Could you please describe a typical day in your life as the founder of 37 Angels? What are your day-to-day duties and responsibilities? 
Angela Lee
My everyday activities typically fall into three categories: sourcing, selecting, and supporting startups. Sourcing involves going to entrepreneur events and reaching out to startup accelerators, founders, and investors. You can also find me reviewing pitch texts, conducting diligence on companies, and reference checks. We scan about 3000 companies annually to cherry-pick the business ideas with high potential. After that comes the final selection process, where we meet around 500-1000 founders a year. We also support the startups by finding board members, strategic partners, and acquirers once we have invested in them. We help them with PR and the hiring process as well. Until now, 37 Angels has evaluated over 20000 startups and invested in 95 of them.
Besides investing in innovative businesses, we provide training to budding investors through a rigorous startup investment boot camp. The angel investing bootcamp prepares the participants to source deal flow, conduct diligence, negotiate term sheets, and value startups. It’s taught by me, and we also bring in guest speakers.
How would you describe the changes in the startup environment with the COVID-19 pandemic?
We thought that Covid would lead to a downturn in venture capital. Instead, 2020 and 2021 were banner years for startups and VCs in terms of IPOs, exits, and funding activity. A couple of industries that benefited from Covid are digital health and future of work. For example, telemedicine expanded, and insurers were forced to reimburse for codes that they didn’t pre-pandemic. Billions of dollars were unlocked through this regulatory change.
When the world came under the grip of the lockdowns, all companies shifted their workplaces online. Consequently, major changes happened in the hiring and management of the distributed workforce. As a result, employers have to think about how to manage this “new normal” – how to think about hiring, onboarding, and building a team culture when you never meet face to face.
What are the major points you consider when you invest in a company?
Companies are selected through a rigorous filtering process. When we invest in a startup, we invest in the four Ps: people, problem, progress, and price, which are crucial in deciding the outcome of any company. Investing in people is about looking at the teams’ domain expertise, whether or not their team structure makes sense, and if they have the magical it factor to win in the industry. Then we assess the problem that they are resolving for their targeted customers – is it a large problem and what does the competitive landscape look like? Progress is all about traction, specifically repeatable traction. We expect them to have six months of customer data, which may or may not lead to revenue. The final investment criteria is in the price – the deal terms have to make sense for us to invest.
What would be your advice for the early-stage startup companies to get investments from 37 Angels and other investors in the market?
For any business endeavor, having a thorough knowledge of your customers is crucial. Knowing your customers’ needs even before the customers themselves gives you a competitive edge in the business market. Founders usually tend to lead the business by highlighting their products, while, in my opinion, they should lead with the customer issues they are resolving or the solutions they are bringing to the table. The more customer knowledge you have, the more we are interested in your company. We want you to have a path to profitability.
About Angela Lee:
Angela Lee is an award-winning professor and former Chief Innovation Officer at Columbia Business School where she teaches venture capital and leadership courses. Angela started her career in product management and then moved to consulting at McKinsey. She has started 4 startups and is also the founder of 37 Angels, an investing network that has evaluated over 20000 startups, invested in 90, and activates new investors through a startup investment bootcamp. She also serves as a venture partner at Fresco Capital, an early-stage venture fund that focuses on the future of work, digital health, and sustainability.
Angela has spoken at the White House and NASA and is an expert in teaching online and making learning scalable. She is a sought-after expert on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC and Fox Business. She was recognized by Crains as a Notable Women in Tech, by Inc. as one of 17 Inspiring Women to Watch, and by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 6 Innovative Women to Watch. In 2020, she was awarded the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence at Columbia Business School.
