Hi I'm Andy, ask me anything about bootstrapping, angel investing and portfolio careers.

@abadesi Honestly my first step was in building a balanced portfolio in other asset classes such as property and index funds. Then I saved up 5% of my yearly income for 2 years and started investing as little as £5K into startups I was forming relationships with at events, through friends and finally as a scout for a small angel syndicate in the UK.

@andy_ayim this is really helpful, thanks for sharing the personal finance mgmt tips in your response.

@abadesi @james_okon1 In terms of parameters for investment, I think quite different to most early stage investors I speak to. I invest in startups with patient capital, similar to value investors in PE whereby I am investing in a long term relationship with founders aligned with long term value creation beyond the capital. Parameters are as follows: 1. Investment terms where investors receive dividends through revenue-share, built to preserve optionality for founders and support long-term ownership and control. 2. Revenue sharing funds aimed at helping startups go from £100K to over £1m+ revenue 3. Invest in startups with product/market fit and high returns on operating capital. This rules out any businesses that do not sell direct to consumer or do not make goods consumed at short and regular intervals. This is my circle of competence which I know well and stay in (can be tech enabled not necessarily SaaS). Good businesses I would loved to invest in that fit this thesis include 1Password, The Shade Room, WorldStarHipHop, no code tools like Bubble and digital media businesses that have rich digital presence through digital service providers on content platforms like Spotify, Youtube and others. Hope that helps.

@andy_ayim What are some of the terms you made with startups for an investment of £5K?

@victor_khodalov I have a FREE mini-course on breaking into Product on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist...

@amarpreet25 Understand term sheets, cap tables and at least an industry or domain where you have access to a network and some expertise. Also look for active angel investors you can shadow or learn from even if that means joining a syndicate on angel list just to learn. Personally, skin in the game is the best lesson, but a small enough amount that you can afford to lose. Treat it like a heavily discounted angel investing MBA where you can invest as little as $1000 - $5000 and learn how to source, assess, invest and support founders, adding value beyond capital.

@kenjisano27 sadly not personally

@mitchgillogly Honestly compliance and regulation is one of the major barriers aside from liquidity. It would help to get advisors that know this space well. The challenge with lending fintechs is that investors are now leaning more to valuing them as a lending book rather than a fintech solution as Prosper, Lending Club and Funding Circle were leveraging people more than tech in administrating the loans.

@abeykoshyitty The key thing is to: 1. understand where your customers hang out online (subreddit, hacker news, Fb Groups, Slack communities, Quora) and become a trusted contributor and give, give, give value before asking. 2. Do the same offline by attending events (search on Eventbrite, Meetup and company events within specific industries where you believe your customers will be). 3. Deliver a great product experience, from discovery and onboarding to first use, this is the most cost effective marketing method. One of word of mouth (like Whatsapp and Instagram did well).

@andy_ayim Thank you for the wonderful insights!

@abeykoshyitty you're welcome

@david_mcqueen I would advise the following 3 things: 1. Do you understand the risk profile of the asset class? - Make more money than your bank account's interest? -> Due to the high probability of failure your bank is a far lower risk even if the returns are small. - Make more money than investing in index funds? -> median return of index funds outperform venture capitalists. - Find & invest in a unicorn? -> Less than 0.1% startups make it here. 2. Can you afford to lose what you invest? - highly likely you will lose it so best to look at other benefits you are more likely to gain such as founder empathy, the struggle of scaling a startup, term sheets & cap tables, sourcing & assessing deals, providing support and governance, is this something I want to continue or not etc...... 3. angel investors are largely operators with domain expertise who can add value beyond the capital. Can you? - what is your circle of competence? - where do you have deep networks & relationships? - are you willing to be there during the tough times when things are not going so well? - are you willing to be an extension of the startups team helping with anything from hiring to business dev?

@walid_shaar you need to conduct user interviews with the people you think are your users. Find out about the problems users have in their home when ordering. Learn about the existing alternatives. Learn about their frustrations. Do an observational study and ask them to carry tasks out and see what they do and why. You need to pause putting money into ads and first understand who your user is and whether your solution adequately solves their problem.

@rhona_aylward angel investors are not a homogenous group, in fact the challenge is that they are so fragmented. Angel investors such as Rob Walling, founder of TinySeed and former founder of Drip loves investing in bootstrapped SaaS founders. Others invest in the domain expertise they know well. All investors favour traction as it lowers the risk of failure (never fully eliminates it).

@andy_ayim Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it.

@rhona_aylward my pleasure

@tom_larder usually investors review pitch decks. You can find a template here https://blog.ycombinator.com/int...