Chapter 13: 提供你的价值与说不

The best deals never see the light of day. They’re quickly filled by insiders who are sharing deal flow, and by elite founders with killer startups tapping their existing network.

People want to meet with people who are fascinated by their vision, so take a moment to state why you think their vision is important and how you think you can help them achieve it—because they might just hit reply and introduce you to the founder.

Again, never say yes in a meeting. Let them know that you need to do research and think about the deal terms. Then, only after you have seen all twenty-five, circle back and pick the best one.

Chapter 14: 你的名声是你的一切

Founders always share investor meeting details with each other and your reputation is everything in our industry. If you are helpful, present, and considerate, then you’re going to get a great reputation. Great founders have many options to fund their companies, and your $25,000 isn’t any different from mine or another investor’s. But how a person feels coming out of an investor meeting will determine whether you’re getting in or missing out.

Chapter 15: 让对的人拿你的钱

One hour of prep, one hour with the founders, and one hour of postmortem. Prep: product, market, competitors, other investors.

Your challenge isn’t writing the checks, it’s convincing the right founders to cash them.

Chapter 16: 与创始人的会议

  • Give them your full attention (turn off your phone). Important people have the ability to turn off their phones because the world can wait for them. People who are not important have to react to their phones and be at the mercy of people pinging them.
  • Bring pen and paper
  • Never say yes of no during a pitch: This has been great. Give me a couple of days to give it some thought and let’s talk on Monday. I might have some follow-up questions on email as well.

Chapter 17: 成功概率和选创始人

I use two methods to sort through the deluge of startups contacting me. I eliminate the small ideas and weak founders. Then I double down on the great founders and big ideas.

Let’s think about that for a moment. If I do my job correctly, I’ll review over ten thousand startups in my decade as an angel—meeting with thousands of them in person—in order to place just two hundred bets, of which “perhaps 197, 198, or 199 will have little or no impact on my overall returns.

I don’t need to know if your idea is going to succeed, I need to know if you are.