Ep 014 - Investing in Startups Part 2

Summary:

• What’s In a Name? Venture Capital Firm Or Venture Studio [0:04:20]
• Reuben’s Startup Journey [0:07:03]
• What Areas/Sectors Do Venture Studios Look For In Startups? [0:11:23]
• Steps Doctors Can Make To Invest In Startups – First, Be An Accredited Investor [0:14:33]
• You Have The Opportunity To Do Impact Investing [0:17:36]
• Places To Go For Startups [0:22:38]
• A Success Story [0:24:49]

 

 

Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board-certified ophthalmologist with a full-time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.

 

Jon: All right, welcome to the Financial MD Show episode 17. We’ve got a little bit of a surprise for you today. It’s a follow-up from our last show where we discussed investing in startups and we thought what better way than to get you an actual conversation with someone in the venture capital world – the funding, the startup world – none other than Reuben Levinsohn. You know him, you love him and you’re going to hear him talk specifically about what he’s doing with Washington Avenue Ventures, what to watch out for, what to know when you’re looking for startups, and just some good info whether you’re getting into it now or you hope to get into it someday. So please leave a review. It helps more young physicians find this show and get some good financial information. Listen up.

 

 

Jon: All right, well, welcome to another episode of the Financial MD Show. Today, we have your normal hosts, me, Jon Solitro, and Dr. Trevor Smith in the house. What’s up, Trevor?

 

Trevor: What’s up? What’s up?

 

Jon: Right on, and today’s show, we got a special guest with us who is kind of a guest, he’s kind of a host. He’s been a friend of Financial MD for a long time. Mr. Reuben Levinsohn is here to help us get into some more personal examples and stories and some specialized expert insight into what we started last episode so today is part two of talking about startups. How are you doing, Reuben?

 

Reuben: Good, Jon. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

 

Jon: Absolutely. We’re stoked. Trevor and I have known Reuben for quite a while and we’re all buddies outside of this and enjoy a good bourbon from time to time but we’ll be just drinking virtually right now although none of us are drinking, I don’t think.

 

Reuben: Would like to; just coffee.

 

Jon: Right. That’s kind of made me think about that – why don’t I have any bourbon around here? Oh, well, another problem for another time. Okay, so last week we started startups and there’s a lot of conversation – it has been for years frankly – as the internet has made tech startups more common, more prevalent, more well-known and profitable for a lot of people and bankrupting for a lot of people. Last week, Trevor and I dove deeply into what some of the downsides are from our standpoint – me as a financial planner; Trevor as definitely a financially experienced and knowledgeable individual but he’s had some of his own experiences with that and still does. We got to talk a little bit about some of the things we know and as I talk to clients about a lot of our physicians bring ideas or want to get into things or hear some other doctor at the watercooler talking about this or that or read something online or in a Facebook post – all sorts of things. We went into that into our last episode but today, we thought we would talk with Reuben who was one of the founders and partners of Washington Avenue Ventures, a Michigan-based, would you say, a venture capital firm or a venture – how would you describe it Reuben?

 

What’s In a Name? Venture Capital Firm Or Venture Studio [0:04:20]

 

Reuben: Yeah, we’re a venture studio. It’s a newer term here in the States is that certainly a newer term in the Midwest but it came out of Europe more. I think there’s a lot more of it there but it’s venture studios. We connect that space – that kind of black hole or abyss between angel investors and VCs because a lot of these startups think they go right from an angel round to a venture capital round and it’s not that simple. They’re not always ready. The other thing that’s a little different – there’s accelerators and incubators out there that usually lasts for a couple of months that these startups can apply and get themselves into then those are great but they’re a couple of months and then they’re on their own again. So the venture studio, we partner with early stage companies, startups, and even sometimes precede before they’ve even had revenue and work with them to help build that solid business foundation. So they’ve got something they can scale off of it and we also, I would say, that were really good at helping tee them up better or package them up so their investable before they go out for those investor rounds.

 

Jon: Perfect. So it’s not only maybe connecting them with money but also maybe even more importantly getting them ready for that point and just taking – I mean, kind of an incubator but also more of a facilitator or support consulting, would you say?

 

Reuben: Yeah, we’re definitely on there. I usually hold a seat on their advisory team whether it’s formal or informal. I’m usually one of their go-to advisors for anything to do with fundraising, legal, finance, cash flow, forecasting, cap table management. I just got up a call with one of our founders and we’re setting them up on our system to manage their cap table so they always know what the notes – convertible notes – and everything, because these guys are brilliant. These founders we work with are brilliant at whatever they’re doing but they generally haven’t held a lot of these basic business experience and they don’t realize until it’s too late how critical that is and then they start having meetings with investors; investors are asking questions that these guys have never heard of and we fill in those gaps for them really well.

 

Jon: Okay. Trevor, you got any questions off the bat?

 

Trevor: Yeah, I’m curious. What was your first experience in the startup world? Were you already working with the same studio group? I mean, how long have you been doing it? What got you interested in it? Just tell me a little bit about the beginning of your story.

 

Reuben’s Startup Journey [0:07:03]

 

Reuben: If I went way back, it starts with just having entrepreneur in my blood like at 9/10 years old, I was running the biggest paper route in the area by having my brother and all his friends do all the work and I was just running the business. So I told that story to some entrepreneur groups at the local university here but I think it’s just entrepreneurialism in the blood first and foremost and then I’ve launched and exited my own companies. My most successful one was around my late 20s when I exited my painting franchise and that did pretty well. From there, it was more starting to angel invest here about 7/8 years ago. I’d say right around late 30s, early 40s I started realizing like I’m probably not going to be the entrepreneur who’s going to found and launch a bunch more companies and if I can’t do that, the only other thing that keeps me in the game is investing in others or advising others who are doing it and working off their energy and their brilliance. So that’s angel investing, I guess. Informally, I was angel investing. I made my first angel investment – my first official angel investment – in a Denver-based company, probably that was 2015-ish, maybe 2014, and that one failed and you learn a lot on the failure and you can look back and say like that well, what did I do wrong. That one for me was pretty easy to identify years later is that I invested in a founder who didn’t know how to build a team or was just not a good leader. So from there, I start selecting better and you start learning and there’s a lot of things you wish you could go to school for this and learn and I’m sure there’s a ton of great resources I’m not aware of but I’ve learned a lot of it just by making my own mistakes, generally how I learned most of my stuff in life. So I started informally angel investing 25,000 here and there. You could take a couple of hits on those and you’re like, okay, if I’m going to be in this game, I got to play it better. And so a few years ago, I formalized it with Washington Avenue Ventures where we – I was starting to realize the reason most of these were failing were not always just that the person didn’t have the drive or didn’t have the leadership skills, it was also they just did not have good business background – business experience – the basic business functions whether it’s accounting or finance or legal. They just didn’t have any of that experience. They could be a brilliant software engineer who can solve some pretty big problems but didn’t know how to build a foundation of a business or maintain that. So I reach out to Angie, someone I had worked with for years in the past. She had her MBA and she was running a pretty big division of a large corporate company in Grand Rapids and she was looking for a change. She wanted to go back in a small business and I said, how about we go really small, let’s work with startups. They need more than money, they need our expertise, so let’s put together a team that can help advise and help them build solid companies and that’s what we’ve been doing for the last three years. We’ve gone really deep with one company that we took on at pre-seed stage and we’ve got half a dozen other companies that we’re advising and working with now too. To answer the question, full circle there Trevor, it was informal angel investing and realizing you can throw checks at these and be a passive investor and have a high likelihood of loss or you can increase your chance of return by actually working with these companies that you’re investing in. All of them that we work with I made a personal investment or we’ve made an investment as a venture team into them financially but more importantly, it’s the investment of time and expertise we’re putting in.

 

Jon: I see.

 

Trevor: Go ahead.

 

Jon: Well, I was going to dig deeper into some of the people investing into startups but finish yours, Trevor.

 

What Areas/Sectors Do Venture Studios Look For In Startups? [0:11:23]

 

Trevor: I was just going to ask what areas do you invest in? Most investors a classic thing so people only invest in things they feel like they have some sort of edge. What sectors do you look for startups? Are you just doing tech? Are you just doing software as a service like the SAS kind of stuff?

 

Reuben: Yeah, no, we’re all over.

 

Trevor: Local, national?

 

Reuben: So far – I can’t say this will be forever – but so far I’m going at it like Jon would as a financial advisor. I’m saying to my team and to our investor network that diversification is important so we’re not going to go after just SAS. We’re not going to go after just deep tech or AI. I know there’s plenty of VCs and accelerators out there that honed in in that niche. We are still going with the philosophy that diversification is important and we are smart enough to pick the exact sector that’s going to be the dominant one. For instance, we’ve coffee shops. There’s very little to no tech. We’ve got Lingco Language Labs which is SAS, software as a service, in language learning built for the classroom so that’s more of a B2B-focused. And then we’ve got REZA Footwear. REZA Footwear is IoT of wearables so internet of things for wearables and that’s a very different play. There’s tech for sure but not like SAS at all; very different. And then we’ve got V.One which is an app builder. They are an app for building apps for people who don’t know how to code. It’s a no-code, low-code app builder which is a pretty hot space, definitely high tech; and then we’ve got Halo out of Indianapolis area. Halo is a community-based microfinancing company. They don’t focus on tech but they’re using tech as their platform; they’re more of a FinTech. And then the Advisor2.0 which is a group that does gap assessments and consulting for financial advisors. So it’s all over the board. We have not picked a sector yet.

 

Jon: Nice. So for our listeners, specifically, we have doctors either doctors in training or a lot of times younger and we’re surprised at how many older physicians are listening to this but it’s across the board. Getting into it, we talked a little bit about some of the downsides but you would know, Reuben, more specifically. Let’s say somebody has talked with their advisor and they’re at a position where they can do something like this. They’ve got some discretionary income. A lot of questions that people might ask is how much do I need to have to invest in a startup? How do I do it? Where do I find it? So what are the first steps for an investor who wants to and should, you know, or it’s okay for them to get into this space?

 

Steps Doctors Can Make To Invest In Startups – First, Be An Accredited Investor [0:14:33]

 

Reuben: Yeah. First step is probably not going to suitable for someone who’s still in residency. They’ve got to be an accredited investor; household income of – what’s the current rules here – 200,000 plus.

 

Jon: Yeah, a million of net worth.

 

Trevor: A million.

 

Reuben: Yeah, or a million of net worth of investible net worth so we do make sure that they’re accredited. We only work with accredited investors in these. For someone who’s accredited and they’ve got the basics in place with their financial advisor or they’ve got their liquid money they need, they’ve got their retirement on track, I think this is a great alternative space to play in and it’s becoming more of a movement than it was even just a couple of years ago. It’s like real estate used to be the only other alternative people knew about or wanted to look into. Then there’s things like cryptocurrencies, of course. Don’t get Trevor going, right, but startups, you’ll be surprised. I would not be surprised if there’s a crypto exchange or coin that is backed by venture capital at some point or there’s some really interesting movements where venture capital – I think that by end of next year, you will see exchange traded funds (ETFs) or something similar that are all into early stage venture companies. I think it’s going mainstream so I think it’s going to be talked about more and more. But, again, if you got the basics in place, I think it’s a great space if you’re working with someone who understands it. Don’t just go out and throw your money around at everyone that pitches you because that’s the typical problem we see. Doctors or other high-net worth people make is that they’ll just throw money at everybody that pitches them because they all sound good. But there is a process of picking them. There’s a process of eliminating them; knowing who to make the bets on and how we can actively track or monitor their KPIs and how they’re doing for a while before we invest in them. There is a good due diligence process we use and we are starting to introduce it to more and more financial advisors for their clients because it’s a nice alternative investment with high impact, especially your high net worth investors who want to know where their money’s going and they want to have some impact. Maybe it’s social impact, maybe it’s environmental impact. Maybe they just love the idea of helping young, brilliant founders and entrepreneurs and they want to make a return but they can speak with these founders and teams. They can advise these founders and teams. The investor can even use some of their background and expertise to influence their investment which is a really neat thing. You can’t do that when you throw your money at basic stocks, bonds in the market.

 

Jon: Yeah.

 

Trevor: Say that again? Say that one more time.

 

You Have The Opportunity To Do Impact Investing [0:17:36]

 

Reuben: Well, I’m saying that it’s neat to be able to share with other financial advisors and their clients that you have the opportunity to do impact investing. We call it impact investing because you can either pick the area you want to have an impact on with your money or the person you want to have an impact on and you have a direct line of communication with the people running these companies because they’re early stage companies.

 

Jon: You can feel like you have some influence?

 

Reuben: Yeah. I mean, maybe you don’t have voting rights. Maybe you don’t have a lot of shares enough to have an influence but these are early-stage companies and founders and teams who value their investors and value the investors’ experience and credentials that any way that can help them or even if it’s just networking or introducing other investors, there’s a lot of ways you as an investor can have an impact on your investment in this space.

 

Trevor: I’m thinking about like your investors that invest in these startups or really any, especially, alternative assets, what percentage you think of their motivation is just like that connection? Because it’s got to feel a little bit more special, right, to be investing in people who you’ve met and heard their story. I mean, it’s so compelling, that’s why the SEC exists, right. There’s the downside of these regulations where you have to have a certain amount of money or make a certain amount to be able to invest in specific types of investments and assets and the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates all that and it’s supposedly in order to protect investors, and to a degree, it certainly has at times. Right now, it’s kind of laughably restrictive in some ways where you could be educated and you’re still not allowed to invest your money and there’s lots of people writing and talking about that sort of thing right now. But back to my first thought, what do you think people get excited about it? I mean, part of it is the narrative, right? It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s interesting, it’s new. You’re building something. What percentage do you think is that part of it for investors like?

 

Reuben: Yeah.

 

Trevor: Because it’s definitely 99 percent financial because they’re looking for something else. It’s 99 percent financial.

 

Reuben: Yeah, I agree. They are still highly interested in a return I would say that. The most the network of investors we introduced to these startups and these investment opportunities, they’re definitely motivated by return, but I’d say it’s more, you know, whereas if they’re throwing money in the stock market with their financial advisor, that’s like 99 to 100 percent. All they care about is return, right, because they don’t know anything about where’s the money’s invested or what it’s doing or what company. But in this case, I’d say, it’s probably more 80/20 like the 80 percent, they’re doing it because they want a chance at a higher return in something but 20 percent at least is about they love the fact that they’ve got that. They get that investor update monthly from the company they’re invested in. They get to see what this company is doing. They could come sit down with the team and meet with them and they’re very close to them and they can see the impact that their money is having much better than you can in traditional investments.

 

Jon: Yeah, makes sense.

 

Trevor: Yeah, which makes communication by founders critical.

 

Reuben: Yeah, and I was just on a call last week with a small investment group, a group of retired guys and ladies that came together with some money and they threw together about a million bucks of their money and that’s a group, I would say, they are more like 50/50 like 50 percent care about return; the other 50 percent was about social impact. They specifically wanted me to only introduce them to social impact. So they came in and invested, matched us on some investment with Halo because Halo has a very clear social impact. They’re fighting off the predatory payday lenders for underserved markets – underserved people – who don’t have access to capital. That’s a social movement. And so this company was specifically – this group was specifically attracted for that reason.

 

Jon: All right.

 

Trevor: That’s interesting.

 

Jon: Are there places to go? I don’t know. I mean it seems like there’s a lot of online places to invest in a real estate syndication or private placements or limited partnerships or things like that. Are there places to go for startups like this?

 

Places To Go For Startups [0:22:38]

 

Reuben: Yeah, more than people realizing it’s happening fast. There’s more and more of it coming out, but an easy place to start is like AngelList. Go to AngelList. The AngelList, they run syndicates. You can lead a syndicate there and use them as a platform or you could join us and get there, get in for as little as, I think, 2500 dollars. That still requires you to be accredited but there’s also, of course, crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is where they kind of let anybody – if they broke the Reg D issue and let anybody be somewhat of an angel investor through crowdfunding campaign like Kickstarter. But there’s several out there. AngelList is a popular one. If they’re not connected with a group like us who tee up the deals and do the due diligence; in some ways, we are like a syndicate. We just haven’t formalized it because we’re teeing them up. We’re doing the deal flow. We’re doing the due diligence. We’re most likely investing ourselves before we even present it to investors.

 

Jon: Yeah.

 

Reuben: By the time we’re presenting to investors, there are people in our network that it’s like a syndicate. We’re generally dealing with minimum checks of 25,000 whereas you can go to AngelList and get on a small syndicate for 2500 dollars. You make that commitment so as the investor you’re making a – to be in a syndicate, you have to make some sort of a commitment that, you know, I will make 10 investments in the next 24 months at 2500 each or something.

 

Jon: Okay. I see. Can you give us some kind of success story? Again, last episode we talked a little bit about some of the downsides and things but I’d love to hear from you as you look back over the last several years of getting into the angel investing whether it was with WAV doing some of the consulting piece or you individually investing or whatever the case might be or just things you’ve seen. Do you have any success stories that you can point out to and say, here’s where it was done well and it worked out well?

 

A Success Story [0:24:49]

 

Reuben: Right. Yeah. Well, like I said, my first one was a bust and that’s probably normal when you just impulsively invest in the first one you see and it sounded cool. I was out in Denver and I think we’re having some whiskey and I met the founder and I said, yeah, I’m in. That one didn’t work out so well but I would say statistically – actually, that company is still going so it’s still a chance. My money is still invested and they’re active company; they just have never learned how to build a team or expanded beyond Denver. They’re an Uber-type company for moving stuff instead of people so it’s on-demand light moves like your apartment furniture or whatever. Anyways, I love the concept and now other companies, competitors, have started to scale across the country but this one hasn’t. I just chose the wrong one; not the wrong idea, just the wrong one.

 

Jon: Okay.

 

Reuben: Anyway, statistically, the way you look at these is for every 10 you invest in – and I tell people diversification is important and I tell people that doing enough of them is important because there is a bit of a number’s game here. Now by working closely with these companies, we can eliminate some of that number game or we can optimize it to our advantage, but in general, you need to be prepared to get into about 10 of them if you’re going to play the game at all. It’s kind of like real estate. Don’t go start getting into real estate if you’re just going to either stop with one or two that you can manage or go to like 30 or 40 where you can hire a manager.

 

Jon: Yeah.

 

Reuben: But in this I think, you can get stuck and if you get into two or three, you could have easily picked two or three bad ones. If you go to 10 and you are being pretty smart or you’re working with a syndicate, there’s a pretty statistically is a chance that in 10, you’re going to have three or four complete busts; two or three are going to be just break even on your money, and then you’re looking for one that could be a 3 to 5x your money and you’re looking for that one shining star that’s going to give you 10x plus on your money that makes up for the losers. I tell people compared to traditional investments where you’re trying to double your money about every 8 to 10 years in the markets, this should be something that because of the higher risk, higher reward profile, you should be looking to three to four times your money if you play it right about every 10 years. Otherwise, that extra risk isn’t worth it.

 

Jon: What could we do in the stock market over 10 years or the S&P, right?

 

Reuben: Yeah, if you get really good at it, you’re looking to 5 to 10x your money overall. Then there’s definitely angel investors and good VCs who would say, I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think I could 10 times every dollar I put in. And that’s where the risk-reward – once you get good at it like anything, you mitigate the risk side and optimize the reward side. I know people who have gotten really good at it like that.

 

Jon: Of course.

 

Reuben: Yeah. A good resource would be Jason Calacanis’ book, Angel Investing. Jason Calacanis is known as one of the greatest, most accomplished angel investors in the world. His book, Angel Investing, kind of shows the numbers in how you can literally go ahead like it’s your job. He has had people quit their jobs and go angel investing full time by following his program.

 

Trevor: I listen to his podcast of All-In podcast.

 

Reuben: Yeah.

 

Trevor: It’s funny because they all make fun of him, kind of.

 

Reuben: Yeah.

 

Trevor: Yeah, he’s like definitely big in the angel world.

 

Reuben: He can take it. He’s pretty arrogant and pretty successful. I think he can take it.

 

Trevor: Yeah. He can handle it but it’s just funny. It’s a great podcast, listening to people rip on each other that are good friends. I mean they can take it but all four of them are sensitive to a degree as well which is really interesting. You can hear it when they talk about different things, how accomplished they are and how wealthy they are. Yeah, exactly. They care.

 

Reuben: Yeah. it’s funny. Even when you read his book, you can see where his strengths and insecurities are like you can feel it in the book.

 

Jon: Definitely. Trevor, any last questions?

 

Trevor: No. Reuben, thank you so much for your time. It’s great to learn from you and your experience in this area so thanks for coming on.

 

Reuben: Yeah, I’ll be sending you both some pitch decks after this and I expect your investments to come wired through.

 

Jon: That’s right. Yes, obviously, let’s preface.

 

Trevor: Absolutely.

 

Jon: This is not a solicitation to invest or purchase in any startup or any syndication of any kind.

 

Trevor: Or securities, yeah. This is not individual investment advice.

 

Reuben: And this is completely unsuitable for 99 percent of people and you are very likely to lose every dollar you put in to startups.

 

Jon: That’s right, and we are not specifically endorsing Washington Avenue Ventures and we have no formal financial relationship with them at all.

 

Trevor: There you go. Got your disclosures out there.

 

Jon: Reuben, if someone wants to learn more about WAV or Washington Avenue Ventures, where can they go?

 

Reuben: They can get connected to me through you or on our website, wa.ventures.

 

Jon: Awesome. Well, we may have some doctors in the crowd listening that have a startup. Maybe there’s a device or something that we see that quite a bit over the years, so cool. Well, thanks so much for joining us guys, Trevor and Reuben. This has been super great. It’s been a different dynamic having a third person in here and hopefully a nice refreshing change for our listeners who are probably tired of hearing just Jon and Trevor all the time. But for those of you who loved just Jon and Trevor, stick around. The next episode will be that again so we’re not necessarily doing away with that but I think we’ll bring some more guests on to mix things up a little bit and makes us have to talk a little bit less which is nice.

 

Reuben: Let me know any input – your feedback – you get if there is more interest in diving deeper into this world at all. I’m happy to do it.

 

Jon: Yeah, that would be great and we love to learn more about this stuff and just be a resource. So for any of you physicians out there listening, again, we’ll be posting more resources that Reuben has talked about as we get more articles and things like we always do on the Financial MD community which is a Facebook group and then we keep things updated through our social media through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. So with that, you guys have a great week and we’ll see you next time here in the Financial MD Show.

 

Thanks for joining us for another Financial MD Show. Be sure to head over to financialmd.com to get more in-depth resources on financial tips for physicians and don’t forget to join the Financial MD community group on Facebook, where physicians at all stages of their career gather to share tips and get ideas on achieving true financial success. We’ll see you next time.

 

The Financial MD Show is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to invest. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. Be sure to seek financial, legal, or tax professionals when making any financial decisions. Before investing, you should make sure that any investment strategy or investment meets your individual investment needs, goals, and objectives. Financial MD makes no claims or guarantees to individual investment performance. All investing involves the risk of loss as well as the potential for gain.

 

 

Resources and Links:

• Reuben Levinsohn, Partner, Financial Advisor, Washington Avenue Ventures – https://www.waadvisors.com/team/reuben-levinsohn
• Washington Avenue Ventures LinkedIn Account – https://www.linkedin.com/company/washington-avenue-ventures/about/
• Venture Capital – https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/venturecapital.asp
• What is a venture studio? – https://www.applicoinc.com/blog/what-is-a-venture-studio/
• Everything you need to know about cap table management – https://www.heavybit.com/library/blog/founder-101-almost-everything-you-need-to-know-about-cap-table-management/
• What are convertible notes – https://techcrunch.com/2012/04/07/convertible-note-seed-financings/
• Angel investing: What it is and how to start – https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/angel-investing
• What are exchange-traded funds (ETF)? - https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/investment-products/mutual-funds-and-exchange-traded-2
• What is impact investing? – https://thegiin.org/impact-investing/need-to-know/
• Securities and Exchange Laws and Rules – https://www.sec.gov/investment/laws-and-rules
• AngelList Venture: Invest in startups – https://www.angellist.com/
• Crowdfunding explained – https://ec.europa.eu/growth/access-finance/guide-crowdfunding/what-crowdfunding/crowdfunding-explained_en
• What are private placements or Reg D? –

https://www.sec.gov/smallbusiness/exemptofferings/rule506b

• Kickstarter – https://www.kickstarter.com/
• Jason Calacanis personal blog – https://calacanis.com/
• Angel: How to invest in Technology Startups by Jason Calacanis – https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Invest-Technology-Startups-Timeless-Investor/dp/0062560700
• All-In podcast (Jason Calacanis) – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-in-with-chamath-jason-sacks-friedberg/id1502871393
• Financial MD Website – https://www.financialmd.co/
• Financial MD YouTube page – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6qEAQxK8L8JM7joy3wvdkA
• Financial MD Facebook community – https://www.facebook.com/FinancialMD/
• Financial MD TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@financialmd
• Financial MD Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/financial.md/
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