{"id":45782,"date":"2023-10-20T15:46:22","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/the-one-question-you-should-never-ask-an-angel-investor-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:46:22","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:46:22","slug":"the-one-question-you-should-never-ask-an-angel-investor-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/the-one-question-you-should-never-ask-an-angel-investor-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"The one question you should never ask an angel investor &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"332\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/money-money-money-640x332.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"money money money\"><\/div>\n<p>If there\u2019s one question I hate being asked more than \u201cso, what do you do?\u201d, it\u2019s \u201cso, you\u2019re a tech angel, what technology do you invest in?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Apps? Drones? AI? Shared economy? Wearables? Lithium? The list goes on.<\/p>\n<p>When I started investing at the angel stage I found myself being drawn to the bright flashing lights. Sexy things like gaming (peripherals), coupons, nanotechnology and so on.<\/p>\n<p>I invested because I believed they would be the &#8220;next big things&#8221;. This was before the term &#8220;unicorn&#8221; joined the ranks of tech lexicon. But even knowing the risks, I still thought everything I had invested in would be huge.<\/p>\n<p>With time and experience I\u2019ve come to some realisations and had some epiphanies. These lightbulb moments tend to dawn on me in Australia, where I spend most of my time. It\u2019s a country still new to the startup ecosystem and mentality.<\/p>\n<p>More often than not, I\u2019ve had to deliver the news to an entrepreneur that I\u2019m not going to invest in their startup.<\/p>\n<p>Their facial expressions vary from \u201cyou killed my wife\/child and shot my dog\u201d to \u201cthank you for your time, I hope it\u2019s alright to keep in touch and let you know how I\u2019m progressing\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Which facial expression makes an appearance also has a direct correlation to the experience level of the entrepreneur.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, if I\u2019m being pitched to in a group, there will be a discussion afterwards, almost like a debrief. But it\u2019s much more common that I find myself being pitched to solo, and doing the post pitch wrap in my head. It goes something like this:<\/p>\n<p>Did I understand the pitch? The market? The technology?<\/p>\n<p>Once those are out of the way, a whole new series of questions need answering.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do I have the connections to ask for advice if I don\u2019t?<\/li>\n<li>Do I even want to take this further?<\/li>\n<li>Is there a market for it?<\/li>\n<li>How big is the market?<\/li>\n<li>Is this any good?<\/li>\n<li>Is it needed?<\/li>\n<li>Does it already exist?<\/li>\n<li>Who else has invested in the startup?<\/li>\n<li>What else has the entrepreneur done?<\/li>\n<li>What did I think of the entrepreneur?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of all these questions, the most important one is the last one: What did I think of the entrepreneur? Who were they? Where did they come from? How did they come to be here? What did they do before? What are their likes\/dislikes, hopes, dreams, desires etc?<\/p>\n<p>Startups are everywhere and ideas are a dime a dozen. Every entrepreneur believes they\u2019re making the next big thing, even if they\u2019re not the next Uber or Airbnb.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019ll be huge, and there will be demand for it.<\/p>\n<p>Sorry to burst the bubble, but all things being equal, your investments will fail and you will lose your money. Once you make your peace with this realisation, you can then start to ask yourself not \u201cwhat do I invest in?\u201d, but \u201cwho&nbsp;do I invest in?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And what\u2019s the answer to that question? Well that\u2019s the easy part. Someone you like, someone with the same values, someone who knows what they\u2019re doing and is realistic about the potential, someone you can be honest with, without repercussion, a good listener that is driven, passionate, resilient and tenacious.<\/p>\n<p>Investing in the early stages of a startup is a journey. A journey of years and, I hope, decades. There are lots of ups and downs. You\u2019ll be sharing the journey with the entrepreneur. You\u2019re investing in their dream and while you can\u2019t control the journey\u2019s route, you can at least undertake it with someone you like.<\/p>\n<p>And if you\u2019re going to lose your money, and you are, you don\u2019t want to lose your money to someone you don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n<p>So why don\u2019t I like asking the question of what I invest in? Because it\u2019s not a simple answer, and people want a simple answer &#8211; I should make an app for that.<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Facebook,<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Twitter,LinkedIn&nbsp;and&nbsp;SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If there\u2019s one question I hate being asked more than \u201cso, what do you do?\u201d, it\u2019s \u201cso, you\u2019re a tech<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}