How to Navigate the A&E Website
Table of Contents
Welcome to the Angels & Entrepreneurs Network! You’re now a member of the largest network of angel investors out there, and we’re happy to have you on board.
We know you’re excited to dive right into the startup world… and we don’t blame you. There are thousands of startup investment opportunities to discover. Our mission is to bring you the very best ones – the ones we believe have the potential to score you a 1,000X return.
Now, our website holds a lot of information. You can find everything from the basics of angel investing to exclusive interviews with startup founders – and everything in between – here. To make sure you’re getting the most out of the A&E site, we’ve put together a website “Table of Contents.”
This page will tell you where to find all of the information you’ll ever need on our website – how to create a profile, how to find your recommended deals (and invest in them), how to connect with other members, and more. It’s all right here on this page.
So before you dive in, we encourage you to use this guide to help you get familiar with everything on the site, and keep the page bookmarked in case you need a refresher later.
Let’s jump in…
Getting Started
Creating a Profile
Before you begin exploring the Angels & Entrepreneurs website, you’ll need to create a profile.
When you signed up for your Angels & Entrepreneurs Network membership, you may remember filling out an online form that looked like this:
You’ll use the same email address and password to sign into the Angels & Entrepreneurs website.
You can sign in by clicking”Login” in the top right corner of the website’s home screen.
When prompted, type your email address and password into the boxes and click the “Login” button.
Editing Your Profile
Once you’ve logged into your account, you’re ready to begin setting up your personal profile.
Navigate to the top right corner of the home page to your account drop-down menu. When you click on the arrow, a menu will appear. To access and edit your profile, just click on “Profile” in the menu.
From your profile page, you can view and edit the information you’ve chosen to include on your account – your profile photo, display name, education, and which sectors you’re interested in.
From the sidebar menu, you can view your own activity on the A&E site, as well as your friends’ and fellow group members’ activities. You will also receive notifications when another member mentions you or leaves a reply on your interactions.
From your profile page, navigating to “Settings” will allow you to change who can see the information you’ve provided on your profile. Under “Account Settings” from the top right dropdown menu, you can update your account and contact information and change your username or password if necessary.
And once you’ve created your profile, you’re ready to take a look around.
Learn
As a brand-new member, you probably have a lot of questions about diving into the world of angel investing. We know that getting started can be a daunting task, so we’ve put together some materials to help you get to know the process.
The 1,000X Bootcamp for Angel Investors
You can think of this series as an Angel Investing 101 course.
These seven videos will teach you everything you need to know to get started as an angel investor – from finding deals with 1,000X potential to building out your own pipeline of top-tier deals. You’ll hear from all of our most senior experts, including Buck Jordan, Neil Patel, Daymond John, and David Weisburd. By the time you’re finished, you’ll be an expert yourself – and have a massive head start over average investors.
The 1,000X Bootcamp Series will be here for you to access at any time – whether you have specific questions or just need a quick refresher. We suggest adding the page to your Bookmarks so you can visit whenever you want.
Media Room
First, head over to the Media Room. This is where we house all of our educational, non deal-specific videos that come with your membership.
– Master Classes, Virtual Boardroom meetings, Networking Sessions, and the Angel Investor’s 1000X Bootcamp Series.
Master Class
In each Master Class, a member of our Advisory Board will sit down with a different expert in the angel investing world to discuss new insights on different world markets, trends, and other need-to-knows. We’ll send you a link every time a Master Class goes live so you don’t miss out on prime information.
Virtual Boardroom
Under the Virtual Boardroom section, you’ll find monthly updates from the Advisory Board about the A&E Network. They’ll talk about everything from the month’s new deals, important updates from your model portfolio companies, and exciting A&E events and announcements. We’ll help you stay in the loop by dropping these videos into your inbox at the end of each month.
Networking Sessions
Networking Sessions are our way of going the extra mile. One of our experts or team members will sit down with someone incredible from the startup world… like a founder, a private equity lawyer, a crowdfunding portal rep, and so on. Keep an eye out for emails about these – you won’t want to miss them.
Reports
The Reports page holds a diverse selection of useful materials. You’ll find:
- An angel investing dictionary to help you keep up with startup world jargon…
- Advice on how to hack your taxes as an angel investor…
- A breakdown of the SEC’s raise regulations…
And other resources to help kick-start your investing journey.
We’ll also publish quarterly State of Angel Investing reports, where we outline the biggest news, trends, and projections of the quarter.
Blog
Head over to the Blog page to check out our newsletter, The Startup Investor. There, you can get investing advice and best practices and stay up to date on the trends that our Advisory Board has its eye on. Keeping up with The Startup Investor will help you stay in the loop on what’s hot in the angel investing world.
Finding Your Deals
Now that you’re familiar with the educational resources on the site, you’re ready to start browsing your deal recommendations.
These are the expert-vetted companies that our Advisory Board believes have 1,000X potential. There are well over 100 deal recommendations on the site right now – and that list will keep on growing.
To find them, just click on “Deals” in the top navigation bar to access your Deal Flow Tracker.
Your Deal Flow Tracker
When you visit your Deal Flow Tracker, you’ll find a collection of Deal Tiles. They look like this.
You can filter by deal type, funding round, investment minimums, and sectors.
This is the tile for a company called Backstage Capital.
It has the company’s logo, a short description of the business, and any relevant sector tags. At the top, you’ll see a small flag icon. By clicking that icon, the deal will move to your “My Deals” folder, which you can access any time from the top of the Deal Flow Tracker.
When you click it, the flag will turn yellow, and a whole new set of information will appear on the tile.
The first new element here is the progress bar – it tells you how much of the current raise has been filled. You’ll also see information on the funding round, and exactly how much money you’d need in order to invest.
And once you’ve found a company that you like at a glance, you can click to dive deeper and read its Due Diligence Package.
How to Read a Due Diligence Package
Deal Page
When you click on the deal, you’ll navigate to the company’s deal page, which includes an extensive Due Diligence Package put together by our Advisory Board and Research Teams. It will look a little something like this.
At the top of the page, you’ll see the company’s name, logo, and a few sentences describing exactly what that startup does – and what makes it special.
As you move down the page, you’ll find a couple more sections, as well as a drop-down menu on the left side of the screen. You can expand each part of the menu to see the different types of information available on the page. Clicking through the menu will allow you to jump from section to section as you please.
What’s New
This is where you’ll see all of the company’s most recent headlines and developments. Click on any headline to view the full update… and if anything new is added, we’ll notify you by email as well.
Company Highlights
We provide a top-level rundown of each startup’s most exciting success factors. If a company scores an incredible celebrity partnership, or a big VC has already invested, or the founding team has a stellar track record, you’ll read about it here first.
Offering Highlights
This is where you’ll find the more nitty-gritty information about the raise.
Total round size refers to the current capital raise. It’s the maximum number of investments a company can take in the current offering. “Total capital raised to date” shows you how much of that maximum is already full.
You’ll also see which funding round the company is in. Most companies featured on A&E are raising their Seed round, meaning it’s their first or second time taking investor money.
The last two offering highlights are the offering type, which tells you the company’s filing status with the SEC, and the security type – or exactly what your investment dollars will buy you.
Company Details
Under “Company Details,” we’ve assembled full research packages on your recommended companies.
- Product & Service
We’ll give you all the details on the product or service the startup is developing. Whether it’s cutting-edge technology, software as a service (SaaS), or a physical product, this is where you’ll find out exactly what the company is offering. - Market Overview
This is where we’ll give an outline of a company’s T.A.M. – its total addressable market. It includes the total dollar value of a startup’s target sector, how other companies in the space are performing, and how your recommendation is filling a gap in the market. - Business Plan
An in-depth explanation of how the company plans to offer its services or products. We’ll list the price of the product, how much a subscription might cost, and how these factors will contribute to generating revenue for the company. - Pitch Deck
This is an interactive presentation put together by the founding team, and it’s a great way to get a sense of what they consider to be the most important parts of the business. - Competitive Advantage
We’ll dig through the company’s main competitors and identify any key advantages our startup has over them. That could mean anything from brand partnerships, to patents, to market connections and more. - Financials
You’ll also get a full rundown of the startup’s financial situation – its revenue, debt, cash on hand, and so on. - Team
Finally, we’ll provide bios of the founding team members and their track records.
From Our Team
- Deep Dive
When a deal is first posted, it’ll come with a Deep Dive Video. This is where we’ll take you through any important documents, charts, and projections the startup has shared with us. We’ll tell you what we like about the deal – what we don’t like – and what questions we still have.
- Hot Seat Session
A week after receiving your deal, we’ll post the Hot Seat Session, where we sit down with the founder or CEO and really dig deep into the business. We’ll even ask them some of the best questions we see posted on the Deal Forum, which is open for a full week beforehand to give you time to contribute to the conversation.
- Final Take
In the Final Take, we’ll recap all the highlights you may have missed and give you our honest impression of the startup.
- Profit Roadmap
The Profit Roadmap is a whole section that explains exactly how and when you might expect to make money from an investment in the company. It’ll include potential exit strategies, the moves that would benefit you most as an investor, and info on how similar companies have succeeded in the same space. - SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It’s a common tool used by investors, executives, and decision makers – and it outlines some of the most important considerations you’ll need to weigh before making your own choice.
Action Plan
Once you feel like you’ve made up your mind, head over to the section called “Action Plan.”
That’s where you’ll find the How to Invest section. It’s exactly what it sounds like: step-by-step instructions to help you claim your stake.
When you click on the “How to Invest” button, you’ll be directed to the company’s crowdfunding portal, where you’ll find all the specifics on how to make your investment.
You can access a company’s Deal Forum directly from its Deal Page. Forums are the online message boards tied to each deal. You can post your questions and comments, chat with other members about the deal, and even interact with the startup’s founding team.
A short survey you can use to rate each deal – whether or not you’d invest, whether you like the company’s product, and an opportunity to leave your own comments.
Filling this out takes just a few seconds – but the impact of this small step is enormous.
Not only does it help us better understand the types of deals you most want to see, but it also helps the startups tweak their business model, their product, and their pitch to better serve consumers.
In short, it’s priceless market intelligence they can’t get anywhere else.
This is a shared drive where we’ll store all the documents we have on file for a startup.
That could include their SEC filings, financial statements, patents, contracts, and anything else we think you might want to see. You can download them all directly from the deal page.
Now, there’s a lot of information to unpack in our Due Diligence Packages… and that’s no mistake.
Our mission is to provide you with all the details you need to make an informed decision.
We also encourage all of our members to do their own diligence. After all, investments are a personal decision, and every angel has their own criteria for what makes a great deal.
One of the best ways to do some extra research? Ask your angel investing peers right here on the Network.
Using the Deal Forums
Deal Forums give you the chance to interact with the entire A&E Network, plus the founding teams from your deal recommendations.
There, you can chat with your groups, ask questions and give opinions about certain deals, and keep the conversations going after our live Virtual Boardrooms and Hot Seat Sessions.
People ask all sorts of questions in the forums – about the founders, valuations, exit strategies… you name it, and it’s probably been asked and answered.
Sometimes our featured founders will even send updates and answer questions right in the forums.
Creating Your Own Topic
If your questions haven’t already been asked in the forums, you can create your own topic to put it out on the site.
You’ll find the submission box at the bottom of each forum. Simply type your question or comment into the box – ensuring that it follows our forum’s Code of Conduct – add any relevant tags, and click the “Submit” button.
Once your post is approved, your fellow A&E members will have the chance to view and reply to it.
Groups and Local Chapters
The great thing about the Angels & Entrepreneurs Network is that we have tens of thousands of members all over the United States – and the world! And with that many members, you’re almost guaranteed to be in the same area as a few of them.
That’s why we’ve created over 50 Groups and Local Chapters for our members to join and connect with other angel investors in their areas.
Most of our groups and chapters are based on location, but we also have groups like the Veterans Chapter and the A&E Women’s Network to allow members with similar mindsets and experiences to come together.
You can find them all by clicking the “Connect” tab in the top navigation bar.
Chapter Meetings & Events
Each Local Chapter has a Chapter Coordinator who works to organize meetings and events for local members to connect with one another and share investing tips, both in-person and virtually.
Chapter Forums
Similar to Deal Forums, Chapter Forums are a space dedicated to each chapter to allow members to interact with one another. This is a place for our members to meet others in their area, discuss local events, organize meet-ups, and more.
The Virtual Chapter
Our Virtual Chapter is a collection of members from around the world who meet online each month to discuss the details of your deal opportunities – statistics, progress markers, and even sharing opinions on certain deals are all on the radar for these meetings.
FAQs and Customer Service
While the Forums are the best place to ask questions about specific deals and angel investing basics, the Frequently Asked Questions page is where you can find answers to any of your questions about the Angels & Entrepreneurs Network. You can access the page from the top navigation bar.
There, you can find information about our Advisory Board, how your account works, your orders and payments, our messaging services, and more. We’ve made this page extremely detailed, so if you’re lost on anything at all, keep our FAQs in mind.
And if you’ve gotten through all of this information and still have a question in mind, or just want to share general feedback on your experience with The Network, feel free to connect with our Customer Care team. They’re reachable by email or phone call every weekday, and are here to help you with any issues that arise.
That’s it, Angels – a full tour of the A&E website. You now know exactly how and where to find everything you need to take full advantage of your Angels & Entrepreneurs membership.
You’re also fully equipped to dive into the angel investing world right away.
Remember, this tutorial is always available to you for when you’re searching or exploring on our website. And, as always, don’t hesitate to reach out if you can’t find what you’re looking for.
Now, let’s get to work.