Chapter 22: 记录每一笔投资

Angels don’t write deal memos, but they should, because deal memos force you to crystalize your thinking in the short term. They also help you refine your selection ability in the future by reading your past deal memos to see what you got right and wrong.

Deal memo: Introduction, Deal, Competition, Hiring Plan, Key Risks, and a Recommendation.

Chapter 23: 不是不投，时候未到

I would offer to let founders “take the red pill or blue pill” after they pitched me. In 100 percent of the cases, they took the red pill and asked me to tell them the unvarnished truth. I would then explain to them, founder to founder, exactly what I thought of their business, their product, and their pitch, plus how other investors would react to it.

These days, I am most likely to tell founders “not yet” when they ask me if I’m ready to invest. It’s an elegant phrase that Roelof Botha taught me and it works like a charm. In addition to telling them that I’m just not there yet, I let them know that I’d like for them to add me to their monthly updates.

Chapter 24: 天使投资的尽职调查

Due diligence in early-stage investing is the voluntary act of looking into a business or individual before giving them your money.

Groupthink or perhaps even delusional thinking also tends to set in during investing, with people looking around the bargaining table at each other and thinking, “If nothing is scaring off those other three successful investors, then I’m not worried, either. I’m sure if something was wrong, one of them would have uncovered it.

During your founder meetings, you drill into a number of factual questions, getting more specific as you go.

People lie, to themselves and their investors and the world, but there is a difference between a factual lie (“We have Facebook and Google under contract!”) and a lofty mission (a.k.a. delusion) that if everything goes right, it just might turn into reality, like “We’re going to get to Mars” or “People lie, to themselves and their investors and the world, but there is a difference between a factual lie (“We have Facebook and Google under contract!”) and a lofty mission (a.k.a. delusion) that if everything goes right, it just might turn into reality, like “We’re going to get to Mars” or “We’re going to index the world’s information.”

Chapter 25: 第一次说“Yes”

You’re going to want to have a solid startup attorney review these documents for you, giving you a brief summary of the deal and calling out anything they feel is unusual. It will take an hour at most for an attorney to summarize a deal for you, and it’s well worth the cost. You should double-check that you have pro rata (see chapter 21). If it’s not in there, simply ask the founder to add it for you. They will almost universally do this without much fuss.

You should try to get a copy of the cap table if they’re willing to give it, as this gives you a very clear picture of who was involved in the round and how many shares each person owns. Over time, you’ll become good at reading these cap tables and decoding the investing strategies of other angel investors and venture capitalists.

Chapter 26: 创始人对待天使的态度

Angels need you to crush it in order to have any chance of getting their money back and they will be your biggest cheerleaders. They love you and want you to succeed, so you shouldn’t hide from them or bend reality to what you think they want to hear. Be honest with us so we can help.

Additionally, remember that 80 or 90 percent of our investments fail, and we have to suffer through shutdown after shutdown. It’s depressing for us, especially in years two, three, and four of angel investing.

Send us monthly updates. Or twice a month. Fuck it, send a short weekly update if it’s concise—we want to help and we can’t help you if we aren’t up to speed.

First, as an angel, you need to document and fight for your rights. “Second, as the founder of a company, you should be on high alert when a new investor or an acquirer wants you to screw your earlier investors. If someone is willing to screw your early supporters, who helped you get to where you are today, what do you think they will do when your relationship hits a bump in the road? Exactly.