If you’re an Angel or a Founder — highly recommend reading Jason Calacanis’ book “Angel”
As a recently married MBA who turned down corporate careers to pursue my passion of global health (helping over 400 million people overcome obesity and Type 2 Diabetes), Jason’s Angel book has bolstered my knowledge of all the players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem as a first-time founder of a social fitness platform.
As a non-technical founder, it’s been a roller coaster ride working on sweat equity and personal savings with a strong founding team to launch the MVP. As we begin to raise funding to take startup to next level, I’m happy to learn that the best Angels look for 2 things in early-stage companies: 1) founders who exhibit the Jedi Force to relentlessly bring their vision to life and 2) a service or product that is a life-saving pain-killer.
Once an Angel has invested capital with a Founder — both should be loyal. The most important requirement Jason asks is for Founders to proactively send monthly updates laying out the metrics, wins/losses from previous update, and CTA for how investors can help. I’m in agreement because without a monthly update — the Angel won’t know how to help. On the flip side, Angels can provide Founders with expertise, introduction to potential customers and employees, and VCs or additional Angels in future funding rounds.
Later down the line during Series A Funding and beyond, Angels and Founders must stick together especially if a bad VC demands either to be disloyal to the other such as Founder dis-allowing an Angel’s “side letter” or an Angel engaging in any action that would de-motivate the Founder from focusing on delivering great value in being the “dragon” of the Angel’s portfolio (PS: love the “dragon” term as I was born in 1988 — a dragon year!).
If you’re an Angel — Jason has laid out a playbook (5–10% of your net worth) by making 10 small syndicate bets, 20 larger individual investments, and 5 4x bets on the top performers. Jason’s hustle to learn from more experienced investors in the syndicates led him to be a great talent scout with home runs in Uber and Thumbtack! To be successful, Angels must remember to eliminate confirmation and negative bias to instead understand how strong the Force is in the founder (Be Obi-Wan!)
If you’re an Angel or a Founder — highly recommend reading Jason Calacanis’ book.
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About Francis
Francis Huynh is CEO & Founder of JustHuynh — a social fitness platform that connects people with others nearby to just win by training together for the needed accountability and motivation in achieving their fitness goals. Obesity is personal, as Francis went thru the college freshman 15 and corporate desk job weight gains. His life changed when his doctor diagnosed him as obese. From that moment, Francis started prioritizing exercise and nutrition — realizing that fitness provides benefits of benefits that allow anyone to thrive instead of just surviving at life.
In 2016 after marrying the love of his life and completing MBA degree from the fittest/brightest university in the world (Vanderbilt), Francis turned down lucrative career opportunities (i.e. FBI, Samsung) to pursue his passion for global health as there are over 400 million people worldwide with diabetes who can improve their health thru exercise and nutrition.
Outside of work, Francis enjoys spending time with family, paying it forward thru community service (i.e. helping people with fitness, education, business, overcoming challenges as a 1st Generation college graduate), practice martial arts, travel, and read business books.
