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Telling the stories of startup founders and creators and their unique journey. Each episode features actionable tips, practical advice and inspirational insight.
0:00: Hey, I'm Greg Moran from Evergreen Mountain Equity Partners and the founders collective.
0:03: If you're an angel investor or you're thinking about becoming one, you may be wondering how to add value just beyond writing a check, right?
0:13: It's a big deal.
0:14: And I think a lot of people get into angel investing thinking.
0:17: Well, I'm just gonna put a little money here, put a little money there or you know, I met this founder seems like a good person.
0:23: So I'm gonna invest some money here, but angel investing goes so much beyond the money that you're putting in there when you're dealing with early stage companies, capital is really essential but really successful.
0:36: Angel investors do much more to support their portfolio companies.
0:39: So in this video, I'm cover some of the top ways you can really add value as an angel investor and what founders are really looking for should be looking for in angel investors.
0:50: And we're gonna talk about mentorship, strategic guidance, networking and more.
0:54: So let's let's dive in capital alone is not enough to help most start ups thrive.
0:59: The check is obviously worth the number of dollars in the check.
1:04: But your expertise, your mentorship, your guidance are worth so much more start ups need the right guidance.
1:11: They need your network and support to really scale successfully.
1:15: So as an angel investor, your experience, your connections and insights can have huge impact.
1:21: And speaking for myself as a founder and I founded a few companies, the network that I was able to access because of my early stage investors really made the outcome possible without those early stage investors, not only the money, but what they were able to bring to me and their guidance in their network and their experience made all the difference.
1:43: So I can speak to this very personally.
1:45: And you know, now being on the venture investment side of it, you know, I under I see the impact that I can make to to start ups that we invest in research really supports this.
1:55: It shows that start ups with active engaged investors, really often outperform those who only receive financial backing.
2:03: This is why you see top tier venture firms really outperform other firms in in many ways because they have the structure to be able to provide that support.
2:13: That's something that we at Evergreen Mountain take very seriously by bringing more than just money to the table.
2:18: You're what you're doing is you're acting increasing your investment chances of success, right, which obviously turns right around into your returns.
2:25: One of the most powerful ways to support a start up is by providing mentorship as an angel investor, especially if you've been a founder before, you'll likely have experience in areas like scaling a business managing cash flow, you know, navigating industry challenges, things like that, share that knowledge with the founder.
2:45: Be proactive founders are incredibly busy.
2:49: Sometimes they don't even know the right questions to be asking you be proactive in sharing that knowledge and sharing that mentorship.
2:57: So imagine if you're investing in a SAS start up where the founder is focused on growth, but they're really struggling with, say user retention, maybe you've been in a similar situation, your advice on improving product engagement and that example, or optimizing customer support can be really invaluable.
3:15: When you're looking at mentorship, there's a few things to think about and how to mentor, if you're an investor, how to mentor a founder effectively, you wanna schedule regular check ins to really discuss progress and challenges.
3:28: This is something you should be doing for any company that you're investing in.
3:31: Schedule a quick check in.
3:32: It doesn't have to be a lot.
3:34: Maybe once a month is the right thing.
3:36: Maybe if it's really early stage, maybe even once a week depending on how involved you are with the company.
3:42: But get those regular check ins on the book 30 minutes once a month, not too much to ask for.
3:46: You wanna provide actionable advice based on your experience and then you wanna follow up in those regular check ins to see how it's being implemented.
3:54: One of the things that we look for at Evergreen Mountain all the time is the coachability of founders and this really will give you a lot of insight.
4:02: If you're having these sessions, you're giving advice and nothing is ever being followed up on or anything like that or implemented may not be a great sign.
4:11: But the thing, the big thing here though, to counterbalance what I just said, you want to avoid micromanaging, you need to let the founder lead but be there for strategic support them than when they need it.
4:21: You do not want to be the co CEO you do not want to be the co-founder unless that's your designated role.
4:28: What you wanna be is support, right?
4:32: Do not micromanage not every suggestion, you have not every piece of experience that you share is going to be implemented, but understand why or why not.
4:43: So being a great mentor and start up doesn't just help the founder.
4:47: But what it also does is it really deepens your understanding of the company's operations that gives you far better insight into your investment.
4:54: The second way you can really add value here is through your connections and your network start ups thrive on connections.
5:02: And founders often don't have the connections that they need to accelerate their growth.
5:08: Often angel investors, do you have the potential to introduce a founder to key contacts?
5:14: Maybe that's potential customers maybe it's potential partners, maybe it's future investors, your network can accelerate growth in ways that money alone cannot.
5:24: I've again, I've benefited from this firsthand.
5:28: So many times, maybe you're connected with a major retailer and you invest in a consumer, good start up by introducing the founder to retail contact.
5:37: You're not only providing a business opportunity but you're potentially driving substantial revenue to the company.
5:42: It's really win, win.
5:44: If you're going to start to open up your network, which I really encourage you to do.
5:48: There are really some ways, you know, some actions you can take one look for potential customers, help the start up grow revenue by connecting them with buyers.
5:56: You need to understand what the right buyer looks like.
5:58: Spend some time with the founder understanding who the right target customer is and then make those introductions.
6:04: You can introduce potential partners.
6:06: If the start up can benefit from a strategic partnership, make the connection, maybe a connection of yours has the connection, make that connection.
6:15: Don't be afraid to make kind of secondary connections to get that company where they need to be, to get it door open, which is often the hardest part that any founder really faces.
6:23: And you can also help connect them to future investors.
6:26: You can help them build relationships with, with, you know, potential capital sources for the next round of financing.
6:34: whether that's other angel investors or venture capital firms or things like that.
6:38: So opening doors is really one of the most impactful ways you can help start up get traction and these introductions can make a really lasting difference.
6:47: Third way is through talent acquisition, hiring the white people in a start up is the top priority for any start up, right?
6:55: And as an investor, you can really add value by assisting with talent acquisition, many founders again goes back to network, don't have the networks or the recruiting experience to attract attract top talent.
7:07: They mean just need your credibility to lend the way to say, hey, here's I know this is an early stage company, but here's why you should listen to this founder.
7:17: Here's why I think it could be a great career opportunity for somebody in your network.
7:20: This is an area where you can really make a big difference.
7:22: Maybe you know, a VP of sales and the company needs one.
7:26: You can start to leverage your network to recommend somebody with the right skills, the right culture fit things like that.
7:31: So be ready to open up the network for talent as well.
7:35: So again, use your network, recommend talented individuals from your network and may be a good fit.
7:40: Maybe the company is not ready for that talent today, but starting to build that relationship earlier than when they need.
7:46: It is a really helpful thing to do as well.
7:48: You can provide the company with interview guide so you can help the founder, understand what to look for in high impact roles.
7:53: Often founders have never hired executives before.
7:57: They've never hired leaders before helping them understand, hey, here's how you interview a potential executive.
8:03: Here's what to look for to give them some interview guidance and help, maybe offer to interview the person too.
8:09: I would routinely do this at an early stage in my company, have advisors, mentors, things like that, investors interview potential talent because again, what it did is it lended credibility to the company as well.
8:21: You can advise the company and help the founder really understand how to build a culture.
8:24: So share insights of building a healthy high performing team culture, founders can get so myopic it can get, you know, sometimes at a really early stage, they need that reminder that you are building something bigger and you are, you know what a real high performing culture looks like.
8:40: So by helping to secure the right hires you're directly contributing to the long term ability of a start up to be able to execute and grow.
8:47: Last one is really around providing strategic advice on growth and scaling and really around.
8:53: Go to market growth is the biggest focus of any start up, but scaling a business is not easy.
8:59: So as an angel investor, you can offer really strategic advice on expanding into new markets, launching new products, refining operational efficiency to think about this company, not as a product with the founder, but as a company that needs to grow scale, so maybe you've been in B to B sales, you can offer insights on scaling up a sales team, been in financial operations, you can offer help there.
9:23: You know what you're really looking for.
9:24: Here are ways where you can help get this company ready to grow because once it starts to grow, you want to avoid the scrambling.
9:32: So look at, you know, ways think about even you know, if you've been through market expansion or things like that, you can advise on whether or when to enter new markets product strategy.
9:42: Maybe you've got some experience there, share insights on product development based on market needs operational efficiency.
9:48: Think about suggesting tools or processes to really streamline operations.
9:53: Your guidance on growth strategy really can help a a founder avoid some common pitfall, which founders make all the time and it can really help them accelerate their way to to scale finally start ups really face a lot of challenges.
10:08: Resilience is essential.
10:10: Founders need to stay focused and stay motivated even when things get tough.
10:14: And this is probably the biggest thing you can do as an investor model resilience and encourage the founder to persevere.
10:22: Again, I've had experience on the positive here and the negative.
10:26: I've had personal experience with founders who were able to li advisors and investors who were able to lift me up when things got dark for me and for the company and they were always there.
10:38: They always had my back to say, hey, we're gonna navigate through this.
10:43: It's not the end of the world.
10:45: I've also had investors that every time something not favorable happened in the company or bad happened in the company, they blamed me, they blamed other people.
10:54: They got down on the investment.
10:56: It makes a bad situation even worse if I can give you one piece of advice here, always be that positive voice for two reasons.
11:05: The founder needs it.
11:06: Number one, number two, if you're the negative voice, your information flow is going to stop, founders will not want to speak to you.
11:14: I've had personal experience here.
11:16: Trust me on this.
11:17: Be the resilient voice that they need to stand behind them.
11:22: Keep your hand on their back to say we're here.
11:25: We're here.
11:26: We're going to navigate through this.
11:28: Stay positive, help the founder maintain optimism through tough times.
11:32: Share your stories of resilience your own experience to help inspire, motivate them.
11:37: This is everything in the early stage of a company can seem like the end of the world.
11:41: You can share those experiences and you do that by checking in frequently during challenging periods, increase your availability.
11:49: A quick text.
11:50: Hey, how you doing everything?
11:52: OK.
11:52: Are you doing?
11:53: All right.
11:53: Can I help you in any way?
11:55: I know this is hard.
11:56: We're here for you.
11:57: If you need anything those kind of just quick texts can make a big difference.
12:02: A resilient founder is far more likely if you know your investors have your back, they are far more likely to find solutions to challenges and push through and not quit.
12:13: And that's the hardest part ear very often in early stage start ups and that is an enormous benefit to your investment as well.
12:20: So being an angel investor get way more than just about capital.
12:25: You want to add value to mentorship, networking, talent acquisition, strategic guidance encouragement.
12:31: You're setting the foundation for a more successful start up and ultimately a stronger return on your investment.
12:37: This is something at Evergreen Mountain equity partners that we take really seriously.
12:41: We put a, we invest an awful lot into our founders in each of these ways and so many more.
12:46: If you're interested in learning more about how you can add value as an angel investor, maybe your own portfolio, just reach out to us.
12:53: We'd love to give you advice if we can, you can reach us at Emep dot Io Evergreen Mountain Equity partners.
12:59: And if you're interested in investment in early stage investment, venture capital as an asset class, we'd love to talk to you about that as well.
13:06: We're really dedicated to supporting investors and founders and building great start ups.
13:11: So thanks for watching.
13:13: Please take a moment to like, subscribe, hit the bell to turn on the notifications and feel free to drop your questions or comments below and we'd love to talk to you, see you next time.