Blog

When you invest in a company, you are hoping for a return on your investment. So, how do we get to an exit? Is there anything we can do to move it along quicker? Or increase our payout? There's a short answer and a long answer. We share our take along with actionable steps you can take to increase your odds of success as an investor.

Every great fund has an investment theory. At Hustle Fund we invest in early-stage tech companies with low-overhead and founders who hustle... generally in North America and Southeast Asia. We speak with Jess Lee (formerly Polyvore and currently Sequoia Capital) about her compelling investment thesis and how she arrived there.

Getting rejected sucks. But whether it's in dating or in the fundraising world, there is a right way to do it and a really awful way to do it. Today's topic: how to reject a founder without burning bridges or ruining your reputation.

The best advice I received as a new angel investor: "Be selective. Look at a lot of different companies, and aim to invest in only about 10 of them a year." But how do I look at a lot of different companies?" We're diving into the exciting topic of how to nurture dealflow.

How do you know if a team is the right one to address a specific problem? Should you look at where they went to school? What if they are a wild card with no domain experience? We share how we think about evaluating teams at Hustle Fund.

How can you add value to your portfolio companies as an investor? We cover what NOT to do as well as the best ways to be a value-add investor.

Pro-rata rights give an investor the option to maintain their ownership percentage when a company raises later round of capital. But why do they matter, and when might you exercise them?

An investment thesis is a strategy for making money. It typically communicates what investors invest in (or don't) and why, and their beliefs about what makes startups successful broadly or by stage and/or sector.

Vice clauses prohibit many institutional investors from supporting companies in industries like gambling, alcohol, and cannabis. So, founders in these verticals often look to angel investors when they’re raising. Let's face it: vice companies can bring in a ton of revenue. After all, people can’t live without [insert vice of your vice of choice], right? So I wanted to know: what’s it like for the founders who are building these businesses? And what signals should early-stage investors look for when deciding whether or not to invest in a vice company? To answer this question, I interviewed David Hua, co-founder of Meadow.

Lifetime value measures the total revenue you make from each customer over the lifetime of the relationship.

As an early-stage investor, the lead investor's term sheet will impact you and your shares. This article covers the three most important things you should know about how a lead investor can affect you and what you can do about it.

SPVs are formed to bring multiple investors together to form a company. How does it work, and why invest through an SPV instead of directly?

Imagine getting pitched by a company that, on paper, is doing great. Solid growth, proven founder, and the company has found product/market fit. But you had to invest on an uncapped note. We break down what this is and why every early-stage investor should know about this.

Annual recurring revenue is a metric used for SaaS companies to normalize revenue on an annual basis. It's a key growth metric as an angel investor if you ask a few key questions to understand how a company is making money (and creating their forecast).

Cost of goods sold is how much it costs to make a product or service.

A founder pitches you an interesting idea but gets rejected at first impression. But what if you wanted to dig deeper to see if this would actually work? Here are the questions we recommend asking to determine if this is worth pursuing.

When you invest in early-stage companies, the cycle from investment to exit will take years. So how do you know what your weaknesses are, and if you're improving as an investor? Here are two ways to get valuable feedback.

How do you evaluate an early-stage company when you don't have a personal relationship with the founder? When all you have is a deck and a deal memo? Two words: Market pull.

Imagine you are approached by an early stage startup founder who wants to raise money. She has no revenue or metrics. How do you evaluate the company without any KPIs? Start with these two questions.