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Angel Investors, a Field Guide

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Re: Angel Investors, a Field Guide

#21

Post by didgeoridoo »

meagher wrote: post #15
jjmarr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a retired pro basketball player. He's since made early investments in companies like Hugging Face[1], Coinbase, and Robinhood.[2] If you earn millions in your 20s, didn't spend it, and have a killer work ethic, you can flip careers to professional investor. Idk why nobody's done a good feature on him. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kevin-durant-investment-portf... [2] https://parlemag.com/2025/04/kevin-duran…

I'm not questioning his investment abilities, just curious what he offers that is strategic (advice, dealmaking, etc). Aside: Saquon Barkley's (pro football player) portfolio is insane https://www.readtheprofile.com/p/saquon-barkley-investment-p...

The ability of your enterprise sales team to invite a $50M deal prospect to a luxury box with Kevin Durant is not to be underestimated.

Re: Angel Investors, a Field Guide

#22

Post by antognini »

meagher wrote: post #4

> Martin and Mike both advised strategic angels instead of friends and family to fill out the round, so that’s what we did. How is Kevin Durant (pro basketball player) a strategic angel for a monitoring/observability company?

Later on it looks like he classifies him as a "vanity angel" rather than a "strategic angel." It sounds like it can be useful to have someone with name recognition as an investor when you're talking to people who aren't very familiar with the space.

Re: Angel Investors, a Field Guide

#23

Post by skeeter2020 »

>> I told him I wanted investment from Kevin Durant. It was fall 2018, KD was playing for the Warriors, and he had won Finals MVP earlier that year. I was a KD fan and had heard he did tech investing.

So you skipped a friend or family member because KD is good at basketball and has lots of money? Super "field guide" /s

Re: Angel Investors, a Field Guide

#24

Post by skeeter2020 »

antognini wrote: post #22
meagher wrote: post #4

> Martin and Mike both advised strategic angels instead of friends and family to fill out the round, so that’s what we did. How is Kevin Durant (pro basketball player) a strategic angel for a monitoring/observability company?

Later on it looks like he classifies him as a "vanity angel" rather than a "strategic angel." It sounds like it can be useful to have someone with name recognition as an investor when you're talking to people who aren't very familiar with the space.

if you are trying to convince people to invest on name recognition vs. knowledge of your space, or ability to move the company forward it doesn't seem like a great guide for getting angels: "be lucky and get someone famous with lots of money".

Re: Angel Investors, a Field Guide

#25

Post by skeeter2020 »

jjmarr wrote: post #19
harmmonica wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not retired (plays for Houston) but doesn’t lessen your point one bit.

lol that's egg on my face. I just assumed he wouldn't be working two full time jobs at once. That's wild.

He's an hall of fame basketball player who has made a shit-ton of money, drafted after one year of collge with a team of bankers investing his money, he's definitely not "hustling two jobs" simultaneously. The semi-remarkable thing is he hasn't blown his wealth on gambling or pet sharks.

Re: Angel Investors, a Field Guide

#26

Post by testbjjl »

davecyen wrote: post #11

> if a VC investor is doing their job well, they will make sure to keep investing in your company until they have a good amount of ownership. This means it is against their incentives to introduce you to other investors or do anything else that interferes with their ability to buy more shares in your company for a good price. this is only true for larger multi-stage funds who compete with each other, not for Seed or…

Do you have a portfolio or any direct experience to share? It seems the author is speaking from experience.

Re: Angel Investors, a Field Guide

#27

Post by tqi »

> Elad was elusive but the angel who was most consistently influential and supportive during my entire five-year run at Akita. We had a fifteen-minute call almost every quarter, sometimes at an unpredictable time, but always full of great guidance.

How helpful can a person who spends less than 5 hours over 5 YEARS be? How much time are they even spending learning / thinking about the company?

Re: Angel Investors, a Field Guide

#28

Post by kdazzle »

mvkel wrote: post #17
bix6 wrote: post #10

I like this in general but I think it’s sad the friends and family who helped you don’t get any financial upside. I also take issue with calling this angel investing: > I angel invest primarily through my scouting relationship with the VC firm Andreesson Horowitz. They give me a budget for investing in each fund and I get a fraction of the carry.

Full agree. This is... just being a VC. If it's not your own money and you're aligning with someone else's thesis, you're just a vc with crappier terms

Well, sounds like a VC but without a good bit of the stress and hassle. Like you wouldnt have to gin up money from LPs

Re: Angel Investors, a Field Guide

#30

Post by bix6 »

kdazzle wrote: post #28
mvkel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full agree. This is... just being a VC. If it's not your own money and you're aligning with someone else's thesis, you're just a vc with crappier terms

Well, sounds like a VC but without a good bit of the stress and hassle. Like you wouldnt have to gin up money from LPs

That’s what angel investing is.

Instead with this strategy you get a whopping 5% of profits and Andreessen gets 95% for your efforts / network.

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