The origins of angel investing is broadly believed to have been an investment by Arthur Rock in 1957 into the Fairchild Semiconductor in Silicon Valley, California . At the time, Arthur was based in New York before moving out to Silicon Valley and eventually went on to form the venture capital firm Davis & Rock. He invested in a range of tech companies we regard as household names such as Intel and Apple. You can learn more about this history and the early days of venture capital from documentaries such as Something Ventured.

Personally, I grew up fascinated by technology, business and investing. Across my interests, passions and career, I have had the opportunity to explore each of them. In 2019, I wanted to learn more about how to become an effective angel investor and learn from the lessons of more experienced angels. I soon realised that a number of people in my network were keen to learn this too. The challenge was that venture capital is an opaque industry and there was no clear on-ramp into angel investing.

The Angel Investing School was born out of this frustration. The purpose is to enable curious investors from anywhere to learn how to get started with investing into startups. I believe entrepreneurs can come from anywhere, so why can’t the capital too!

Common misconceptions people had included:

• I need at least £20K saved before I can invest
• I need accreditation before I can invest
• I will make great returns in a year or two of investing my money
• I’ve invested £50 in Monzo through crowdfunding, I am an angel investor and can put on Linkedin that I am an investor in Monzo now

Ok, so that last one was cheeky, but a lot of people invest through crowdfunding unaware of what happens to their money and don’t gain skin in the game to learn what it is like investing as an individual. The FCA states that anyone can start investing as long as you can self-certify as either High Net Worth or Sophisticated investors. This basically means you need to understand the risks associated with investing your money and in the event that a company fails you receive no return. There is no limit on how much or how little you invest.

So can you invest with as little as £5K into a new business venture? Absolutely, but the decisive factor that enables you to do so is whether you can access to quality deal flow early and whether you can invest in a sustainable way rather than a ‘one-off.’

Truth is, most new businesses fail and therefore, there is a high probability that you may lose your money as a result. However, the only thing guaranteed is a fast learning experience from having skin in the game. Treat your first investments as the cost associated for learning how to become an effective angel investors. Similar to investments we make into our education from an MBA to an online course, angel investing is an investment into your personal development. Your initial investments represents an opportunity to learn more about developing your investment thesis, learning about how you can add value beyond the capital and what you will and won’t invest in going forward.

To learn more about the next available course, click here.

Source: WSJ analysis of investor documents

As illustrated above, both Mike Walsh and Owen Michels both invested $5K into Uber in the early years as angel investors. I can hear the naysayers say, “but that is the United States, you can’t do that in the UK.” Wrong again my friend, you sure can. In an interview with Sifted, Check Warner, Partner at Ada Ventures explains how Ada Ventures scout network can either get paid in cash or choose to reinvest their finders fee into startups they introduce to the VC.

The Angel Investing School exists to make investing into startups more accessible to all. We will be running an inaugural in-person school for 6 weeks in London, taking place across 6 evenings from 1st April to the 6th of May. The topics we will cover include:

• The history of angel investing and the London ecosystem
• Sourcing & assessing deals
• Transaction economics
• Deal Structuring (incl. term sheets and valuations)
• Adding value beyond capital
• Developing a thesis

Once the course ends, all graduates will gain access to ongoing deal flow, events and support in building a track record in the startup ecosystem. Interested? To find out more and sign up, click here.

A decade ago, I left university and realised I wanted to work within the startup ecosystem. In the last 10 years I have been fortunate to experience working in over 10 different cities across a range of experiences from co-founding a startup to working as a product manager within a range of companies. More recently, I sat on the other side of the table as an investor at Backstage Capital, investing in underrepresented founders across the globe.

When I left university, I was already in the mindset that life was a continuous learning journey which didn’t just start and stop in school. However, I didn’t realise that my knowledge, relationships and capabilities would compound through the various work I have done.

Nowadays, I freelance with startups, scale-ups and corporates on product discovery, planning and execution. Alongside that, I create content for founders to provide the advice and steer I wish I had at the start of my journey to reduce or eliminate a lot of the risks associated with the all consuming journey of starting a company.

Last year, I reached a point of tension given the limited capacity I had between my freelancing clients and preserving family time with my daughter and partner (which I am never willing to compromise). I didn’t (and still don’t) have the bandwidth to catch up with everyone, that “wants a coffee catchup.” I had 30-50 founders contacting me for help every month. Anything from, “how do I validate the problem I wish to solve in a cost-effective way” to “could you review my pitch deck and my product?”

I can empathise, as I have been in their position before, I speak to founders everyday and I actually care and do want to help. But, I recognise the need to find a more scalable and accessible way to serve founders even if I can’t be in the room.

I tested out a podcast and Instagram IGTV series last year where I was sharing advice on specific topics with founders, from finding your first set of customers to understanding if venture capital is right for you. The feedback has been overwhelming and an indication that more of the same is helpful and needed. As a result, this inspired me to create AHVC.School. A new micro school for explorers who want trusted advice on the first steps of discovering whether they should pursue an idea.

AHVC School is the go-to destination for the discovery process and making smarter decisions.

The focus is on discovering:

• Why you want to pursue an idea
• How to validate yourself, your idea and your customer
• Why you are well placed to do this now
• How to make smarter decisions on a consistent basis

This is not a course that will get you from idea to startup in 6 weeks. Most explorers will validate that their idea is not feasible or even that they are not well suited to pursue entrepreneurship right now. We focus exclusively on the first step in your pursuit as we feel there is not enough honest and transparent content or support on this stumbling block so many people fall on.

My promise is regardless if you validate the need to start a company or not, you will learn at a real fast pace!

To make it more accessible and affordable, I have decided to create courses, which comprise of 4-6 short classes on a range of topics such as how to create a roadmap or how to interview users. The first two courses will be:

• Getting started with discovery (online)
• Angel Investing School (in-person pop-up in London)

Most of the courses, content and community will be online, with some in-person pop-up schools. All of the courses will be based off demand and feedback from users who sign up.

If this community sounds like something you would benefit from and you have topics you would love to learn about, then you can join the waitlist here and share what you would like to learn here.