Sublime

What are you working on?

Why are you doing this?

Founders tend to have these “Why now?” insights without recognizing how profound they are. When I started my blogging company, Weblogs, Inc., in 2004, I had a very simple thesis: I believed that great new writers publishing five short, unfiltered posts a day would get more readers than established journalists writing one story, edited by a half

I became an advisor to a handful of startups including Wealthfront. I joined the boards of ThisNext, Savings.com, and Dyn.com. I advised a total of six startups, with the typical commitment being two years of service.

Why now? This question has been floating around the Valley for a while, and the first time I heard it was from my friend, Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha—the venture capitalist who convinced me to become a “Scout” for their firm, which led to my two greatest investments to date: Uber and Thumbtack. If you unpack this question, you’re really asking,

What I learned is that, while no one knows which of the great founders and startups will have breakout success, it’s fairly easy to know which founders and ideas are so shitty—or worse, small—that they have no chance of breaking out. I use two methods to sort through the deluge of startups contacting me. I eliminate the small ideas and weak

After you’ve met with a dozen angel investors, it’s time for you to start looking for “proprietary deal flow,” which is to say, deal flow that is yours—not the public stuff on AngelList, on FundersClub, or at Y Combinator’s demo day.

Once you have the phrase “angel investor” on your online profiles, you will have instant deal flow. It will be an ugly and desperate deal flow at the start, since no one knows you and how brilliant you are, but it will be your deal flow—and that means something because everyone in this industry starts as an outsider.