Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money and Having Fun Investing in Startups

Acknowledgments

THIS BOOK is my attempt to codify and explain current best practices in professional angel investing. As such, virtually none of it is original to me, and I have simply served as the interlocutor who brings together the hard lessons learned over long careers in angel investing by much better investors than I will ever be.

Among those who have educated me, either explicitly, by example, by their writings, or by their legacies, are several people who are no longer with us. They include the late Hans Severeins, founder of Band of Angels and arguably the professional angel investing industry; Luis Villalobos, founder of Tech Coast Angels and one of the inspirations for the founding of the Angel Capital Association; Lionel Pincus, Managing Partner of Warburg Pincus and my first venture investor; and my great-uncle, David Rose, proto-angel and innovation catalyst.

Many more angels who are still active in the field have contributed to my financial education, and I continue to learn at their feet. Chief among them is Bill Payne, former Entrepreneur in Residence at the Kauffman Foundation, co-founder of several angel groups, and the author of The Definitive Guide to Raising Money from Angels. These days, Bill travels the world as the leading trainer of angels, through his work with the not-for-profit Angel Resource Institute, and he continues to generate new and advanced courses for angel investors in the Power of Angel Investing series. Other significant figures in the ...