Nowhere did I mention my actual strategy. Nobody asked and I probably won't tell.
I am trying to do a lot of deals in order to build intuition. You cannot do this without making a decision and then being faced with the consequences. I have learned a lot that took more than a few deals to figure out.
I also have a keen sense of how portfolios of assets behave rather than a small number of bets.
I suppose this is what happens when people without a clue make assumptions about scant data.
And, honestly, it feels like you want to look down on someone.
It didn't seem like you had much of a strategy to me either. When you talked about intended results you said: "I get connections, notoriety, experience, exposure" (three of which are essentially the same thing). Which implies that whether or not you make your money back in the longer time frame (a vague 5-10 years) you will be happy because of the exposure.
Thus, I don't think that comparing you to a toy collector is the appropriate metaphor -- but certainly you aren't in it for the money which doesn't make you an investor in the traditional sense (esp. given the fact that you are not esp. invested in the success of companies in which you invest, but more in knowing what is going on).
If I had to choose a metaphor I'd say nerd socialite (which I don't mean in a bad way).
edit: Let me restate this in a clearer way. A strategy can only be developed with respect to intention. The traditional investor intention is profit maximization. Thus, a typical investment strategy would involve a plan to maximize wealth. This, I aver, you do not have.
That said, I think you have articulated other intentions which you seem to have a fairly well developed strategy to accomplish (find out what is going on, maximize connections). The extent to which this ties into other (potentially grander) intentions I have no idea and I don't believe you have articulated.
I don't see that any 3 of "connections, notoriety, experience, exposure" are at all the same thing. Here is what I understood him to mean by each of those:
Connections: Lots of people you know personally who you can call on as resources and who may call on you in return.
Notoriety: A reputation that makes strangers have a sense of who you are before you talk.
Experience: You've seen things enough to be able to learn what works and what doesn't.
Exposure: You hear about a lot of opportunities and get to decide which ones you want to be involved in.
If you want an analogy for what he's doing, I would suggest that he's trying to create a mutual fund of angel deals with one investor (himself). He's making lots of investments, spreading his money, not getting too deeply involved in any one, and is likely to rise or fall with the overall sector. (But h still wants to beat said sector.)
I interpreted exposure to mean exposure of himself rather than exposure to other things, but grant that your reading makes more sense. Even so, number 1 and 2 are closely related and none of the above ties in directly to money making. Not that this is a bad thing. I have a very similar strategy for life in general. Spread myself over many projects and types of experience, then decide later on what attracts you the most and pursue it more. In that sense, he may fall into a Gabe-esque angel strategy once he has the requisite experience (after a few years of his current method).
Knowing a bit about both you and Gabe, my impression is that your strategies differ due to your wildly different personal circumstances. There aren't 30+ deals to throw money at in Philadelphia, and if there were, you probably wouldn't want to spend your entire life doing deep diligence on every one of them.
I meant Max was sounding adversarial. He seems very angry, anyway. Big chip on his shoulder maybe?
Some of it I will divulge. Some of it I'd be happy to tell you directly someday. I should have dropped a note when I was last in Boston.
My investment serves several goals. I have a bunch of markers, horizontal business types, and vertical industries by which I evaluate things like the nature of competition the startup will enter.
I don't do as much due diligence, because I am following on with other investors who DO do more of this. I also feel that there's a lot less value to it at the earliest stages.
I am also looking to be more connected and more present in the Valley. Consider it sowing seeds.
Saying I "don't have a clue" and that I want to "look down on somebody" is not very nice. I have no reason to be angry at you, do I? I don't know you.
Perhaps you're not used to people telling you their honest opinion anymore. That's my opinion about your strategy from what I read in that thread - it's what I think and what I will continue to think.
Sometimes you will do things that other people think is shit. Actually, most things you do, some people will think it's shit. If nobody ever tells you that, it means you are surrounded by dishonest people, or people that are afraid of offending you.
I'm obviously not afraid of offending you, as I need nothing from you and you need nothing from me.
Your tone feels a bit hostile. Between your comments here and in the other thread, I get the sense you want to look down on me. That's ok, but I'm calling out how your interactions feel qualitatively to me. The fact that you get more upset when I pointed it out makes me suspect that my guess is correct.
Anyway: You took a bunch of details about the output of a process you don't understand intimately (have you ever done an angel investment?) and guessed at what that process and mindset looks like internally.
That's a very strange allegation. I've been accused of many things, but "looking down on people" is not one of them. I don't look down on anyone or want to, as this goes against everything I have ever stood for.
Yes, I've not done an angel investment before, but I'm not clueless. If we had a discussion about gravity, you probably don't know as much as a person who has written a few papers about gravity, but there is nothing wrong with having an opinion. I'm aware of enough material around it to have a semi-educated opinion.
In any case, I rather dislike your tone. You are dismissing my opinions, because I am 'clueless' according to your definition. That's rude.
I feel that you have something against me for whatever reason. Whoever or whatever influenced that, you can clear such things by email and you don't need to be so superior towards me here.
He's spent years in the industry building relationships and evaluating companies. You're comparing his entire investment strategy to a kid impulsively buying a toy. That's just not rational. It makes you sound like you have a chip on your shoulder.
That's just what his replies from the other thread make it seem like. Perhaps there is some more thorough method he goes through, but from what I recognized, it seemed very impulsive and surface.
Yeah that seemed unworthy of you, when I read it. If Max has a profitable business, he's already vanquished a key aspiration of HN's members, whatever the product. Only world-changers gain respect?
I think the point of this place is to share and discuss the ways to make businesses. Since Max declines to actually tell us what he does, I get the impression he is engaging for other reasons. I guess it's the ego boost, or something.
It was funny, but also a low blow. And further, since the direction to Max was veiled, it felt like an indictment of sustainable/lifestyle businesses instead of businesses you just want to avoid as a growth investor.
You know maybe a third to a half of the deals I've done, if you looked on CrunchBase. Gabe disclosed none of the deals he did. But you have enough data to declare which one is better?
Yes, I do. I read both of your methods, and I have a clear preference for Weinbergs method. It makes more sense to me from a neutral non-involved point of view.
Sure I could just defer to the fact that you have done so many deals and automatically declare you the winner, but I prefer to think things through on my own. Even if I am wrong, having examined it myself, I will be in a better position to understand why I was wrong.
I think you have a very thin skin and your attack against me is over-emphasized for whatever reason. Perhaps you should explain what exactly it is about me you dislike so much? From your very first reply in the last thread, you were taking potshots at me.
I don't know rc, or joshu well, so I could be way off base. But it seems it's doing a large # of the right deals, and all that follows from it. He seems to be in most hot deals, and so he's now developing a personal connection with all the major angels and vcs, as well as of course all the founders of the companies he has funded. So soon he'll be able to draw on this network, and that seems to be what rc is able to do.
joshu is not unique in that regard- there are many other angels also executing the conway shotgun strategy. The main difference is that he's doing the deals under his own name instead of setting up his own "fund".
I am trying to do a lot of deals in order to build intuition. You cannot do this without making a decision and then being faced with the consequences. I have learned a lot that took more than a few deals to figure out.
I also have a keen sense of how portfolios of assets behave rather than a small number of bets.
I suppose this is what happens when people without a clue make assumptions about scant data.
And, honestly, it feels like you want to look down on someone.