Introduction of Ante Up
Share my first-hand experience of investing in tech startups.
Introduction
I started to explore angel investing back in late 2020. Ever since I began to buy stocks from my college days, I always have a strong interest in investing. My deep passion for the tech ecosystem stems from my experience as a former startup founder and the days of managing an early-stage startup's product roadmap as a product manager.
Investing in startups seems like a natural move for me to make, where I can combine my passions and leverage my own experience, capital, and network. It allows me to find innovative companies trying to solve significant problems that can also help shape our future and potentially generate substantial investment returns.
Why I'm starting this blog (Ante Up)?
First, I want to do my part to demystify the world of startup investing. For the longest time, it's an opaque world that only the selected few wealthy individuals participate (or at least I thought). This blog allows me to bring some transparency by sharing my own first-hand experience of going through the entire investing process.
By sharing my experience, I hope to encourage more investors from the sidelines to start investing and increase diversity in angel investing.
Why should you care about investing in startups?
Suppose you are one of many talented tech operators interested in becoming an active player in the tech ecosystem. In that case, this is a great way to leverage your valuable experience of building products and scaling companies as well as your vast network to help founders out founders and startups. There is no greater alignment than to find the opportunity to collaborate with founders by contributing some capital, energy, and time in exchange for substantial potential returns and exciting experience in return.
If you are a "High Earners, Not Rich Yet" (HENRY) who is curious about startup investing, I want to use this blog to help you get off the sideline and get started. We are currently at the beginning of the democratization of investing; almost anyone with discretionary capital can invest in a private company in the United States. With the emergence of Angel List's syndicates, any accredited investors can invest as little as $1,000. In addition, equity crowdfunding platforms such as Republic targets a larger pool of non-accredited investors thanks to the SEC's new rules that expanded the crowdfunding limit for a startup from $1 million to $5 million. All these options have created new opportunities for beginners to get started.
If you are a first-time or future founder, you will gain valuable insights on managing a better fundraising process and working with investors.
What is the story behind the name of the blog, Ante Up?
I used to play poker quite a bit. According to this poker site, "ante up" means to throw your ante into the middle of the table. An "ante" is an amount of money that each player in a game has to pay before every hand.
The only way for me to truly learn about investing in startups is to ante up my own money and time by directly getting the experience. By doing this, I expect to develop a solid investment process that can help me quickly conclude whether to invest or not and improve as an investor through better decision-making with iterations. There is no better way to connect the dots with experience and generate strong returns in the future.
Here are some upcoming initial topics for Ante Up:
How to get started learning about angel investing?
What are the different options to invest for beginners?
Where to source and find direct investment opportunities?
How to research and prepare for meetings with founders?
Discussion on deal economics and term sheet
What happens when you commit to a deal?
What happens post-closing?
Discussion of some early reflections and lessons
How to develop an initial investment thesis
Fundraising best practice for founders
Portfolio management
Thanks for reading. Until next time,
PS: Sign up☟ if you find this interesting. DM me if you have any excellent topics for me to explore more!