Ask An Angel — Joanne Wilson, Gotham Gal
by Elizabeth Galbut (@design4innov8)
“Ask A VC” is an interview series by SoGal Ventures, featuring prominent venture capitalists around the world. We hope to inspire diversity in the tech community — empowering our generation to grow into exceptional entrepreneurs and investors.
You’ve been angel investing for a while and you’ve built quite a large and successful portfolio. What have been the top two lessons you’ve learned over your time as an angel investor?
I’ve been really lucky in terms of the people I’ve invested in. I think the one thing that I’ve learned is trust your gut when you’re investing in people. First and foremost don’t invest in ideas, invest in the people particularly at an early stage. Certainly it has to be a great idea and something that is of interest to me, but you’re really investing in people.
Have you ever invested in something that had great people, but it was an idea that didn’t interest you?
Never.
So for anyone who reads your blog or Fred’s blog, they know that you’re married to VC. As a super angel, do you find that you two look at deals differently? What are some things you look for when investing that a traditional VC may not?
Yeah completely. I’m doing super early stage. You’re talking out of 85 companies I’ve given probably 30 of them if not more their first dollar. So you’re not talking about a lot of stuff to analyze here. It all changes from Tuesday to Wednesday. It’s more about is this a vertical that’s completely crowded or is this something that makes sense to me. Do I think they found a void that no one else is doing? I want to see something built. I want to see some kind of traction. I want to know that there’s going to be an opportunity for revenue down the line, but the reality is there’s not a lot to look at. I think from VC’s perspective there’s a lot more data behind some of the decisions that they make.
With your large portfolio, what are some hacks that you figured out to be able to kind of effectively help your entire portfolio of companies?
All of my companies are on a listserv and they all speak to each other all the time. I think it’s a great tool because you can ask me a million questions, and I can give as much help and advice as I can, but the reality is that to hear from your peers is even more valuable. Whether it’s the products that they’re using, the way they’ve analyzed things, the companies they’ve hired that worked out, or the partnerships that they’ve made that they’ve learned lessons from — your peers are the real people that you can learn from.
Is there any way you personally keep track of everything going on with 85 companies?
I have a great assistant, and I’m super organized. It’s just how my brain works. I couldn’t tell you there was a specific thing that I do. I have tons of different projects going on top of that, and I just seem to be able to not get down in the weeds.
Community is really important in the startup world. People have read about the WE Festivals that you organize. What are some lessons you’ve learned about supporting the startup community and how have you seen it evolve?
The WE Festival is important to me because it is really supporting women entrepreneurs, and I do think that women have a much more difficult time raising capital, but I think in the long run the ROI in women tends to be better. They are committed. They are driven, and they’re methodical. Failure is not an option for them. I like the way that they go about their businesses. So what is great about the festival is that it creates this community of women that have talked to each other. They can validate each other and find mentors and business partners. It’s interesting because the event is kind of built organically. We haven’t really done anything to promote it in a huge way, although we’re changing that this year because it’s not going to be at NYU. We’re taking it on the road with hopes to also go to Los Angeles and Berlin. Thirty percent of the people that have gone have returned to the event. There is something there in the community that is pretty amazing.
What are some of the go-to fundraising tips for women that you given founders of your portfolio companies?
I think the one thing that’s the most important advice for women is don’t babble. Short, succinct, get to the point, state the facts and move on. I think women try to explain and extrapolate. They want you to understand why and what. It’s not necessary.
State the facts and expect the person on the other side of the table is interested in what you’re talking about and would be interested as an investor. For whatever reason as women’s businesses become more successful they get better at concise communication.
How do you see early stage investing evolving over the next 10 years?
I do think that it will evolve because it doesn’t take as much money to start a business. Technology is changing every single vertical in regards to starting businesses, and there will be more crowdfunding. There will be more opportunities to get loans through companies that have been built to give loans, not banks. I think in the next couple of years we’re going to see a lot of mergers and acquisitions because large companies need these young companies in order to succeed and move into the future. So as an early stage investor, if you put money in and the company sells for $30 million, it’s great. You don’t need to have the kind of returns that LPs expect their VCs to have, and that’s why I really like the smaller VC funds. I think there’s more opportunity and more flexibility. If I was a big company that gave away money to early stage funds, the smaller VC funds is where I would be putting my capital.
Follow Joanne on Twitter @thegothamgal
