Angel Investors

When you invest in public markets, you have charts, ratios, and analyst reports. With early-stage startups? You don’t. The companies are too young, the data is too thin, and the trends aren’t obvious yet. That’s why angel investing is part science, part gut instinct.

Getting angel investment means giving up some of your equity in exchange for money. You are now responsible for your work, actions, and decisions to a group of investors who have chosen to put their own money into your dream. It means that you are on a treadmill, and sometimes people who aren't involved in the day-to-day business control the speed. You can't get off the treadmill. The speed goes up with each new round of funding. This is the bad part.

Calling yourself an ‘investor’ is fashionable today. And if you’re a Value Investor, you’re in vogue. There are hundreds of books on investing which give you quite a few strategies to emulate.

In April 2001, Dennis Tito, an American engineer, became the first ‘Space Tourist’ when he flew to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Russia’s Soyuz spaceship.

It was only in 2018 that Warren Buffet – probably the most veteran investor today – called Bitcoin (the first cryptocurrency) “rat poison” on a television chat. At the time, his statement created a storm in the Blockchain world and even caused a dip in the value of Bitcoin.

For the fourth edition of The Bellwether Club – trica’s interview series with India’s most prominent startup founders and investors – our guest is Suchita Salwan, founder and CEO of discovery-led-commerce startup Little Black Book (LBB).