Optimizing

https://angel.co/penchina#syndicate

Angel.co

Fundraising is all about Fear of Being Left Out

BIG market

Secret product means everyone follows you to learn more

Lots of social proof

The results

• Over 450 emails in 48 hours

• Top trending startup, on the home page of AL for over a week

• Had $2mm circled within 2 weeks

• Still didn’t have a team or a product or a PPT

What worked? Somehow I became the “hot bar” on opening night, with a huge line out front

• Not enough information – meant everyone had to “follow me” to learn more• Following creates activity• Lots of activity makes you trending• Trending makes you hot

• Burst of activity in one 24 hour period• Several friends mentioned me in their AL feeds (give them a snippet

with a link)• Repetition creates the plaxo effect. The more people who mention you

in a short period of time, the more legit the message is• Get friends to leave shameless recommendations

• 2am – got me early birds on the east coast so I was hot by the time SF woke up

• Quick response – built 3 canned emails for the three AL segments that became clear as the emails flooded in

VC Associates

Seed Funds

Connected Angels

New Angels

Scary "Dumb Money"

Who was the audience?

What would I do differently today

• Have all investors coordinate sending out the 140 character blurb to AL, TW, FB at the same time with a link to build more momentum

• Find a way to get one of the top 20 “megaphones” to promote you on AL. The list is here: https://angel.co/people

• Have something with a hockey-stick curve, but no #’s on the x or y axis for investor-catnip

• LARGE NUMBERS OR PERCENTAGES

• And something tantalizing that makes people need to learn more and FOLLOW YOU

Give my supporters EXACT instructions to optimize social signal on AngelList.co

Today I’d also use a syndicate to lead my round

How do syndicates work

• People follow the lead with $$ - as little as $1,000 per deal (crowd funding)

• Lead makes an investment decision

• Then AL works with to communicate theinvestment to the syndicate – and also promotes it to the larger community to help fund it

• AL creates an LLC and collects checks (ACH and Wires) from the crowd

• AL sends a single check to the startup and handles SEC, Audit, Reporting

• Investors pay a 20% carry, no mgmt fee

Syndicates

• Automatically fill a portion (or all) of the round with their backers• Get you on the home page by default• Create social signal that makes you “hot” on AngelList• The syndicate lead provides “social proof” for herding• Yes – I’m biased because I have 4 of the top 10 syndicates

Peter Relan has a good one too

Future of syndicates

• Creating value add for portfolio companies via 1,000 crowd investors today, 5,000 next year, that are invested in your success via automated software

• Repost your blog/social media content• Provide introductions, candidate referrals

THANK YOU

• Join mine to learn more: https://angel.co/penchina/syndicate

• Reach out to me if you’d like to be a partner in one of my syndicates. See how it feels to be on the other side of the table: gilpenchina@gmail.com