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 WELCOME
Angel Investors are often the first (or close to the first) external money into your company after your own
funds and maybe some friends and family money.

But how do you meet them?

In this ebook I’m going to break it down for you.

Over the last decade I’ve successfully closed over 100 angel investors, mostly as CEO of Kindara, where I
personally raised multiple angel rounds to finance our growth.

Over the years I got creative and discovered a handful of creative ways to meet angels, and just as
importantly, meet them in a way that maximized my chances of closing investment from them.

And now I’m going to teach you everything I've learned over the past ten years,

Let’s dive in!

To Your Success,

Will Sacks

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 INTRODUCTION
Before We Begin…
Let’s take a moment to set some context.

In my view, angel investors are a gift from the universe. They are bringing money to your business when you
have very little to show for yourself except a big vision and perhaps some initial traction.

And most importantly Angels are people who believe in you and your dream, and are willing to fund you
through the early stages of development until you are profitable, or you’re ready to raise more money from
venture investors, or other types of investors.

But how do you meet these people? Where do they hang out? How does a founder go about finding them and
meeting them in a way that results in investment?

After raising millions of dollars from angel investors, I’m going to give you 7 ways to do just that.

However before I tell you how to meet angel investors, I’m going to give you two very important pieces of
context.

If you don’t have these two pieces of context, everything I say after this is going to be useless and you will
not succeed in raising funds from angel investors:

Those two pieces of context are your mindset, and the concept of warm introductions.

Getting Your Mindset Right

It’s very important for you to think about your offering as an opportunity. Let me say that again: when raising
money you must think about and frame the chance to invest in your company as an opportunity.

What you are building is valuable, and so the opportunity to invest is also valuable, because those who invest
have the opportunity to earn an attractive return.

Too many founders enter into the fundraising process “looking for money” or supplicating themselves to
investors and acting desperate. Just stop that!

It’s super critically important for you to remember that you are presenting an opportunity and that your
opportunity is attractive and valuable and unique.

As an investor, someone looking for my money is not attractive, but someone offering me an opportunity is
attractive.

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So, as you go through this process, remember you are offering an opportunity and you are seeking partners
to invest in that opportunity.

A Few Sentences On Warm Introductions

It’s really important to realize that the world of investors and investing in startups primarily runs on warm
introductions.

A warm introduction to somebody is an introduction to that person through somebody that person likes or
respects or trusts (and ideally all three).

For example: If you wanted an introduction to my wife, Kati, and you told me why, and I was enrolled, and I
made that introduction, that right there is a warm introduction.

And Kati is very likely to take that meeting when I say, “Hey Kati, this person wants to meet you for this
reason, I talked to them and they seem legit”.

She’s very likely to take the meeting because she likes, respects, and trusts me, and hence, it’s a warm
introduction.

A cold introduction would be if somebody that Kati barely knows emails her and says, “Hey, you should meet
with this person”. She’s very unlikely to take that meeting.

In today’s world, all of us are less likely than ever to take cold intros and cold meetings, and so everything
we’re going to be talking about from here on in is around getting warm introduction to angel investors.

Let me say that again: the way you’re going to meet angel investors is through warm introductions. Period.

(P.s. Do you remember why you’re getting warm introductions to Angel Investors? Because you have an
opportunity. You have an opportunity that you’re presenting. Don’t forget that.)

Ok so with those two pieces of context out of the way, let’s move on to 7 Ways To Meet Angel Investors…

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 Strategy #1

PERSONAL NETWORK*
(*Wait stay with me. You might be saying “But Will, the reason I downloaded this book is because I don’t
have any angel investors in my personal network”

But that’s ok. I’m going to show you how you can still use your personal network to meet angel investors.)

Here’s the deal: It’s a great practice when you’re raising money and when you’re starting a company to meet
with as many people in your network as possible. When you meet with them the goal is to get them excited
and enroll them in the possibility of your company.

If you do a handful of these meetings you’ll be amazed at the connections that start to fall out of the
woodwork.

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For example, say you set up 5 meetings to start with people who are in your network. In those 5 meetings you
get the people you’re meeting with excited about your company. Practice the art of pitching and telling your
story and getting people excited about what you’re building. When you meet with somebody and you get
them excited, they’re going to naturally say, “Oh, you should meet Bob” or “You should meet Mary” and
they’re going to come up in their mind with people that you should meet.

So what happens then?

Typically (if you’ve gotten your contacts excited) each meeting will generate at least 2 introductions to new
contacts. So 5 meetings turns into 10, and 10 turns into 20, and 20 turns into 40 and before you know it
you’ve used your network to network your way towards higher net worth individuals through powerful warm
introductions.

I know this works because I did it myself. I didn’t have any angel investors in my network to start, but
through doing meetings and getting people excited I expanded my network in intentional ways and now I
have a bunch of angel investors in my personal network.

This networking might seem low leverage at the beginning, but you will be amazed once you start doing
these types of meetings how your network will snowball. You’ll start to get warm intros to people who you
really want to meet.

(Note: You can augment this strategy using LinkedIn by finding out who knows who and looking at first-
degree connections. But the best place to start is people who know you and who trust you and just keep
going. Just keep networking.)

Get Them On Your List

Now here’s an important point when you’re using your personal network to meet Angel Investors: as you do
meetings with people, you want to ask if you can keep them updated. When they say yes (they always say
yes) add them to your company update list and send them an update every month. This will keep you top of
mind and continue to generate intros potentially years into the future.

Every time you meet somebody, you put them on your update list and then every month or every quarter
you’re going to send them an update and say, “Hey, this is what’s gone on in the business, here’s what we’re
working on now, here’s what we’re needing, here’s the beautiful big vision we’re working on, the thing that
we’re creating that’s so exciting, etc”.

As you keep them on your update list, they’re going to i) remember that you exist (really!) ii) remember that
they like you, and iii) continue to potentially make new introductions for you.

The other thing you can do is circle back around once in a while to do another coffee meeting and harvest
more introductions. If someone has been tagging along and keeping up with the updates that you’ve been
sending, they will be more likely to engage.

So, start to grow your personal network and see how it snowballs. And then keep your network updated.
That’s strategy number one.

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 Strategy #2

(LEADERS OF) ANGEL GROUPS

Almost every big city has either one angel group or multiple angel groups. Typically, these groups are run by
successful business people and executives who invest in startups and want to see new companies that are
being created in their area.

These folks want to take a personal interest in companies that are created in their region.

These groups are a great way to meet a group of angel investors locally. The way I suggest doing this is to
find out who runs the group and to invite them out for coffee and start to build a personal relationship with
the person who runs the group.

Because the fact is that if the person who runs the group likes you and your company, the group is likely to
invest.

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So find out through networking who runs the group, and then engineer a warm introduction to that person
(this may take a few coffee meetings to get to that person).

Once you meet the leader of the group, start to build a relationship. This could take the form of a few coffee
meetings over a few weeks or months. Keep getting them excited and eventually they’re going to invite you
to pitch.

When you go and pitch, you’ll meet everybody in the room, and if you network with them they’ll introduce
you to other people.

Angel groups can be a great way to meet investors. I met a bunch of investors who ended up investing in
Kindara at Colorado’s local angel groups, and I’m still in contact with some of those people.

So find your local angel groups, find out who runs them, and work your way in!

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Strategy #3

ANGELIST + LINKEDIN
If you don’t know Angelist, you are going to love it. If you do know Angelist, I’m going to tell you how to
use it for maximum effect.

First, go to angel.co and look for angels in your area. You can sort them by geographic location.

Next, head over to LinkedIn and search for those angels. See who you know who might be able to lead to a
warm introduction to each angel in your area. Use strategy #1 to strategically network to those angels and get
warm introductions.

Note: On Angelist itself, there’s also a way to get introduced through people you know. So, start building
your network on Angelist as well.

Using both these methods you’ll be able to get to nearly all the angel investors in your area.

You might notice that this process does take time. That’s correct. It relies on warm introductions and it can
take weeks or months.

But if you do it correctly, you will end up meeting angels who will invest in your company.

So, you just have to suck that up and put in the effort, put in the time. Eventually it will turn into money in
the bank.

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 Strategy #4

SERVICE PROVIDERS
This is a tricky and interesting one!

This strategy is based on the fact that the people who provide services to your company (like your lawyer,
accountant, fractional CFO or even development shop) most likely either know angel investors in your area
or they know people who know angel investors.

Really anyone who works with startups is bound to come across angel investors or companies who have
angel investors on their cap table.

And once you realize that most service providers can provide introductions to angel investors (or at least
other funded CEOs) you realize that service providers are a great avenue of warm introductions.

So the thing to do is just to talk to your service providers.

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Connect with your lawyer, accountant, landlord, etc. anyone who provides you and your business with
services.

After all, they want to keep you (a) happy (customer), so they are likely to make intros for you.

And you can take this one step further:

It can also make sense to network with other service providers who you haven’t engaged yet to see how well
connected they are.

Often service providers bring the value of their network as part of their offering, so it makes sense to test it
out and see if they can actually provide value through making introductions.

Remember, service providers want your business, and to get it they are likely willing to provide value to you
and your company.

If they believe in you and are excited about your company they will likely say yes when you ask them for
introductions.

So strategy number four is service providers. Use them!

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 Strategy #5

OTHER FUNDED CEOS

This one is dynamite.

As a founder and CEO yourself, it’s generally pretty easy to network with other founders and CEOs. (You
could even start a group in your area, or just reach out cold and say you’d like to grab a beer or tea).

As you network with other funded founders, see if you can find out who has invested in each company in
your area and keep building a list, and then work to get the other CEOs excited about your startup.

Remember, in order for a local founder to want to make an intro to their investors, they have to be sold on
you and your company.

They have to be excited about what you are doing. Ultimately they want to provide value to their investors,
and an intro to a founder of a company they believe will succeed (and make the investor lots of money)
provides value.

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So that’s the number one thing to remember when approaching (and selling) other CEOs.

The second thing to keep in mind is that it has to be a match.

There has to be some chemistry between you and the CEO, and the investor you are targeting has to be a
match for your company.

Don’t ask for intros where there isn’t a clear match.

But, if both those things are true, (The CEO is excited about your company, and there is a match with the
investors) the CEO will naturally want to make the introduction because it will increase her social capital to
provide a valuable opportunity to their investors.

So that’s number five, locally funded CEOs who have taken in investment capital and have direct routes to
angel investors.

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 Strategy #6

YOUR CUSTOMERS
This is one that most founders overlook. But realize that your customers are people who love your
company. They are people with networks. And sometimes they are angel investors themselves.

Just by virtue of being your customer, they have already demonstrated alignment with your company. So
often if you let them know you are fundraising, they will either i) put up their hand and offer to invest (this
happened at Kindara) or ii) put up their hand and offer to make a warm introduction.

So use your customers. They are a great way to generate warm introductions to investors.

You can even take this one step further and start to scope out your customers on Linkedin. Identify your top
100 customers that might be able to connect you to angels, and reach out to them personally. Customers
always love to hear from the CEO of a company they use and love.

No matter what industry you are in, it’s likely you can generate high quality warm introductions to investors
by working your customer list.

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So look through your customers. You can use tools like Linkedin, or Rapportive, or RocketReach to find out
more about your customers. You can check into their lives and find out who they are. And you can probably
get in front of them easily.

After all, if they’re your customer, it’s likely you can reach out to them and give them the pitch. Try ask them
if they know anybody who might be interested in the opportunity that you’re offering.

Your customers can be a great source of introductions to angel investors or they could be angel investors
themselves. They already have a relationship with your company, with your product, they probably already
love you.

And if they are your customer, the warmth of any intros they make will be intense. It will be a hot intro.

So don’t forget to use your customers to meet angel investors!

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 Strategy #7

EQUITY CROWDFUNDING
Thanks to the internet and new rules from the SEC, there are now groups of angels that invest together
online.

And they are looking for deals.

Sites like SeedInvest, CircleUp and Republic are great places to meet angel investors. These sites vet startups
and the ones that pass get put in front of large groups of angel investors.

So going through a process with SeedInvest or CircleUp or some of the other platforms that are out there is a
great way to meet angel investors. It can result in direct investment into your company.

We used this route at Kindara to raise about $750k in a couple months.

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 (Bonus) Strategy #8

(PEOPLE WHO RUN)

ACCELERATORS
I thought I’d throw in a bonus strategy for ya!

Accelerators have proliferated in recent years. Some examples are Techstars, YCombinator, Boom, HAX, etc.

In fact there’s so many that there are literally hundreds of them active globally.

In fact, there’s so many that it’s likely there is an accelerator that specifically wants startups in your vertical,
or will at least interview you and introduce you to people.

Accelerators can work for you in two ways.

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First if you apply and are accepted to the accelerator, you’ve just earned yourself a bunch of warm
introductions.

Accelerators are a great place to meet investors because you’re vetted to get into the accelerator and usually
there’s a demo day where investors are invited.

That’s how we met a lot of our angel investors at Kindara: Through doing The Founder Institute accelerator
and also the HAX accelerator.

And secondly, even if you aren’t accepted, you can still network with the people who run the accelerators.

Because you are running a startup and they are running an accelerator, you have a reason to strike up a
relationship with dozens of accelerators and make dozens of new contacts.

After you meet the people who run each accelerator, put them on your update list, and after you’ve
established a relationship ask them for more introductions.

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 In

CONCLUSION
If you implement all these strategies, you will find that meeting angel investors will get a whole lot easier.

If you have any questions or comments or anything you need help with, please reach out to me and my
team.

And if you want to go deeper and learn every step of the fundraising process from A to Z (so you can quickly
and efficiently raise money for your startup from better investors on better terms), apply to join my
GetFunded program.

To your success!

Will Sacks,
Boulder Colorado

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 Introducing

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