Book · How the machine works
Angel
Jason Calacanis · 2017
A practising angel investor on how to actually do it — deal flow, meetings, cheque sizes and the unglamorous work of being useful enough to get an allocation.
Why it is here
This is the most directly practical book on the list and the one most obviously written by someone doing the job. It covers the mechanics of building deal flow, running founder meetings, deciding quickly and being sufficiently useful that founders want you on the cap table.
It is also, unavoidably, a book by someone whose portfolio contained a famous outlier, and it should be read with that in mind. The tactical advice is sound; the implicit promise that following it produces similar results is the survivorship problem our angel legends section describes.
Read it alongside the portfolio maths, which supplies the sober arithmetic the enthusiasm does not.
Read it if
You are starting out and want the practical mechanics of finding and winning deals.
Skip it if
You are allergic to a confident authorial voice, or you want the risks foregrounded rather than the upside.
What it explains