Deal flow management for product quality

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hello everyone avishai here and today i'm going to teach you how to improve your deal flow as an angel investor are you ready let's begin [Music] hi everyone my name is avishai and i am an angel investor and one of the things i learned in my short experience as an angel investor is how to improve my deal flow it's nothing to be ashamed of most angel investors start with a weak deal flow not just in terms of volume but also in terms of quality why would the best startups in the world that have not yet taken any check from any investor come knock at my door so most angel investors have some kind of core competence something that they know how to do and that will be the main thing we're going to be talking about how do you use what you're known for how to use something that you are really good at as the leading attribute kind of the slogan of why startup should take your money so one of the misconceptions in the world of angel investing is that if you're an angel and you'll knock on doors of startups everybody's just going to be happy to take a check from you and to move along while there are startups that are just looking for money the best ones are looking for strategic money angel investors are in all shapes of sizes there are angel investors that have done exits there are ones that are right now managing the company that they built and have not exited yet there are ones that have built three companies and they're ones that just built one ipoded and haven't run a company in a long time there are all kinds of angel investors i myself am an angel investor that is still a ceo in his company that is working full-time for the success of the company and still i do find time for my angel investments so that's my case there might be other angel investors just like yourself if you're watching this as an angel that might have a different case so how does any angel investor improve their deal flow one of the best ways for an angel investor to improve their deal flow is to first be known as an angel that invests in companies that have some sort of similarity to whatever is the expertise of the angel so let's say me i have an expertise from my past as a b2b marketer and i have expertise with inbound marketing and i have a tad experience of creating a mvp in the world of b2b so that would be one of my core competences uh that i can offer a b2b company another thing that i know how to do is i actually know how to be a ceo and run a company from kind of an executive standpoint and in order for a lot of startups to succeed sometimes the founding team has to take every position but the ceo just because the founding team might be more technical and might have less soft skills so i might help a startup choose a ceo or something of that sort so you're kind of seeing my line of top you should look inwards in what you have to offer and you have to put it on the front line but just because you identified what you're good at doesn't mean that your deal flow is just gonna be awesome out of the blue you're gonna have to work for it and one of the best ways to create a shortcut to improve your deal flow is to reach out to other angel investors there might be angel investors that have a good deal flow but don't have someone like you with your set of skills and your set of experience around them and they would love to have you either in their investment rounds or they would love to push to you investment rounds that they're going to pass on so if i have an expertise in marketing and my friend has expertise in sales and a company that comes to my friend and says that they're mostly going to do marketing and less sales my friend might pass on that deal and pass it on to me now why would a angel investor that is passing on the deal try to refer the startup to me well some might say good karma um and some might want a finders fee so take into account in order to improve your deal flow you're gonna have to create a network and that one network should probably have a lot of people who have different skill sets from you different experience so you also can pass on to them startups and they can pass on to you it has to be a two-way street you're not going to be just receiving other people's deal flow and that's it so we know what we're good at and we have a network what's next so in order to improve our deal flow we have to start communicating and one great way to communicate is either through blogging vlogging and tweeting start telling the world why you're doing the investments you're doing i am currently working on telling the story of dialogue the first startup i ever invested in and when you're writing the story of why you invested and giving out the thesis try to talk to other angel investors and not just to the audience or to the consumers that might want to use the product when you're talking to other angel investors through content other angel investors will discover you and will reach out and might want to share they'll flow as well or to get some kind of deal flow from you so you're going to be able to create those connections through the content another thing that's going to happen is that startups are going to see that and they're going to see well i like the rationale of this angel investor i like to see how his mind works in terms of choosing investments this is the kind of investor i want in my company so that is another effect that can come out from creating content as an angel investor so i recommend either starting a blog on medium or your own wordpress blog starting to tweet um and if you really like the camera like i do just start a youtube channel that's what we're doing right now and if you think that um storytelling is something that's too hard for you hire a writer hire somebody to help you with the work we were not all born content creators and that's fine you might need some help and there's nothing like hiring somebody who's just really good at what they do and um you know giving them a chance to put your thoughts into words um or your investing style into content now the next thing might sound very obvious but for some angel investors it is not one of the best ways to improve your deal flow long term is to have success with your deals you want to be investing in winners now the best way to invest in winners is to invest in multiple startups and play the numbers game you want to be investing in as much startups as possible when you just start and one of the easiest ways to do that is investing smaller checks through syndicates such as angellist or the syndicate.com so you can get more exposure to more stories now i know it's not the same as talking to a startup founder or the team and doing the due diligence directly but it gives you some kind of practice and if you can put to your name that you recognize some opportunities at a very early stage i think you deserve credit for that and if you can get that credit and improve your clout in the world of startup founders as an angel investor i think um this is for the whole ecosystem a good thing because apparently you have an eye for things and startup founders are looking for somebody who has an eye for them last but not least one of the most important things you need to do in order to improve your deal flow is to be a good angel investor to your founders meaning that if your founders cannot recommend you to other founders that are currently assessing you as a potential investor you have a problem my personal belief is that you have to over deliver to the founders you're investing in if they are expecting from you a give them an a plus if they're expecting you from you 10 give them a 20. you want to be always in the corner of your founders advice reaching out for them to people if needed getting on a sales call if needed helping them with marketing brainstorming helping them with hiring you want a seed stage or a pre-seed stage startup to get to the next level you want success in your investment in your and you want to improve that deal flow you have to be a good angel investor to your founders and a good one is the one who over delivers i can't emphasize how crucial this is because you need to remember that you might be competing against other angels to get in certain deals and even if you do get a good deal and you do have a good deal flow if the founders in the end pass on you and decide that they don't want you because they got a kind of mediocre recommendation from one of your former founders you don't want to be in that situation but period if you have a good deal flow and you have good deals coming in and in the end the founders pass on you then you didn't do much so you want to be in a situation where your current founders are recommending you to new founders and the best way to get that recommendation is to do good by your current founders and never forget them and if you're an angel investor who has to invest their time between startups never take on yourself more than you can always keep just enough time for your startups because they're counting on you i hope you found this content useful if you did hit that like button and if you want to see more content related to the world of startups angel investing stocks public markets crypto hit that subscribe button and hit the bell to get notifications when new videos come out thanks for watching see you next time