Business
Today’s guest is Sam Gibb, founding partner of Singapore-based early stage VC fund Endeavour Ventures. We began our conversation with Sam’s personal investing experience as an active angel - how he got started, his view and recommendation on deal sourcing and network building. We then went on to discuss the five things that he looks for in a start-up, the reality of financial return and motivation of angel investing. And finally, on his recent transition from angel to VC and what are his key investment focuses for 2020. Key highlights from our conversation Getting involved with angel networks is a good way to get started in terms of building relevant networks and gaining investing related knowledge. However, deals listed on the angel networks maybe those that have been passed on by more experienced investors, so one has to be aware of the potential selection biases in these deals. For investors based in Singapore, BANSEA and AngelCentral are highlighted among other angle networks. Being nice to people, being interesting and being direct when dealing with entrepreneurs help to create and build networks. One of the worst habits that investors have is just ghosting – try avoiding that. In order to do exceptionally well, one has to be contrarian right because if it's a consensus good idea, then it's going to be well exploited and already priced into the valuation. Investing successfully over the long run needs a very disciplined approach; some of the good disciplines highlighted include maintaining a due diligence checklist and writing an investment memo to document reasons for making a particular investment. It is important to determine what one’s motivation is with angel investing; if financial returns are your key objective, you need to be realistic that investing your cash in equity may generate higher returns based on historical VC fund returns over the last 10 years; also you will need to do at least 20 investments to have a 89% chance of returning your original investment so portfolio construction is an important consideration. Key investment opportunities for 2020: developer tools that aid collaboration in remote work settings; security token in the blockchain space and cybersecurity in general Content at a glance with time-code (01.17) Sam’s journey into angel investing (02.55) Channels for deal sourcing (04.19) What are the considerations with getting involved in angel networks? (06.50) Selection bias in deals listed on angel networks (10.00) BANSEA and AngelCentral are highlighted (10.56) How to build and maintain networks (15.30) The due diligence process and investment criteria (21.08) How the process of investing has changed over the last 6.5 years (23.30) How to overcome personal bias (24.40) The importance of being contrarian right (26.39) Discipline and long-term investment success (29.26) It is difficult to succeed financially as an angel investor (33.35) Transitioning from angel to VC (35.13) Investment opportunities in 2020 – Digital transformation in Southeast Asia (37.58) Unicorn discussion – potentially a good signal for legitimacy Episode links Endeavour Ventures: https://www.endeavour.ventures/ AngelCentral : https://www.angelcentral.co/ BANSEA : https://www.bansea.org/