About the book’s Author: Jason Calacanis is the man behind the Launch Incubator and one of the most interesting and well-attended demo days in San Francisco. He is easily one of the top 10 most-active angel investors in Silicon Valley. He is also one of the most successful. He wasn’t born rich but worked to get where he is. This book is a gift to all of you who want something similar.
This book is written as a broad introduction to Angel Investing, with small tidbits about Jason’s own experience and some application of his own style of investing. He’s clearly a proponent of handing out a little money to almost every startup, and then following-on with more money once successes are reached, letting the losers die.
In the first 6 chapters, he talks about the basics and gives some background on his career. The following chapters are then about different kinds of angel investing, pitch meetings, deal memos, negotiating, communication, due diligence and an investment strategy.
I would say that this would be a good book of required reading for club members. This is the way I expect the angels to work with my companies, and the way I expect of myself to act with them. I’d be willing to add that those of you who have not read the book yet, would quickly sign-on to its value as a guideline.
Two things that I learned from the book:
- write a deal memo of why I put money into a company and return to it on a yearly basis, or at a new funding round.
- invest more, but in smaller amounts (for us it means to be involved in more syndicates)
He doesn’t speak much about the secrets of screening or filtering startups (he seems to hint that this is another book) but the mechanics of angel investing are covered well and should be read to broaden the novice’s exposure to the art form.
The book can be found on Amazon or your favourite bookseller in hard copy, digital or audio formats. You can also borrow my copy if you want to keep your cash for your next seed round. But I said BORROW.
Disclosure: I met Jason when I participated in the Launch competition in 2013. Here’s a video of Kevin Kliman leading the pitch for Instarad.io, and my fat fingers on the Elmo showing how the prototype app works. There are a few shots of me on the side acting like a piece of furniture if you were wondering. Thanks to Kevin for letting me experience all this fun.
– Andrew Opala, club member