The First Stage Investor Equity Crowdfunding Playbook

Part 1: A Special Risk-Reward Equation

Investing in startups gives you the kinds of benefits you can’t get anywhere else in the stock market. Yes, these are riskier investments, but there are ways to limit the risk. Put both sides together and you have a very special risk-reward equation. Take advantage of high-growth pre-IPO companies. Manage risk. Here’s how to do both.

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Part 2: Key Players in Your Startup Ecosystem

Investing in startups isn’t like investing in traditional stocks. The avenues to invest in startups are quite different. We’ll walk you through the major players you need to know about. That way, you’ll be set up for success.

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Part 3: The Best Round to Make an Investment

In startup investing, there’s early and then there’s very early. As a startup graduates from stage to stage, its shares get more expensive as its risks become smaller. So what’s the best – i.e., most profitable – stage to invest? We examine the differences between stages to answer that question.

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Part 4:  Maximizing the Cash-Out Potential of Your Startup Portfolio

Forget how you build, track and cash out your portfolio of public stocks. A portfolio of startups is different. Very little from your stock investment experience applies. In this lesson, we outline a new set of portfolio management rules and tools that specifically apply to startup investments.

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Part 5:  How to Pick the Best Startups

As an investor, you have to be willing to dive below the surface to examine a company’s true strengths and weaknesses – the very opposite of formulaic investing. In this lesson, we outline five metrics that will help you pick the best startups.

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Part 6:  When Valuations Matter (And When They Don’t)

As an early investor, you don’t have to determine price. But you do have to decide whether the price or valuation you’re getting is fair. In this lesson, we outline when you should use valuations to build your startup portfolio.

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Part 7:  The Portals: Where We Shop for Startups

There are a lot of places to shop for startups, but Andy takes you insides what portals are the best of the best, and why.

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Part 8:  Five Things You Need to Know About Founders

Andy outlines why founder matter (probably more than anything else), and how you can effectively evaluate founders on your own.

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Part 9:  The Five Types of Securities You Need to Understand

Once you’re ready to invest in startups, it’s important to know what type of security the company is giving you in exchange for your money.

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Part 10:  Regulation Crowdfunding vs. Regulation A+

Andy breaks down Regulation Crowdfunding and Regulation A+. What are the differences? And is one of them a better investment opportunity than the other?

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Part 11:  The 10 Clues to Identifying Killer Growth Before It Happens

Andy breaks down the 10 pre-growth signs of killer early traction he looks for in seed-stage companies.