{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Startups Decoded","title":"Ep#93: The Real Money is in Small Checks. Angel Fundraising with Cheryl Kellond","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/c7f7609a\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2564,"description":"Most first-time founders treat angel money as the warm-up act before the real investors show up. Cheryl Kellond thinks that view is about five years out of date, and Play Money's data backs her up. \n\nBuzzy AI companies are raising nine figures at seed. Meanwhile, she argues the signaling bias has flipped, and the strongest fundamentals now sit with founders raising from angels, syndicates, and small funds.\n\nWe get into her three-stage approach to early fundraising. She explains why Play Money makes founders pull $30K to $50K from their own network before showing a deal to anyone else, and why she'd rather read a year of your monthly updates than open your data room. Maya, if you're about to raise, you walk away with a sequence to follow and permission to stop chasing strangers first.\n\nEpisode outline\nWhy Cheryl refused to start a fund and built Play Money instead\nThe accredited investor math that could rival early-stage VC\nThree stages of early fundraising, from your own network to strangers\nHow an SPV turns a hundred small checks into one clean cap table line\nWhat angels want to see: your pace of learning, not a polished data room\nThe $5,000 angel who closed a million-dollar deal\nListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube\n\nCheryl Kellond - https://www.linkedin.com/in/c2kprofile/\nFounder and CEO of Play Money, an angel investing platform that helps founders raise from strategic angels. She’s a concept-to-launch operator with more than $750M in revenue from version-one products. Her second company, Apostrophe, hit roughly $10M ARR in four years before Centivo acquired it in 2021.\n\nAndy Walsh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/\nThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.\n\nAccess All Areas.\nListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube\nSubscribe: Substack\nConnect: LinkedIn\nWeb: startupsdecoded.com \nSocials: TikTok || Instagram || X\n\nMusic...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/bTh0GUhb7xJeYW7MYUDmD9TYD80ffNPKyTvd7oJ_DPI/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kNDA2/Y2MwNzcwNzJhMDIz/NGJlNzhkYzI4NWVl/MWU0OS5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}