Angel Investment: What to do Before Building Your own Brand

This article is written by Nardine B. M’barek, a Contributor Author at Startup Istanbul.

Asra Nadeem, a Program Director within Draper University, has joined us during Startup Istanbul 2017 to deliver an informative workshop concerning Angel Investment. Mrs. Asra discussed with us many issues and conditions when someone wants to become an Angel investor, amongst these issues is how to build your own brand.

Becoming an investor could be a hard choice sometimes. It rather depends on many factors; whether you have to right amount of net worth, or if you are ready to dedicate not only your money but also time and effort to your investments. Mrs. Nadeem gave us a few tips on how to become a successful Angel investor, and how to start building up your own brand.

When it comes to getting deals, there are two solutions; the first one is trying to get started with the non-proprietary deals. These ones belong to the market, so it is possible to get a deal like it is possible not to get one as well. The other type of flow is the proprietary deal flow. These deals are the ones you need to target on the long run since they will not be told to anyone except you because of your reputation and experience, as well as your brand. They come directly to you, that is why 70% of your deal flow should be this way. 

In order to get these proprietary deals, you need to build a brand, now how is that?

The most simple, and number one step to do, is to join an Angel syndicate. A syndicate is somehow like a fund, it is when a group of people puts small chunks of money each so that it becomes an early stage fund. It is like a group of Angel investors investing together in a company, with one person, who usually has a very good market reputation, leading the whole group.

The great thing about joining a syndicate is that all the work would be coming to you since a syndicate receives its own deals, it is a very good source of money for early-stage funding. Being a beginner Angel investor, it will help you interact with other Angels who have more experience in the field than you, and who can assist you with your future career by helping you build your reputation, and relationships with other important investors. 

Now that you know that the best way to start is joining an Angel syndicate, you need to know on what basis to choose it. First of all, make sure that the syndicate you are going to work with has a leader who has been investing for at least five years, and who has at least one notable unicorn investment. The syndicate you need to look for should have at least two founders, and six months of continence growth. 

After joining your syndicate, consider yourself working within a team; after all, that is what a syndicate is about. You will also have to meet with the founders of the syndicate at least once, and you can also introduce new people to the syndicate. A good exercise for you to do is to create a fantasy investment. It is basically choosing a product from the market and following it for a year and a half, in order to see the returns, 

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