you're going to need to write 20-40 checks which
means about a $500k investment. And then curl up in to a fetal position till 1
> 20x at least to break even.

~~~
taylorwc
You’re exactly right. Portfolio size is absolutely the key here. To give
yourself a fighting chance of finding an outlier-type return, you need to have
some diversification... Gerry Neumann did a great post breaking down some of
the math on this[0].

[0] [http://reactionwheel.net/2017/12/power-laws-in-venture-
portf...](http://reactionwheel.net/2017/12/power-laws-in-venture-portfolio-
construction.html)

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jackcosgrove
> If you have poor judgment, you won’t know it.

I'm pretty sure I have bad judgment of the sort that would make me a bad angel
investor.

I'm too trusting of people and too motivated to invest in things I would find
technically interesting rather than those that could be viable businesses.

~~~
ivankirigin
Getting screwed by untrustworthy people would be more misses. But returns are
made on the hits, so I don't think that would matter.

Definitely the latter issue of investing in something technically interesting
would matter a great deal. Maybe you're seeing a wave before others with your
insight. But maybe you focus on the tech and not the traction or the path to
scale. But knowing the tech is an advantage!

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twelve40
Part 1: > Dealflow and access are the most important things to work on as an
investor. Your judgment doesn’t have to be that great, because the returns
follow a power law. And you can always get capital if you have good dealflow
and access.

Part 2: > At the end of the day, judgment is the single most important thing.
It’s more important than access to deals and access to capital.

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Mengkudulangsat
Angel investing needs to be automated and commoditized.

I believe the focus on having superior foresight and personalities in this
space are nonsense, especially when we have over 40 years of actuarial data to
study from.

The known knowns and known unknowns of angel investing should be well
modellable by now, just like flood risk. This should translate to fund
structures, deal terms and milestone expectations that can be made transparent
and standardized across geographies and across industries.

I would like to see angel investment being accessible to A LOT more people
than the lucky few in Silicon Valley. If portfolio size is the best
determinant of success, imagine an angle fund the size of Blackrock.

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alain94040
Great advice from Naval and Nivi. If you ever considered angel investing, they
cover many of the pitfalls. Invest wisely.

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npiit
Just chase founders with big Twitter follows && chasing top angel investors.

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CerealFounder
This dude is the absolute worst. His brand is taking the platitudes of a
"wellness influencer" and applying it to tech and investing. He uses
logic/rhetorical fallacies to say things that sounds smart/deep that dont say
anything. He also, anoints himself at every turn.

He's a walking manifestation of the reputation tech has built as being elitist
and out of touch.

~~~
dang
Please don't do generic tangents or personal attacks on HN. Those are two of
the worst influences on an internet forum.

If you don't like this article, there are lots of others to read here.

~~~
CerealFounder
The irony of your generic complaint followed by overstatement about my what
you believe to be my generic complaint is genuinely fun.

This isnt a character attack, it's a substantive attack. And you should care.
This ego maniac has his sights set on being the representative talking "tech
guy" at the highest form of culture. He was a featured guest on Joe Rogan
spouting his empty rhetoric and he indirectly represents us.

~~~
dang
I don't see anything substantive about it. Yes, moderation comments are
ironic, but alas we can't do without them
([https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20tedious%20write%20read&sort=byDate&type=comment))
I don't know who 'us' is supposed to be; he doesn't represent me, and I assume
he doesn't represent you. By the way, the issue with personal attacks is not
so much the person, as what they do to the community. Maybe you don't owe
Naval better, but you owe this community better if you're posting to it. We
need to take care of the commons, which suffers enough as it is.

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amrrs
Naval's Twitter feed is like a Deep Neural Network based Quote generator. I
guess his thread of How to become rich trended everywhere but I'm not sure how
many really got anything practically applied with those things. He very much
reminds Silicon Valley (HBO) to me. Is it how usually VCs talk or it's just an
image of an Angel Investing Monk that he's building?

It's a genuine question I've got (Someone who lives far away from the Bay
area)

~~~
mmastrac
If you say as little as possible people will reflect their own beliefs in the
words and you just can't be wrong.

~~~
riantogo
People have made millions using just this little fact right here. Pose as an
expert and say most generic BS and let people do the mental gymnastics to have
it match their world view.

A starter pack would include gems like, "any person who have wanted something
bad enough has gotten it", "never let anyone tell you your dreams are just
that", "success is right after the point when you give up", "only if you knew
you were destined for tres comas club" etc.

Please join my course on life-coaching if you are interested in this field.

