Lessons Learned while Raising Angel Investment

I learned a lot of similar lessons. I like his point about how they're too busy because investing isn't their primary focus. I actually found this infuriating at first because they promised to be really helpful, but because they were so hard to reach they actually became really expensive.<p>He's dead on about the momentum. I had 4 angels lingering around, and it wasn't until I was like "ok, everyone else is investing, act now or you'll miss your chance" that I got 2 of them to close.<p>And for seeing measurable goals... they don't care at all about business metrics, they see your progress as being measured by bright and shiny objects. Just crank out code and get users, don't dither on marketing plans or building competencies because that's not something they see as valuable, nor as progress.<p>Hope that my testimonial adds something to the reading experience of the article. :-)

Nice article Phil. Keep up the good work!<p>#5 is a big one. A lot of the people I talk to who are raising or have raised money say that you need one investor to take the first dip. No one really wants to be the first guy in. But once you capture that first, the rest fall like domino's and can't wait to join the party. If one reputable investor likes you it's often enough to say there's something here, I don't want to miss out.

I disagree with his point about various collectives overall increasing the sophistication of angel investors, because the existence of organizations like YC are likely to draw in newer, less experienced angel investors.<p>When you democratize a process and make it easier, you'll get some more sophisticated folks using it, and a lot of new people using it who otherwise wouldn't.